Literature for Children and Youth – Between Tradition and Taboo Topics

Abstract

This Paper starts from the fact that the literature for children and youth is traditionally burdened by pedagogizing, dominance of adults’ desires, censorship and that there are still not enough topics which are important for children and youth, because many such topics remain taboo. Adults, who normally determine contents and norms in this literature, hypocritically remain silent about the topics that concern those who primarily should read this part of literature. The authors consciously avoid the topics that talk about death, various deviations such as family break-up, parents’ divorce, alcohol, drugs, children in exile, and other „hard“, traumatizing topics. However, the traditional canon changes over time, as we will show with the examples from Lijeve priče by Alija Isaković, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian „prose in jeans“ and Alen Mešković’s novel. Although the attitude towards taboo topics in the literature for children has changed to some extent, there are still not enough topics which are marginal and tackle taboo, but children and youth encounter them in their lives. The dominant view is still that it is better to tacitly bypass these topics, because each change is conditioned by the social situation. Changing attitudes towards taboo topics always implies an author’s willingness for opening new polemics in society. At the end, the Paper concludes that bad examples dominate in literature as well as in life. The oldest example of this is Aesop’s fables, which teach children and adults. Because of that, as well as the fact that the modern times in lives of children and youth change the attitude towards traditional taboo topics, authors and society are expected to more flexibly accept changes which imply a different attitude towards the real interests of children and youth.