Controversial picturebooks and the question of audience
Åse Marie Ommundsen
When reading contemporary Scandinavian picturebooks, one may wonder who they are aimed at. The two picturebooks to be discussed in this chapter are the Danish book De skæve smil (The Crooked Smiles) (2008) by Oskar K and Lilian Brøgger, and the Norwegian book Krigen (The War) (2013) by Gro Dahle and Kaia Dahle Nyhus. De skæve smil is a challenging picturebook about aborted foetuses, ‘those who never were born’. Krigen uses war metaphors to tell about a different kind of war, the war between two divorcing parents. Both books are existential picturebooks, illustrated in a naïve drawing style with complex multilayered narrative devices. They are challenging both thematically and in terms of their verbal and visual narrative devices. But unlike many other challenging Scandinavian picturebooks, they are also controversial and likely to offend their adult reader. What makes these picturebooks not only challenging but also highly controversial? This, in turn, leads to the question of audience: Who are these picturebooks for?
Reading contemporary picturebooks, one may often wonder who they are aimed at. The question about audience is relevant when reading children’s literature as well as contemporary adult literature that challenges traditional borders between literature for children and adults. One recent development in contemporary Norwegian literature is that the boundaries between children’s and adult literature are constantly being challenged or even entirely erased. In previous research (Ommundsen, 2010a), I explored literary boundary crossing in a series of publications from 1994 to 2008. I found that traditional boundaries between literature for children and adults are frequently blurred or eliminated. This tendency occurs typically in prize-winning literature for children, young adults and adults, and can be said mainly to represent ‘sophisticated’ children’s literature. What does this erasing of boundaries consist of, and which forms does it take? One way boundaries are being stretched is in crossover fiction, books written for children and adult readers alike. Crossover fiction has been an important subgenre in Norwegian literature since Jostein Gaarder published Sophie’s World in 1991. My definition of crossover literature is that it is literature that addresses both an implied child reader and an implied adult reader at the same time, and not the one at the expense of the other (Ommundsen, 2006). In short, crossover literature must have a ‘dual address’, to use Barbara Wall’s term (Wall, 1991).
Of course, crossover fiction is not only a Scandinavian phenomenon, as is pointed out in the research of Sandra Beckett (Beckett, 1999, 2009, 2011) and Rachel Falconer (2009). Beckett calls Sophie’s World (Gaarder, 1991) ‘a pre-Potter crossover hit’, and refers to the Scandinavian term ‘allalderlitteratur’ (literature for all ages), which was used in Scandinavia years before the English term ‘crossover’ appeared. Also, when discussing ‘crossover picturebooks’, Beckett points to Scandinavia, for good reason: crossover picturebooks are well established and accepted in Scandinavian children’s literature (Ommundsen, 2006, 2010a). Further, the advances in picturebooks and numerous signs of children’s literature coming of age (Nikolajeva, 1996) have led to another interesting picturebook phenomenon in Scandinavia: picturebooks for adults, a phenomenon rarely found beyond the Nordic countries (Ommundsen, 2010a, 2013).
Scandinavian crossover picturebooks
Why are so many crossover picturebooks published in the Nordic countries? Is it a question of cultural identity and the prevailing view of children and childhood in these nations? We could suggest economical, historical, political and ideological reasons for these challenging Norwegian picturebooks. Norway has the world’s best economical structure for maintaining a national literature for children, the Norwegian purchasing system (Innkjøpsordningen) and picturebook funding. As only around five million people speak and read the Norwegian language, there is a strong need and political will to keep the language and national literature alive. Historically, Norway developed its own children’s literature in the nation-building phase when the country liberated itself politically and culturally from Sweden and Demark. Culturally, Norwegians have a tradition of questioning authority. New pedagogic ideas made child-rearing in Norway less authoritarian and more dialogue oriented. From the time that the first Norwegian children’s literature appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century, children’s literature portrayed children as valuable and important contributors to society (Ommundsen, 1998). Ideologically, the view of children as competent, but in need of special care, is prevalent in the population. Norway was the first nation in the world to initiate a public child welfare service to secure child protection for all children (1896), and the second nation after Sweden to prohibit physical punishment of children (1972). The Norwegian school system may be criticised for lack of discipline, but it scores high on democratic citizenship (nrk.no, 2010). An important aim in the school curriculum is to teach children to discuss so that they can learn practical democracy and to be active citizens in a democratic nation based on an inclusive welfare system and values such as equality, free education, tolerance, freedom of religion and freedom of speech (NOU, 2011).
The relationship between children and adults in the family is firmly based – like the relationship between men and women – on the ideal of equality. Children are considered to be thinking human beings facing the same challenges as adults. This may explain the tendency to publish picturebooks on existential and philosophical matters common to all ages. In my first study of crossover literature (Ommundsen, 2006), I divided the crossover books into three main groups: Naïve, Complex and Existential, underlining that they often belong to more than one group at the same time.
Naïve
From the 1990s, a naïve writing and drawing style became popular in Norwegian adult fiction, with Erlend Loe’s novel Naiv.Super. (1996) as a key example. What is often referred to as a naïve style means that the author or illustrator writes or draws in a childlike fashion, as a child would do. The naïve can be understood as a way to create art according to children’s premises, or a way to implant child perspectives into art (Goga, 2011). Loe’s children’s books are marked by the same simple and naïve writing and drawing style as his adult novels, which makes it difficult to determine which audience the various books are aimed at.
Complex
In the same time period, the complex children’s book developed into another dominant literary trend, as pointed out by Maria Nikolajeva (1996). Children’s fiction became more and more complex, with polyphonic multilayered narrative structures and advanced literary devices traditionally thought of as adult. While the complexity demands cognitive skills of the reader, it also develops those skills (Kampp, 2002). Many of the complex books can be read at different levels, depending on the reader’s frame of reference.
Existential
Existential picturebooks may be challenging for both children and adults alike, as they tackle crucial questions in human life: life and death, love, friendship and loneliness, identity and belonging. They might also treat subjects traditionally thought of as taboo in children’s literature: war, domestic violence, child abuse, broken relationships and divorce. What might be considered taboo in some cultures may be normal in others. One example is Stian Hole’s picturebook trilogy about Garmann (Hole, 2006, 2008, 2010). Garmann is a boy aged 6 to 8 years old who is depicted experiencing transitional stages in his life. In the first book he is about to start school, in the second book he lights a fire, and in the third book he develops a relationship with Johanne. The books have been awarded several prizes, and have been translated into several languages. Garmanns sommer (Garmann’s Summer) is an example of how new techniques open the way for new expressions in picturebooks. When Stian Hole won the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2006 with Garmanns sommer, it was the first Nordic picturebook in 45 years to win the award, and was also the first digitally created picturebook in the award’s history (Rhedin, Eriksson & K, 2013). In Denmark the Garmann series evoked a debate as to whether the serious existential questions in the books were suitable for children (Christensen, 2013). In the translation for the American market, Hole had to censor two of the pictures in the third book: a picture where Garmann is urinating in the forest and a picture where Garmann and Johanne swim naked in a lake were considered unsuitable for American kids. In Norway, children playing in the nude is considered normal, and unlikely to offend anyone. What could be provocative in the Garmann books for a secular Norwegian audience are the existential questions about God and about life after death. Thus, it might be possible to reach a limit even for Norwegian openness and tolerance, but the limit is more likely to be linked to religion and spirituality. Picturebooks that make fun of God or religious beliefs are hardly considered provocative by a Norwegian audience. Two examples are Frosken (The Frog) (Sande & Moursund, 2003) and Kurtby (Kurtville) (Loe & Hiorthøy, 2008) (Ommundsen, 2010b, 2011b).
Aside from belonging to one of these categories, crossover picturebooks often simultaneously include traits from all three (the existential, naïve and complex). The two Scandinavian picturebooks to be discussed in this chapter are the Danish book De skæve smil (The Crooked Smiles) (2008) by Oskar K and Lilian Brøgger, and the Norwegian book Krigen (The War) (2013) by Gro Dahle and Kaia Dahle Nyhus. They are existential picturebooks illustrated in a naïve drawing style and with complex multilayered narrative devices. Thus they are challenging both thematically and in terms of verbal and visual narrative devices. But unlike many other challenging Scandinavian picturebooks, they are also controversial and likely to offend their adult reader. Critics have pointed to the fact that Danish and Norwegian picturebooks are more challenging than Swedish picturebooks (Rhedin, 2004; Nikolajeva, 2003). Catherine Renaud (2010) asks whether Denmark is a nation of picturebooks without taboos. She draws a historical line from the Danish authors Ole Lund Kierkegaard and Ib Spang Olsen to the contemporary picturebooks of Oskar K: ‘the grotesque, particularly in the illustration and the representation of the body, but also in non-conformism and the rejection of authority, is the preferred instrument to break (down) the boundaries of decorum (politeness) and to overthrow taboos’ (Renaud, 2010: 6, my translation).1 Renaud refers to the subversive, anti-authoritarian tendency in Danish picturebooks, and her question as to whether Denmark is a nation without taboos is highly relevant when discussing the Danish book De skæve smil and the Norwegian book Krigen. The issue for discussion is: What makes these picturebooks not only challenging but also highly controversial? This, in turn, leads to the question of audience: Who are these picturebooks for?
De skæve smil (The Crooked Smiles)
The Danish author Oskar K (alias Ole Dalgaard) usually works with his wife, illustrator Dorte Karrebæk, and has published several challenging picturebooks in which the question of audience is highly relevant. As an author he explores the limits for picturebooks and for children’s literature (Renaud, 2010: 14). The picturebook De skæve smil (Figure 4.1) (Plate 18) is the first he wrote in collaboration with illustrator Lilian Brøgger. It is a challenging picturebook about aborted foetuses, ‘those who never were born’ (all quotes are my translations). The word ‘skæve’ or ‘crooked’ in the title, may refer to something bent or out of shape, the opposite of straight, or to deformed, crippled persons. Thus the title De skæve smil (The Crooked Smiles) refers to the aborted foetuses that play the leading roles in this book. To write a picturebook with aborted foetuses as main characters is original and controversial, and may be the reason why this book is hardly referred to by researchers. In a Scandinavian setting the book is controversial for the message it conveys, which is an exceptionally clear anti-abortion message. Still, more than providing answers, the book asks difficult questions about life, death and eternity, the same questions Oskar K and Dorte Karrebæk raised in another challenging picturebook published the same year, Børnenes bedemand (The Children’s Undertaker) (K & Karrebæk, 2008). The book is about Mr Jørgensen, who makes children’s coffins and prepares the bodies of dead children for their funerals. Another literary device the two books have in common is the intertextual references to popular songs. In Børnenes bedemand the undertaker makes the dead children smile by singing for them. In De skæve smil the foetuses can hear women singing in the distance for their children, singing the words from the traditional Danish lullaby ‘The Elephant’s Lullaby’ (Figure 4.2).
How to draw an aborted foetus
Most of the text in De skæve smil consists of dialogues between the main characters, the aborted foetuses, discussing why they were aborted and what their lives would have been like if they had been allowed to be born. Even though the text claims that they never became anyone, they did actually become someone, as the book gives them voices. By presenting the aborted foetuses the book gives the non-existent an existence – in eternity – and gives those who cannot speak a voice. They are given life through the book. The project must have been a challenge for the illustrator. How do you draw an aborted foetus? The experienced illustrator Lilian Brøgger paints them as small, crooked, but human-like characters wearing colourful clothes. They all have their unique characteristics that define them as individuals. Brøgger uses what is often referred to as a naïve drawing style, meaning she draws in a childlike way. As mentioned earlier, the naïve can be understood as a way to introduce child perspectives into art (Goga, 2011). This picturebook introduces child perspectives into the difficult adult debate on abortion, and transforms this controversial political debate into art.
The colours vary according to whether they illustrate the reality of the foetuses or their dreams. When bright colours are found in the background, they may express the children’s ‘pink’ dreams and ‘blue’ longing for (happy) lives. Even if they are small and never had a life, they live in a state of eternity, and are – considering their age – highly verbal, with advanced thoughts and reflections. The text is both sad and humorous at the same time, as in the following passage where the foetuses discuss the various reasons why they were not wanted by their parents:
‘I was a blunder, a fortuitous accident,’ said a squinty joker.
‘My mother was fourteen when she tumbled down a summer hill in summer with a boy she had hardly known for an hour.’
‘My father was a clown, and my mother liked to laugh. She laughed for three evenings and nights. On free tickets. Then the circus was gone.’
...
‘I was scanned and found too heavy,’ said a little scraping
[skrabud] who was number eight in a family with seven siblings.
...
‘We are leftovers from a test tube,’ two Hottentots said.
‘I stood in the way of my mother’s career.’
‘And I was removed because of a hare lip.’
‘My father got cold feet.’
K & Brøgger (2008: 1–2, unpaginated)
In the original text, the word ‘skrabud’ is a wordplay on two words: the original meaning of the word is a gesture of bowing the head and scraping the foot backwards, which may be translated as ‘obeisance’. But in this context, the author plays with the similarity to the Danish word ‘udskrab’ or ‘udskrabning’, which means ‘curettage’ (medical scraping), part of the process performed in an abortion.
The nameless foetuses sit in the dark (literally) together with the blind old dog Sam, the world’s ugliest dog (Figure 4.3). He is the only one amongst them with a name, and the only one who has ever lived. Still, as mentioned earlier, they all come to life in this book, and they all seem to live in the same state of eternity. They share their thoughts with one another on eternity and life:
They dreamed about real lives with real parents and wished for others to have a better fate than theirs. The only thing they had was thoughts, so they dreamed about a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, who would never be unhappy. They would have names and would be named Mads and Mette, and would come from a nice home with clever parents and be gifted, so that they would quickly learn to read and write and calculate.
But what will happen to our twins? they asked Sam, who had lived fourteen years. Sam pretended he was deaf. And they looked at him and knew that Mette and Mads would become like bad baboons that hogged down and did not wish others well but were envious and discontented with everything and everyone.
K & Brøgger (2008: 13–14) (Figure 4.4)
The children’s greatest wish is to have a name, so that they can become someone: ‘I would like so much to have a name...’. The others agreed. ‘Let us ask God’, the joker said. ‘God’, the others said. ‘Does he exist?’ ‘Yes, yes, he does!’ ‘OK, so let us try.’ All the crooked smiles ride away in the dark on Sam’s back to find God, so that he can give them a name. When the foetuses are on their way to God, they are no longer colourful, but painted in black and white (Figure 4.5).
God is described as a soft light ‘shining quietly, but so slightly that it was difficult to see in the dark’. In the illustration he is drawn as a prism or as a diamond that sheds light around itself. God’s face, with eyes and mouth, can be seen in the prism, and counterpoints the verbal text’s question as to whether God is at home or not. Thus the picture of the diamond-like prism challenges the text, because it may be read as an illustration of the face of God. We can see the eyes and mouth of God, and the foetuses are heading for his mouth. Kari Sønsthagen (2008) reads it differently, not as the face but as the palace of God:
The palace of God is a lamp drawn as the inner side of a great diamond, in which light and colours are majestically collected and spread, which is a big contrast to the tiny little child caricatures, that optimistically stride forward.
Figure 4.4 De skæve smil: The foetuses and their dreams.
After Sam and the foetuses meet ‘the little lamp with dusty glasses’, they literally ‘see the light’ and everything changes. In a discussion about whether God is really there, or whether he ‘only exists in dreams’, Sam’s final comment transforms the situation:
‘Maybe we only exist in dreams’, Sam said. ‘Think about it, then there is someone dreaming of us’, the hare lip said, astonished. And he looked so funny that the others started laughing. ‘Yes, there is someone who dreams about us!’ they laughed. ‘And give us names’, the joker said.... They laughed and dreamed all the names they could think of: Emma, Mathias, Mikkel and Clara, Johanne, Mohammad and Asger, Lea and Frida and Frederik and Louis, Cecilie, Julius, Alberte and Emil... And they all got a name. Then they returned home. Now they had names. They were someone. It happened that in the midst of the darkness someone called: ‘Hey, Emma! It is Frederik. Are you there?’ ‘Yes, I am.’
K & Brøgger (2008: 25–28)
In the Bible, the meaning of names is of great importance, and links important qualities with the person. ‘I am’ is a direct reference to the Old and the New Testament, to God’s name in Hebrew, ‘YHWH’, a form derived from the verb ‘to be’. In Hebrew, the words ‘I am’ and ‘YHWH’ form a wordplay (Exodus 3:14–15; John 8: 24–58). It is not clear whether it is God who gives the foetuses names or whether they give one another names. In the Bible, God tells Adam to give names to all the animals, in order to find his own match (Genesis 2). Even more important than to receive a name from God, is the foetuses giving names to each other. By naming others, the foetuses define themselves as human beings, and thus become someone. The encounter with God and their new names alters everything, and this is underlined by the change of colours in the pictures. By receiving names, they have got an identity and become someone, so that they can answer, ‘I am’. The picture on this final spread is not dark, as the text might suggest, but quite the contrary: beautiful pastel colours of blue, pink, green and yellow fill the whole doublespread. The children are smiling, they are flying. Even Sam is changed. He is also smiling, and for the first time he has normal eyes, he doesn’t look blind any more. The foetuses are floating inside different elements: a plane, a hat, a car, a house, a star, a tree, a fish, symbolising things the foetuses dream and long for.
An ethical and political debate on prenatal diagnosis
The book was published in 2008, four years after early ultrasound scanning at 12 weeks of pregnancy was introduced in Danish prenatal care. This scanning, also called neck-fold-scanning, is done in order to discover and abort foetuses with Down’s syndrome. Since then, 99 per cent of foetuses with Down’s syndrome have been aborted in Denmark. Other, less serious diagnoses can also be discovered through this scan method; for instance 87 per cent of the foetuses with Turner’s syndrome were aborted (Damgaard, 2012). In 2009 Etisk råd, the Ethical Council, presented a list of conditions that should be checked in the scan and those that should not. Their recommendation list is called ‘Future’s prenatal diagnosis’. After the new ultrasound diagnostics was implemented in pregnancy care, it was said that Denmark was about to become a society without people with Down’s syndrome. De skæve smil can be seen as part of the Danish debate on abortion and the future prenatal diagnosis. There was a similar debate in Norway. In the Norwegian political debate about the right to early ultrasound diagnostics, the possibility of discovering and removing foetuses with Down’s syndrome at an early stage of pregnancy was discussed. Unlike in Denmark, the proposal was rejected. In 2014 strong feelings were again aroused in the Norwegian debate, as the government suggested giving doctors the right to refuse to refer women for abortion. It was not meant to be a debate on abortion, but turned out to be that as well. In 2014, at the official celebration of the 200th jubilee of the Norwegian constitution (1814–2014), one of the speakers was Marthe Wexelsen Goksøyr, who herself has Down’s syndrome. ‘I want to live’, she concluded in her speech. Not only her speech, but also the fact that she was asked to speak, was considered provocative in the ensuing debate, as if it were a way of criticising women who abort foetuses with Down’s syndrome. ‘They shouldn’t have let her speak, as the exclusion society is too controversial a theme’, people argued in the following debate (Vårt Land, 2014). No one questioned the political correctness of any of the other contributors representing other, uncontroversial minorities such as immigrants and the indigenous Sami people. On 8 March 2014, a record number of participants joined the International Women’s Day parades, marching under the slogan of women’s right to abortion and against the new proposal to allow doctors to refuse patients referrals for abortion. If there still can be said to be any taboos left in Scandinavia, I would suggest that to be against abortion is one of the biggest. This is why De skæve smil is considered a controversial picturebook in Scandinavia.
Who is this picturebook for?
Who is this picturebook for? The first time I borrowed a copy of the book from a Danish library, there was a big library stamp on the book saying ‘Not to be loaned to children’. In a Danish review it is called a picturebook for older children, young adults and adults (Nørholm, 2008). Even though Denmark doesn’t have a category of ‘picturebooks for adults’ one could argue that this may be called a picturebook for adults. One could also call it a crossover picturebook, as it can be read by children and adults alike. With the author himself reading the book on his own webpage (www.oscar-k.dk/), the book is made more easily accessible for (Danish) children. It would certainly be an interesting book to study in schools, and in a Norwegian school context listening to the Danish author may also help children gain a general understanding of a neighbouring country and its language. De skæve smil may also be relevant for young adults, with its ethical questions and important discussions on life, death and eternity. Even though the book would probably be catalogued as a picturebook for adults under the Norwegian system, this does not mean it would not be interesting for children and young adults. The Norwegian school curriculum is full of adult literature that is presented to children. The question is, as always, how it is done. I would argue this is a picturebook for adults published as an argument against abortion. But it is also a book that can be enjoyed by children, who might read it on another level, as a fantastic story about unborn children travelling on a dog to find God. For a child, to be against abortion is not very controversial. On the contrary, most children would probably question why on earth adults would kill foetuses. But for adults, who know more about the complex reality, the standpoint might be both controversial and provocative, as one could see at the 8 March 2014 parade in Norway. De skæve smil addresses adults with a challenging and controversial anti-abortion message. But in doing so, the authors feel obliged to defend the mothers. When the aborted foetuses are thinking about their mothers, longing for home, they don’t judge them:
And they thought about their mothers and remembered how alone their mothers had been. Their doubt, their fear, their good intentions. And the tears. Silence befell the Crooked Smiles. Did their mothers cry over them? Were they so unhappy that they had not wanted them to live? Had their lives been so meaningless? Was life so poor? The longer they thought, the more doubtful they became. What would have become of them if they had been allowed to live?
K & Brøgger (2008: 21–22) (Figure 4.6)
The picture of a weeping mother illustrates that the mothers themselves are victims. Depicted on a background of corrugated cardboard, painted green, a women’s face is drawn as roads through a green landscape. Her face is shown in profile, yet her gaze looks directly at us. Her eye is like a lake in the landscape, with a big tear dropping out of it. A small house and some trees are drawn into her hair, representing the mother’s wish for a future. She is painted in green, the colour of growth and new life. If the message is that the mothers are not to blame, but they play the victim role alongside the aborted foetuses, who are the antagonists of the narrative? Ingjerd Traavik writes about the book that, ‘The aborted foetuses in the book call upon us from lonely eternity and make us feel empathy both for the foetuses and their mothers’ (Traavik, 2012: 154).
Krigen (The War)
Figure 4.7 Krigen by Gro Dahle and Kaia Dahle Nyhus (2013).
The second picturebook I would like to discuss is Krigen (2013) by Gro Dahle and Kaia Dahle Nyhus (Figure 4.7). Gro Dahle is a Norwegian crosswriter who is known for the challenging and controversial crossover picturebooks she makes together with her husband, the illustrator Svein Nyhus. They have published crossover picturebooks on existential issues such as invisibility, Snill (Kind) (Dahle & Nyhus, 2002); anger, Bak Mumme bor Moni (Behind Mumme lives Moni) (Dahle & Nyhus, 2000); violence, Sinna Mann (Angry Man) (Dahle & Nyhus, 2003); and mental illness, Håret til mamma (Mum’s Hair) (Dahle & Nyhus, 2007). Sinna Mann (Dahle & Nyhus, 2003), which is about domestic violence, was adapted into a prize-winning animation film (2009). The book is challenging, as domestic violence is still a problem and has been a taboo subject. It has been used by schools in order to identify this kind of violence in the home, the message being, ‘tell someone about it’. In some cases this has led the Child Welfare Service to take children away from their families and into foster care in order to protect them, and their parents have received prison sentences. Even though the book is challenging, it is not controversial in the sense that it is likely to offend anyone, as domestic violence is not considered acceptable in the Norwegian population apart from with a few immigrant groups. It would hardly be considered politically correct in any sector of Norwegian society to defend domestic violence.
Another war
In the crossover picturebook Krigen (Dahle & Nyhus, 2013), Gro Dahle works with her daughter Kaia Dahle Nyhus as illustrator. War ceased to be a controversial theme in Norwegian picturebooks after the publication of Gunilla Bergström’s Albert Åberg og soldatpappaen (Alfie Atkins and the Soldier Dad) in 2006 (Ommundsen, 2011a). But this book is about a different kind of war, the war between two divorcing parents. As with the other Dahle/Nyhus crossover picturebooks, this one also challenges the reader both verbally and visually. It is more controversial and may be considered provocative, as it touches upon divorce as a main challenge in Norwegian society, in a non politically correct way. Divorce is so common in Norwegian society (almost 50 per cent of all couples are divorced), that it is no longer questioned. In 2013 in Norway, 23,400 couples were married and 9,700 divorced (Statistisk sentralbyrå, 2014). Among couples who cohabit without being married, more than 50 per cent split up. In 2012, there were 9,906 divorces, and 9,635 children under 18 experienced their parents divorcing (Statistisk sentralbyrå, 2014). Divorce is so common that, although research shows many children suffer from their parents’ divorce, it is not a common subject for discussion. Commuting between two homes is considered normal for a Norwegian child, and is depicted in children’s literature and children’s television as the normal way of living, and seldom discussed as a problem. In fact, divorced parents may seem over-represented in Scandinavian children’s literature. There are several books about divorce, but only a few of them deal with divorce as a problem and point to the dramatic long-term negative effects a divorce may have on the children involved. Some books do point to the negative effects the divorce may have on the abandoned parent, such as Knute (Knot) (Hagen & Düzakin, 2007). Other books on the subject are marketed as ‘warm, humorous and optimistic’ stories about divorce, such as Ulla hit og dit (Ulla here and there) (Tinnen & Dokken, 2010). Krigen is not warm, humorous or optimistic. Dahle and Dahle Nyhus use war metaphors to discuss divorce and the 50/50 existence of children who have to commute between two different homes. They write about the negative effects a divorce may have on a child, viewed from a child’s perspective, and depict a divorce as a dramatic war scene, where the main character, Inga, suffers greatly.
The book starts with references to the phenomenon of war, as children would know it. Already on the title page, two guns are drawn into the title of the book The War, written in big fonts (called ‘war typefaces’ in Norwegian). A child with a peace symbol on her shirt is drawn under the title. Thus, even before the story begins, it is posed as a story about war and peace. On the first double-page spread (Figure 4.8), the verbal text is about war as we know it from the news:
War exists.
Inga knows, that war exists,
because there has always been war,
and there is war
in many places outside in the world.
Inga knows.
Inga has seen pictures of war in the newspaper.
She has seen soldiers with helmets on their head.
She has seen guns
and fire and smoke
and holes in the wall after shootings
and holes in the ground after bombs
and tanks that can drive everywhere,
straight over grain and grass and animals and human beings,
straight over houses and grain fields.
Dahle & Dahle Nyhus (2013: 1–2, unpaginated) (all quotes are my translation)
The picture shows Inga reading the newspaper. She is in the foreground and in focus in the picture. Smaller, but also in focus, we can see two small boys playing at war, one of them holding a gun in his hand. They are Inga’s twin brothers, Lars and Ola. In the background, barely visible, two adults are sitting on the sofa, the man with his arm around the woman. Or perhaps not: they might have left the sofa, as we can only see a space they left behind, their shadowy contours without defining black outlines, and their eyes and other details are missing. Inga is drawn entirely in orange, and her brothers all in blue, but her parents are marked by the lack of colour, light green like the wall and the floor carpet. Using her drawing technique and the visual narratology, Dahle Nyhus warns the reader that the relationship between the parents is about to end, and they will not sit together like this on the sofa any more. Also, the look on Inga’s face is troubled, while her brothers are occupied in playing. The text on the first page parallels war as Inga knows it from the news with the war Inga is about to experience in her own life: her parents’ war. The poetic, repetitive language is filled with war metaphors that foreshadow Inga’s feelings: gun, fire, smoke and holes after shooting and bombs will soon be felt on her own body. Later, in a very dramatic picture, the parallel is expressed directly by portraying Inga with a big hole in her body (Figure 4.9). The tanks driving over everything parallel and foreshadow Inga’s feeling of being run over.
Figure 4.9 Krigen: Inga with a hole through her body.
The war parallel is contrasted in the next doublespread, showing the happy family laughing together. The text tells a happy story of a happy family in a peaceful country: ‘The world’s best family, Inga thinks’. This is the only spread where text and picture are both positive, and the only picture in which all the family members look happy and smiling. In the next spread the mood totally changes. Words and illustration depict a fierce conflict between the parents. The parents are drawn with angry faces, and Inga looks frightened: The war has begun (Figure 4.10). The conflict and quarrelling between the parents escalates throughout the following spreads. This is underlined both in the text and in the dramatic pictures. The dramatic expression of the escalating conflict may be considered challenging for children, as was pointed out in one of the reviews: ‘The combination of a painful theme and violent pictures makes Krigen almost too powerful’ (Djuve, 2013). I would suggest that the book may be even more challenging for adults.
Inga’s parents do not behave as responsible adults, because they are concerned with their own problems and cannot see that Inga is upset. Inga takes on responsibility for everyone: she behaves like a good girl, looks after her brothers, and later also after her father’s new child. Her father is in love with a new woman, and unable to take good care of his children. Her mother is concerned with her own grief process and later also falls in love with a new partner. Inga is exhausted by moving between the two houses. She doesn’t have a place where she feels at home. She has become homeless like a refugee, and also feels she has to play the role of a spy, another war metaphor. She is exhausted by having to take care of her brothers, take the bus and remember their bags. She is constantly travelling back and forth, and is exhausted by it.
Dad sweats, smiles and laughs.
For Dad is getting married again.
And Mum has friends who call.
And Lars has Ola, and Ola has Lars,
but Inga has no one,
for Inga travels and travels
back and forth to school,
back and forth to Dad,
back and forth to Mum,
back and forth, back and forth
with announcements, letters, messages,
everything she must remember,
so that Inga gets dizzy and sick.
Dahle & Dahle Nyhus (2013: 23)
Her head is full of noises from the war, and she starts to forget her belongings, her homework, everything (Figure 4.11). Inga’s suffering escalates to a state where she stops eating, is unable to sleep and starts self-mutilating, cutting herself until she bleeds, as the pictures also show. Her name, Inga, means ‘nobody’, and this is how she feels. As her parents are concerned with themselves, they actually don’t see her, and because she hides her tears they think she is alright. Her invisibility is a recurring theme in other books by Gro Dahle and Svein Nyhus, such as the picturebook Snill (Dahle & Nyhus, 2002), in which Lussi disappears into the wall. When Inga becomes visible for her mother again, she can finally say how tired she is and how exhausting it has been to live in a war zone. And even when the war is over, and the rest of the family have gone back to normal life, the war is still waging inside Inga – it has moved into her body. The picture expands the text, and shows that Inga is still challenged by her parents’ new families.
The final spread suggests a more harmonious ending, probably to comfort the child reader (Figure 4.12) (Plate 20). But adult readers may still feel uneasy, knowing that they bear responsibility for their children’s sense of security and peace. Krigen is certainly a challenging and controversial book, especially for adults.
So who is this book for? I would suggest it is a crossover book for both children and adults, but as in the case with De skæve smil, the main message is for the adult reader. As in Dahle and Nyhus’ other books about psychological processes, this crossover picturebook also has one message for the implied child reader and another message for the implied adult reader (Ommundsen, 2004). Dahle and Dahle Nyhus describe the divorce from the child’s perspective, taking the child’s feelings seriously, trying to provide hope of relief from the trauma in the future. For the implied adult reader, the message is to be a responsible parent, to put aside one’s own grief, disappointment or happiness, and instead to put the child’s interests first. The book can also be seen as an argument in the debate about the desirable norm after divorce, as it questions the norm in which children divide their time between their parents and live every other week with the mother or father. Is this an arrangement that only caters to what is best for the adults instead of what is best for the child? As this split child existence is generally regarded as an acceptable and common way to organise family life with children after divorce in Norway, this picturebook can be seen as controversial and provoking. Nonetheless, it has been nominated for the prestigious Nordic Council children’s literature award of 2014. Another picturebook looking at the subject of divorce and nominated for the same prestigious award is the Danish picturebook To af alting (Two of Everything) (Kvist, 2013). This book is about a boy who feels his world is falling apart due to his parents’ divorce. His parents tell him he will have two of everything because they are getting divorced, but the boy feels surrounded by half things, visually expressed in the pictures as a halved house, halved piano, halved TV and halved sofa. Also this picturebook maintains the child’s perspective, and says divorce does not happen for the sake of the child.
Conclusion: a question of audience
According to Knud E. Løgstrup, there are two normal positions in life: to be carried by another person, or to carry another person. Life oscillates between the two positions (Løgstrup, 1956). The question is whether contemporary living conditions should be the same for children and adults alike, or whether childhood should ideally be some sort of shielded life phase in which you can be carried. If that is the case, then there must be adults who are willing to carry, who are prepared to act as adults (Ommundsen, 2010a: 52).
The two challenging picturebooks discussed here have children as protagonists, and adults who do not protect their children. In the Danish picturebook De skæve smil, the protagonists are the smallest, most vulnerable children of all, the aborted foetuses who were not wanted by their parents, and were therefore never born. They reflect upon how life would have been if they had been born, and understand that in the end they probably would not have got the happy life they dream of. To see life from an aborted foetus’ viewpoint is probably a new experience for most readers, children and adults alike. The book will be read differently depending on whether it is read as an argument in the debate about abortion (as adults may do, and which may support the argument that it is a picturebook for adults), or simply as a fantasy narrative about some foetuses looking for God (as children might read it, and which may support the argument that it is a crossover book). The book can be read by children, young adults and adults, perhaps preferably together, as the subject would probably need explanation. As a crossover book it has the potential to stimulate interesting discussions about life, death and eternity. I have argued that it may be challenging both for children and adults, but controversial mainly for adults. The same could apply to the Norwegian picturebook Krigen. It is a crossover picturebook with a visually dramatic form of expression, which should preferably also be read by children and adults together. Most children will have seen their parents’ angry faces at some time, even if they are not divorced, and can possibly recognise at least some of Inga’s fear, and the wish to hide in the wardrobe. For some children who have been through a divorce, the book may confirm their own experiences. But for other children divorce may not have been a dramatic experience. Still, the story may be read as a true story. And each divorce is different, as the book emphasises.
The changed relations between children and adults in recent modern society provides an opportunity for crossover picturebooks that challenge traditional boundaries for children’s books. To check whether a book is actually still for children, we should look for the implied reader, or model reader in the book, to see whether only an adult, or also an implied child reader is inscribed into the text (Eco, 1979; Iser, 1974).
Zohar Shavit asks the important question of whether crossover literature is really written for children, or whether the child reader is in fact ignored. Is the child reader merely a pseudo addressee, an excuse for the book (Shavit, 1999)? Barbara Wall (1991) demonstrates that analyses of how the narrator addresses the narratee in literature for children show that many authors of children’s literature do not address children at all, but are more concerned with pleasing the adult reader. This is what Wall calls a ‘double address’. Wall argues that more than what is being said, it is how it is said, and to whom, that distinguishes children’s literature from literature for adults. In the challenging picturebooks discussed here, the authors are no longer concerned with pleasing the adult reader. Quite the opposite: the authors want to challenge the adult reader, and do so through a picturebook seemingly published for children. With such a strong message to the adult, one may argue whether these books have a double or dual address, according to Wall’s terms. In my opinion they may be said to communicate to children and adults at different levels, which might suggest a double address. However, I would argue that in both books the narrator addresses both a child and an adult narratee at the same time, and not one at the expense of the other, and thus they both have a ‘dual address’, according to Wall’s definition. The narrators do not exclude the child reader. Quite the contrary, the narrators are on the children’s side and narrate from the children’s viewpoint.
In order to answer the question, ‘Who are these books for?’ we can look for signs of childness, following Peter Hollindale (1997). As already mentioned, the discussed crossover picturebooks are consequently on the children’s side, and see the world from their viewpoint. This may be why the questions asked are so difficult, serious and honest. Children are known for asking difficult questions, and for continuing to ask until they understand what is going on in the world. With their thought-provoking picturebooks, Dahle and K continue to ask and to challenge. As one of the reviewers wrote about Oskar K: ‘Alone or together with his wife, the illustrator Dorte Karrebæk, [Oskar K] regularly shakes up the more or less firm ground of children’s books’ (Information, 2008).
The challenge of the boundaries between children’s and adult literature is one of the ways in which late modern literature reflects a society where limits are constantly challenged, and where the borders between childhood and adult life are changing and partly erased. However, there still is a difference between being a child and being an adult, and I suggest that there is a boundary for what is and is not children’s literature. True children’s literature must also be for children, thus it must (also) address a child reader. It is not the book’s content that decides whether a child reader is addressed or not, but rather the ways of writing: Who does the narrator’s voice address?
Note
Academic references
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Beckett, S. (2009) Crossover Fiction: Global and Historical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
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K, O. & Brøgger, L. (2008) De skæve smil. Copenhagen: Klematis.
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Tinnen, K. & Dokken, S. (2010) Ulla hit og dit. Oslo: Gyldendal.
