Children of our earth
Children of our Earth is a Swedish series of photo books published by Rabén & Sjögren that dealt with the everyday lives of children from all over the world in the 1950s and 1960s. The illustrations are by Anna Riwkin-Brick . The authors were Astrid Lindgren , Elly Jannes , Leah Goldberg , Eugénie Söderberg , Vera Forsberg and Cordelia Edvardson .
action
The books are each about a child from Eurasia or Africa, whose everyday life is reproduced with pictures and a small text. The aim is to give a small impression of life in different countries.
background
The idea for the book series originally came from Elly Jannes , who worked with Anna Riwkin-Brick on another book for adults ( nomads of the north ). Riwkin showed Jannes the pictures she had taken of a girl in Lapland. Jannes found them so good that she suggested Rivkin make a children's book out of these photos. This was published a little later under the name Elle Kari and first appeared in 1951 by Rabén & Sjögren in Sweden. Anna Riwkin-Brick contributed the photographs to the book and Elly Jannes wrote the text. The first editions in Germany and the United Kingdom alone comprised 25,000 copies. Another 14 books followed, which have sold more than 900,000 copies. The stories are each based on true events. However, some stories have been changed in individual books. The book series has been translated into a total of 18 other languages, including German, English (under the title Children's Everywhere ) and Hebrew (under the title ילדי העולם - Children of the World).
Cooperation with Astrid Lindgren
Astrid Lindgren was the author of most of the books in the series, with a total of nine volumes. However, she was originally not interested in writing the photo book series. When Anna Riwkin-Brick came back from Japan after a trip, her publisher wanted to create a photo book with Riwkin-Brick's pictures. However, no suitable author was found. Therefore the publishing house asked Astrid Lindgren to write the text. After an initial refusal, the latter finally agreed. Lindgren either accompanied her directly on new Riwkin-Brick projects or followed her later. The photos for the volumes were selected together before Lindgren wrote the text. Only the text for the last joint book Matti from Finland was written before the pictures. After completing the series, Lindgren explained that while working with Riwkin-Brick had made her friends, she would no longer like the books, especially Marko in Yugoslavia (original: Marko bor i Yugoslavia ). She is not dissatisfied with the Riwkin-Brick photos, but rather with her own performance as an author.
Films from Israel
In Israel in particular, the series was a great success , thanks to the translations by the poet Leah Goldberg . So big that the Israeli director Dvorit Shargal went in search of the photographed children in 2014 and made a 50-minute film ( Where is Elle Kari and what happened to Noriko-san? ) About what happened to Ella Kari ( Elle Kari ), Japi ( Japi from Holland ), Noriko, Eva ( Noriko-San ), Anat, Shaul ( Eli from Israel ), Daniel and Miriam ( Mirjam from Israel ). In addition, Noriko and Eva from the books met again in Tokyo. The film resulted in nine stories being reprinted in Israel, including: Elle Kari , Noriko-San , Sia lives on Kilimanjaro , Lilibet, the circus child , Japi from Holland , Wanthai from Thailand , Gennet from Ethiopia and Salima from Kashmir .
On August 5th, 2016, a new film, Africa! Sia lives on Kilimanjaro , in which the director went in search of Sia from the book Sia lives on Kilimanjaro ( Sia bor på Kilimandjaro ) and reported on her life after the book was published.
On October 20, 2017, Where is Lilibet the Circus child and what happened in Honolulu? , a film that deals with the whereabouts of Lilibet from Lilibet, the circus child ( Lilibet, cirkusbar ) and Mokihana from Mokihana ( Mokihana bor på Hawaii ).
German publications
In Germany, the books were from 1952 under the title Children of the earth at Oetinger Verlag published. All German editions are now out of print and some are of high collector's value.
Works
| year | Title (german) | Original title | author | photographer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951, German 1952 | Elle Kari | Elle Kari | Elly Jannes | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1956, German 1956 | Noriko-san | Eva Möter Noriko-san | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1958, German 1958 | Sia lives on Kilimanjaro | Sia bor on Kilimandjaro | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1959, German 1959 | Leave from Dalarna | Mina svenska kusiner | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1960, German 1960 | Lilibet, the circus child | Lilibet, circus barn | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1961, German 1962 | Mokihana | Mokihana bor på Hawaii | Eugénie Söderberg | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1962, German 1962 | Marko in Yugoslavia | Marko bor i Yugoslavia | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1963, German 1987 | Japi from Holland | Jackie bor in Holland | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1964, German 1964 | Eli from Israel | Eli bor i Israel | Leah Goldberg | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1965, German 1965 | Randi from Norway | Randi bor i Norge | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1966, German 1967 | Wanthai from Thailand | Noy bor i Thailand | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1967, German 1968 | Gennet from Ethiopia | Gennet bor i Ethiopia | Vera Forsberg | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1968, German 1969 | Matti from Finland | Matti bor i Finland | Astrid Lindgren | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1969, German 1970 | Miriam from Israel | Miriam bor i en kibbutz | Cordelia Edvardson | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
| 1970, German 1971 | Salima made of cashmere | Salima bor i Kashmir | Vera Forsberg | Anna Rivkin-Brick |
Awards and nominations
Awards
New York Herald Tribunes Spring Festival Award
- 1963: Sia lives on Kilimanjaro (Sia bor på Kilimandjaro): Children's Spring Book
Elsa Beskow Medal
- 1963: Marko in Yugoslavia (Marko bor i Yugoslavia): Anna Riwkin-Brick
Nominations
- 1960: Sia lives on Kilimanjaro (Sia bor på Kilimandjaro): picture book
- 1966: Randi from Norway (Randi bor i Norge): picture book
literature
- Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer: Lost in nostalgia. Images of childhood in photobooks for children. In: Elisabeth Wesseling: Reinventing Childhood Nostalgia: Books, Toys, and Contemporary Media Culture. Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present , Routledge, 2017, ISBN 9781317068464 limited preview in Google book search
- Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer The view of the foreign. Astrid Lindgrens and Anna Riwkin-Bricks photo picture books
Individual evidence
- ^ Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer: Lost in nostalgia. Images of childhood in photobooks for children. In: Elisabeth Wesseling: Reinventing Childhood Nostalgia: Books, Toys, and Contemporary Media Culture. Studies in Childhood, 1700 to the Present , Routledge, 2017, ISBN 9781317068464 limited preview in Google book search
- ↑ Erika Hall Hagen: Sápmi i literatures .
- ↑ Graves, P. (1975). Swedish Children's Books in Britain. Signal, 18, 137.
- ↑ a b c d Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauers: The view of the foreign. Astrid Lindgrens and Anna Riwkin-Bricks photo picture books .
- ^ Astrid Lindgren. A lifelong childhood. Darmstadt: Lambert Schneider 2013.
- ↑ Dov Alfon: Opinion. The Boy Who Taught French Jewish Kids to Love Israel. .
- ↑ Arne Lapidus: Barnboksvännerna återförenas efter 60 år .
- ↑ An Israeli Film Director is in Cameroon .
- ↑ Where Is Lilibet the Circus Child and What Happened in Honolulu? .
- ↑ About us. .
- ↑ International awards from our authors. In: Give us books, give us wings. Almanac 1972 (number 10) ISBN 3789112100
- ↑ Sia lives on Kilimanjaro .
- ^ Randi from Norway .