From Anton to cylinder: the dictionary for children

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From Anton to cylinder: The Lexicon for Children is an illustrated encyclopedia first published in 1967 in the GDR by Kinderbuchverlag Berlin , which processes several hundred key words according to age. The children's lexicon was a common reference work in GDR households and was published in 13 editions from 1967 to 1989 . It was the most successful non-fiction book of children's and youth literature in the GDR. Even after German reunification, the reference work was completely revised and reissued several times. In the last edition, the lexicon contained over 1450 key words, which were illustrated with more than 1000 color illustrations.

concept

The concept for a socialist German children's lexicon was developed in the early 1960s. In the second half of the 20th century, more and more reference works were developed specifically for children and young people based on the tradition of the 18th century realia book. The reference work was intended to convey polytechnical , scientific , socio-political and popular science education to children from the age of 7 in an instructive, but also aesthetically appealing way . The children should be familiarized with the efficient look-up of terms at an early stage.

Prominent non-fiction authors were won as authors : Wolfgang Zeiske , Hansgeorg Meyer, Siegrid Bellack, Hans Eckard, Annina Hartung, Walter Krämer, Christian Rekow, Karl Rezac, Günther Schmerbach, Edeltraut Dölling, Heinz Schulz and Hans-Peter Wetzstein . The articles were edited by a text advice committee to which Gerhard Holtz-Baumert , Franz Herrmann and Karl Sothmann belonged.

For older children and adolescents, Meyer's youth lexicon has been published since 1968 , an encyclopedia with 896 pages of around 8000 keywords, in which, in addition to new keywords, well-known articles from the children's lexicon were taken up, expanded and systematized.

Text and image design

In accordance with the conceptual requirement of creating a lexicon with 700 to 1000 key words for children in lower and middle school, particular attention was paid to the principle of illustration and simplification of the texts. The texts were written in short, easily understandable sentences. The key words were based on the statutory school curricula. In doing so, they should provide a general education as well as contribute to political, ideological and moral education.

“When selecting the keywords, we proceeded from the demands of society on the education and upbringing of children, as they are legally stipulated in the curriculum, that is, we systematically examined the curriculum of the first to fourth grades to determine which conceptual content was conveyed in the classroom Lexicon must be recorded. "

- Hans-Peter Wetzstein : From Anton to cylinder. The lexicon for children . In: Contributions to children's and youth literature. Volume 9, 1967, pp. 42-50, here p. 45

The articles have been cross-referenced and further reading recommendations. Keywords for artist biographies often contained work samples. A particular challenge for the editors of the lexicon was the rapid development of science and the changes in society, so that permanent updates and new editions were necessary. Some articles were missing in some editions; others have been added, greatly expanded or updated. Political content and everyday issues were considered in a socio-political context and central aspects of the Marxist-Leninist worldview were conveyed. Examples from current politics have also been included in the lexicon. The children and adolescents should be given the socialist perspective on the topic by means of good-bad and friend-foe depictions in accordance with the specifications of the school curriculum. In addition to ideological keywords, the lexicon contained a wide variety of articles on scientific, historical, geographical, cultural and polytechnical topics as well as numerous short biographies.

Particular attention was paid to the graphic design of the lexicon. Different types of illustration suitable for children were used. In addition to photographs (especially in individuals products), photo-realistic watercolors and iconic characters numerous enriched graphs and diagrams , the lexicon in longitudinal and cross sections. Country articles were supplemented by info boxes and simplified map displays. The first letters of the chapters were provided with vignettes , which should arouse associations with well-known children's books such as Hirsch Heinrich for the first-time reader .

For the publisher, the work on the children's lexicon was "the most beautiful, most interesting, but also the most difficult and costly project".

pads

From 1967 to 1989, 13 editions of the lexicon were published. The book was edited by Siegrid Bellack, Hans Eckart, Bernhard Geyer, Hannes Hüttner, Hansgeorg Meyer, Karl Rezac, Günther Schmerbach, Edeltraud Scholz, Heinz Schulz, Hans-Peter Wetzstein and Wolfgang Zeiske. The lexicon was illustrated by Eberhard Binder-Staßfurt . The retail price from 1967 to 1989 was constant at 29.80 marks. The first three editions (1967, 1968 and 1969) were printed with a page count of 335 pages on very high-quality and brilliant paper in an almost square format. After the third edition (1967; 1968, 1969) it was decided to fundamentally revise and expand the lexicon. In 1974 the book appeared with 447 pages in a print run of 100,000 copies in a new format of 20.5 × 29 centimeters. The individual editions differ in the structure, arrangement of the images and the layout. The image and print quality change over time. Various images have been scaled down for reasons of space. In the 1980s, paper and print quality deteriorated; however, the high quality of the book binding was retained to ensure longevity.

After reunification, it was decided to reissue the children's lexicon. The keyword selection has been fundamentally revised, the articles rewritten and illustrated and adapted to the new spelling. The new edition presented in 1997 was edited by Caroline Kazianka and Claudia Welker. In the following new editions in 2003, 2008, 2012 and 2015, additional editorial work was carried out.

Controversy

In 1977 the CDU parliamentary group made an urgent application to the Lübeck citizenship to remove the copy that had been acquired for the Lübeck library.

"We don't want our children to be seduced by such things."

- Fritz Harries (CDU) : Lübecker Nachrichten, October 29, 2016

"How bad it must be for our society if we are scared about a book!"

- Horst Zielinski (FDP) : Lübecker Nachrichten, October 29, 2016

The CDU, ruling with an absolute majority, pushed through the removal of the lexicon from the holdings of the public library by majority vote in the citizenship.

literature

  • Hans-Peter Wetzstein: From Anton to cylinder. The lexicon for children . In: Contributions to children's and youth literature. Volume 9, 1967, pp. 42-50.
  • Hansgeorg Meyer: From Anton to cylinder - the lexicon for children . In: Contributions to children's and youth literature. Volume 14, 1970, p. 88 ff.
  • Hans-Peter Wetzstein: Seduction to learn. Comments on some of the principles of our popular science literature for children and young people . In: Contributions to children's and youth literature. Volume 49, 1978, pp. 39-44.
  • Sigrid Schleicher: Comment on the linguistic design of some articles in the children's lexicon "Anton bis cylinder". In: Contributions to children's and youth literature. Volume 74, 1985, pp. 5-11.
  • Harri Günther, Joanna Günther: Non-fiction for children and young people in the GDR from 1946 to 1989 . Berlin 1988/1989.
  • Reiner Neubert: From A to Z - On non-fiction for children and young people in the GDR . In: Petra Josting, Gudrun Stenzel (Eds.): "Why, why, why ..." Non-fiction for children and young people . Weinheim 2004, pp. 57-66.
  • Rüdiger Steinlein, Heidi Strobel, Thomas Kramer (Hrsg.): Handbook for children's and youth literature. SBZ / GDR. From 1945 to 1990 . Stuttgart 2006.
  • Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here pp. 209–238.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SMB digital | From Anton to cylinder. The lexicon for children. Retrieved December 3, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Hans-Peter Wetzstein: Out of nowhere to considerable opulence . In: 40 years. The children's book publisher Berlin . Kinderbuchverlag Berlin, Berlin 1989, p. 77 .
  3. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 213 ff.
  4. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 216.
  5. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 226 ff.
  6. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 232.
  7. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 218 ff.
  8. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 223.
  9. ↑ Hans-Peter Wetzstein: Anton to cylinder - the lexicon for children . In: Contributions to children's and youth literature . tape 9 . Berlin 1967, p. 40-52 .
  10. ↑ Sebastian Schmideler: The Children's Lexicon From Anton to Cylinder as a popular scientific worldview literature in context: origin, specifics of image and text, edition history. In: Derselbe (Ed.): Knowledge transfer in children's and youth literature in the GDR. Subjects, shapes, structures, illustrations. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-8470-0678-7 , pp. 209–238, here p. 234.
  11. ^ Lübeck's democratic heart chamber. Retrieved December 4, 2019 .
  12. ^ Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Association of publishers, booksellers and librarians (ed.): There is no censorship: Art. 5GG: Documentation on a current discussion . 1978, p. 34-40 .