In the Land of Childhood

Often, when adults encounter children's literature, they tend to think about simplicity, fictional reality, naivit'e, and elementalism, as in "Elementary, Watson, elementary," Sherlock Holmes to his disciple, Dr. Watson. The very last things that cross the minds of skeptical adults are complexity, intricacy, shrewdly wrought devices, and praiseworthy sophistication.



Children's literature is not elementary at all. Not Hebrew children's literature, or any kind of children's literature, in fact. What you see is not what you get. You get much, much more. The observations, literary techniques, and aesthetic artistry traced in this book through Hebrew children's literature "piously" echo any kind of children's literature in any language. The major critical proclivity both exhibited and probed in this book is the way anticipated simplicity is eclipsed by well-sculpted complexity.




The text of children's literature consists of two layers: the upper, surface layer and the cryptic, underlying layer. Under the upper "epidermic" layer of the text, one that radiates simplicity and elementalism, there is a hidden, concealed, cryptic layer that contests the upper layer. It proves that the very essence of the text is desirably intricate and that the upper layer is indeed an artistic channel that unearths the "real" text that consists of the literary mechanism to delivery the text's message (educational, moral, ethical, etc.) in concealed sophistication.