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Mathilde Lévêque
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN FRENCH JOURNALS: AN OVERVIEW
This paper presents the main French scientific journals that publish work on children's literature. Alongside paper print journals, some of which have been around for a long time, the last dozen years have seen the emergence of online journals geared towards open access, a model that is becoming increasingly appreciated and aims to give French works greater visibility, both in France and abroad.
Keywords: scientific journals, French research, children's literature, open access
Children's literature is a particularly dynamic area of research in France. It covers several fields, in particular literature (French, French-language and comparative literature), as well as foreign literature (mainly English-language), educational science and, to a lesser extent, history, philosophy and the arts. There are many magazines specializing in children's book reviews, some of which date back to the 1950s. Journals more specifically devoted to research on literature and, more broadly, childhood culture, are rarer, but enjoy a fairly wide audience thanks to their digital distribution. Researchers belonging to Afreloce (Association française de recherche sur les livres et les objets culturels de l'enfance, French Research Society on Children's Books and Cultural Objects) have contributed to the development of several scientific publications on children's literature, and to the organization of research projects. The international dimension is one of the major challenges for the years to come.
There are many publications specializing in children's book reviews in France. As early as 1951, the Communist magazine for teachers
Mathilde Lévêque
Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, France mathilde.leveque@univ-paris13.fr
DOI: 10.31860/2304-5817-2023-2-24-483-487
L'École et la Nation published regular reviews of children's books. From 1957, these columns were written by the writer Natha Caputo, who imposed a demanding critical gaze on these works. But it was above all in the 1960s that specialized magazines began to multiply. In 1965, the association "La Joie par les livres" (1963) created the Bulletin d'analyses de livres pour enfants, which quickly became a reference in the library world:
The early Bulletin d'analyses de livres pour enfants, offering a selection of books, was expanded in 1967 to include bibliographies and information on children's publishing. In 1976, it changed its title to La Revue des livres pour enfants, establishing itself as a veritable reference tool for professionals in the field of children's books and reading. La Revue des livres pour enfants has never ceased to evolve, but always presents an analysis of what's new in children's publishing, with features and articles on reflection or research [Lévêque, Meyer, 2017].
A special place is given to research work, regularly presented in the "Libre cours" section. The latest article (n°332, September 2023) is devoted to photoliterature for young people, by Laurence Le Guen (Université de Rennes 2 — KU Leuven). In 2008, La Joie par les livres became the Centre national de la littérature pour la jeunesse, now part of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. All issues of La Revue des livres pour enfants (six issues a year) published since 1965 have been digitized and put online — with the exception of the last two years. Issue summaries and all articles (up to 2021) can be found on the CNLJ website: https://cnlj.bnf.fr/fr/page-editorial/la-revue-des-livres-pour-enfants.
Reviews of children's books have proliferated since the 1960s : These include Nous Voulons Lire, created in 1972 by the CRALEJ (Centre régional aquitain du livre, de la lecture et de la littérature d'enfance et de jeunesse); Inter-CDI, created in 1972 by the Centre d'étude de la documentation et de l'information scolaires; CRILJ Informations, created in 1976 by the Centre de Recherche et d'informations sur la Littérature de jeunesse (CRILJ), which regularly organizes symposia on children's literature (the next, "De la mémoire dans la littérature pour la jeunesse : racines, souvenirs, transmission", took place from Friday October 13 to Saturday October 14, 2023 at the Médiathèque Marguerite Yourcenar in Paris) or Lecture Jeunesse, created in 1977 by the association of the same name (the magazine is now called Lecture Jeunes). And let's not forget Ricochet, the website of the Swiss Institute for Youth and Media, which not only publishes reviews of children's books, but also makes room for research by regularly giving the floor
to specialists (e.g. Christine Boutevin (University of Montpellier) on poetry for young people): https://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/articles/ poesie-pour-lenfance-et-la-jeunesse.
At the Artois University, the Texts and cultures research center, currently headed by Anne Besson, is one of the few laboratories in France to have a team entirely devoted to the literatures and cultures of childhood. Since 1997, the Cahiers Robinson, published by several of the team's researchers, has explored the field of children's literature. The journal, which is only available in printed form, is edited by Francis Marcoin and publishes two issues a year: one of the latest issues (n°53) is devoted to "Grandes vacances".
In 2010, a crucial turning point was reached with the creation of Strenae, the first natively digital academic journal devoted to children's literature and culture, online on the OpenEdition portal and fully available in open access: https://journals.openedition.org/strenae/ Led by researchers from AFRELOCE (the French association for research on children's books and cultural objects), Strenae is an interdisciplinary journal, operating on a peer-review model. Each issue is organized around a thematic dossier by one or two researchers, and also features a "Fonds d'archives et collections" section, a "Varia" section and book reviews. Strenae publishes around two issues a year, and is entirely edited and administered by Afreloce member researchers. Cécile Boulaire (University of Tours), who founded the journal, has been its chief editor until 2023: she has just handed over to Cécile Pichon-Bonin (CNRS) and Eléonore Hamaide-Jager (University of Lille). The latest issue (n°22), published in May 2023, is devoted to the critique of the serial album ("Vers un décloisonnement des corpus légitimes et populaires dans les études sur l'album / Seriality, literarity and popular culture in picturebook studies") and was edited by Dominique Perrin (University of Lyon 2) and Hélène Weis (University of Cergy-Pontoise). The next dossier to be published, edited by Christophe Meunier (Université d'Orléans), focuses on the theme of the city ("La ville et l'enfant : images, récits, espaces"). The current call for contributions concerns the famous Père Castor collection, an issue prepared by Cécile Pichon-Bonin (CNRS) and Dorena Caroli (University of Bologna). Over the past few years, the Strenae editorial team has been working to increase the journal's visibility, particularly from an international perspective: since March 2023, Strenae has been referenced in the Scopus international bibliographic database (Elsevier). This involved a major retroactive translation of the titles, keywords and abstracts of all articles published since the journal's creation in 2010. Also since March 2023, Strenae has
been included in the official list of scientific publications for Norway, known as the "Norwegian List", "Norka Listan" (spelled out: Register over vitenskapelige publiseringskanaler / Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers: https://kanalregister.hkdir.no/ publiseringskanaler/KanalTidsskriftInfo.action?id=504005 ), thanks to the initiative of Charlotte Lindgren (Uppsala University) and Marcus Axelsson (0stfold University).
It's also worth mentioning that children's literature has its place in other online journals: the Revue française de pédagogie regularly publishes articles by sociologists on children's literature (for example, issue 217, published in 2022: « Le "métier d'enfant" 50 ans après : penser l'éducation et la socialisation avec Jean-Claude Chamboredon », edited by Paul Pasquali, Stéphane Bonnéry). Trema, a journal specialized in educational science and didactics, recently published a dossier entitled "Approches plurielles de la littérature de jeunesse auprès des jeunes enfants" (n°55), edited by Christine Boutevin, Marion Sauvaire and Frédéric Torterat: https://journals.openedition.org/trema/6452.
Finally, in 2021, the journal L'Oiseau bleu, dedicated to fairy tales and children's literature, has been published with the support of the ALITHILA research team (Analyses Littéraires et Histoire de la Langue, Université de Lille) and is available in open access. The four issues published stem from symposia organized at the University of Lille. Also newly online, les Cahiers Fablijes ( https://publications-prairial. fr/fablijes/ ) aims to publish the work of the seminar "La Fabrique des Littératures des Jeunesses", organized at the University of Lyon 2 (IHRIM, Institut d'Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités). The very first issue was published in 2023: edited by Amélie Calderone and Marion Mas, it focuses on the pedagogical challenges of girls' literature in the 19th century.
Journals dedicated to research in children's literature are undergoing a period of both expansion and renewal in France, driven by the growing importance of digital publishing and the growing awareness of the need for open access and visibility issues, particularly on an international scale: the work of French researchers, still rarely published in English, is still too little known outside the French-speaking world. We can only hope that this paper will contribute to improving this visibility.
Bibliography
Lévêque Meyer 2017 — Lévêque M., Meyer V. (2017). Regards sur la critique de la littérature pour la jeunesse. Strenœ 12, https://doi.org/10.4000/strenae.1696.
Матильда Левек
Университет Сорбонна; ОИСГО: 0000-0002-1020-175Х
ДЕТСКАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА ВО ФРАНЦУЗСКИХ ЖУРНАЛАХ: ОБЗОР
В обзоре представлены основные французские научные журналы, публикующие работы по детской литературе. Наряду с бумажными печатными журналами, часть из которых существуют уже давно, в последние десять лет появились онлайн-журналы, ориентированные на открытый доступ: такой формат получает все большее признание и призван сделать французские работы более заметными как во Франции, так и за рубежом.
Ключевые слова: научные журналы, Франция, детская литература, открытый доступ
