Children and Propaganda

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2007), "Children and Propaganda", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 5, pp. 436-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710750716

Literature for children can readily be adapted for didactic and ideological purposes, as fairy tales, biography and history have shown since the 18th century and before. There is a growing interest in the convergence of ideology (in the form of politicized history and propaganda) and literature for children, as can be seen in works like Mickenberg (2006) and Foster et al. (2005). At the same time, the extensive bibliography on propaganda has itself picked up on the social and cultural role of literature for children, on education as indoctrination, using stereotypes and icons for ideological purposes, and harnessing fairy tales and other familiar genres to shape views of the world that preclude truth and alternatives. O'Shaughnessy (2004) argues that propaganda both feeds and draws on symbolism and myth (“a useful cultural pool for politics”), creating myths around political heroes, heroizing or demonizing figures like Stalin and Hitler. The very familiarity of the literary conventions of, say, fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Bluebeard” make popularity and impact all the greater. They are, moreover, forms for both children and adults, and useful material for education.

It is in this context that the reissue of this under‐noticed study of children's literature and propaganda in the Vichy regime of France during World War 2 (originally published by Intellect in 1995) is welcome. The key figure in Vichy was Maréchal Pétain (even though Laval had more influence after 1942) and Pétain it was who was emblematized into the heroic saviour of the French nation, preserver of “travail, famille et patrie”. The wider field of children's book and comic publishing up to 1942, much affected by war, was reshaped by both French and Nazi influence to reflect Vichy values (that were in turn equated with French aspirations). Bodies like the Bureau de Documentation du Chef d’Etat, the Centre d’Action et de Documentation anti‐maçonnique (CAD), and publishers like the Imagerie du Maréchal and Nouvelles Etudes Françaises (NEF), worked enthusiastically on the sentiment of “révolution nationale” to create a new and racially pure France. Jews and masons and others were demonized, and were conveniently shoe‐horned into adaptations of familiar fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood”, say, as a sexually predatory and hook‐nosed wolf (the heroine herself representing France herself) – allegory is never far away.

Judith Proud's academic study of these issues and this period is succinct but full of information and critical insights. Like Davidson and Chaudhri's (2006) companion to fairy tales, it is a book aimed more at readers following the criticism of children's literature, and its links with folklore and with politics, than directly with the practitioner in the children's and school library (though they will find it a fascinating study too). It will also be of interest to students of literature generally and to librarians providing resources for them. Intellect's list may appeal to those wanting more on culture, theatre and art. Children and Propaganda itself, having set the scene historically and in terms of what propaganda does (and does through literature and allegory), focuses on the texts of fairy tales (such as references to Stalin in “Bluebeard”) and what happens to such texts when propagandists get to work on them. In such a way fairy tales, educational works and biographies (above all about Pétain himself) are analyzed and their impact considered.

As Proud admits, it is almost impossible now, except by looking at reminiscence and autobiography, to assess what this impact – on children and on adults – was. Even so, propaganda never succeeds in a vacuum so people were ready for and receptive of the ideas disseminated by such works, accepted them into the civic curriculum in the schools, and subscribed to the rhetoric of nationalism and paternalism. For any serious student of Le Front nationale today in France, and of right‐wing politics, there is more than a small lesson here. The book keeps is focus and so is no more than what it says it is. A more wide‐ranging study is needed, beyond specialist studies like this and beyond entries on ideology, post‐colonialism, and censorship in standard reference works on children's literature. Social and cultural historians will find many parallels between such literature for children in Vichy France and the ideological message in Thomas Day at the start of the 19th century, the religious messages in George McDonald and imperialistic messages in Henty later, and literature for children in the first three decades of the 20th century where a preoccupation with war found a useful hook in the simplistic characterization of the adventure story. Children and Propaganda highlights a strand in literary and cultural criticism that deserves more attention.