European Children's Literature and Sports

Sport has been a topic in children’s and young adult literature at least since the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. As a result of the economic and social upheavals at the start of the 20th century, families had more leisure time, which they spent on sporting activities to improve their health. Children were also meant to benefit from these developments. Thus, as early as 1906, the picture book “Sport und Spiel” ('Sport and Play') by Karl F. E. Freyhold was published. Numerous well-known sports books followed, such as *Klapperzahn’s Wunderelf* (1922) by Eduard Bass. This literature centred not only on football, but also on dancing, swimming, horse riding, mountaineering and other activities. It covered both team sports and individual sports. Some books were aimed more at girls, others at boys. Always – and this is what makes this literature so fascinating – significant, often morally charged themes played an important role: victory or defeat, fairness and jealousy, gruelling training or the joy of the game. Many books also demonstrate that the emotional connection to sport can be exploited for ideological purposes.

Today, there is a vast and diverse international range of sports books and other sports-related media available to young readers. Alongside narrative books that focus on the relationship between sport and identity, the tradition of non-fiction continues, for example in titles such as “Jürgen Klopp” (2023) in the ‘Little People Big Dreams’ series.

This international conference brings together papers from many countries. They explore historical, theoretical and pedagogical aspects of European children’s and young adult literature, thereby contributing to research in the field of international children’s and young adult literature.

Chairs: Małgorzata Cackowska (Gdańsk), Nina Goga (Bergen), Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (Tübingen), Jörg Meibauer (Mainz) and Sara Pini (Venice)

An event organised by the European Children’s Literature Research Network, in cooperation with the International Youth Library Foundation.

The conference programme and further information will be available here soon.