Approaches to the translation of children’s literature: A review of critical studies since 1960

Children’s literature, a traditional domain of teachers and librarians, has, in the past 30 years, been made a subject of academic research. Simultaneously, more and more studies have been dedicated to the translation of children’s literature. There are four important factors which have prompted such studies: (1) the assumption that translated children’s books build bridges between different cultures, (2) text-specific challenges to the translator, (3) the polysystem theory which classifies children’s literature as a subsystem of minor prestige within literature, and (4) the age-specific addressees either as implied or as real readers. This review of critical approaches to the translation of children’s literature is structured in such a way that the methodological shift from source orientation to target orientation becomes obvious.