Janusz Korczak (1878–1942)

This is a very moving little book. I picked it up at a local Little Free Library because I saw it was a book put out by PJ Library, an organization which provides free books of Jewish interest to Jewish families with small children. Although my grandchildren receive these books, I haven't read most of them. This book was directed to parents and not to children.

It contains excerpts of writing by Janusz Korczak who was a Polish doctor, writer, and head of an orphanage in the years before the show more rise of the Nazis in Europe. The writing reflects Korczak's thoughts and philosophy about children. In this volume, he shares these thoughts with parents. Sadly, neither the children in his orphanage nor Korczak survived the Nazi invasion of Poland. Korczak's story is told at the end of this book. It is also illustrated with a few pen-and-ink drawings made by an individual who had been in his orphanage and who miraculously survived the war.

I knew about Korczak before reading this book, but this volume greatly added to my knowledge and respect for a man who, in turn, showed great respect to the children in his charge. show less

When Matt's father dies, the young boy - so young that he cannot yet write - finds himself crowned king, and embarking upon a journey that will take him from the battle-field to the state room, from the glittering capital cities of his neighbor kings, to the African jungle domain of the cannibal King Bum Drum. With many false starts - having his annoying ministers arrested, for instance, and then realizing he can't govern without them - Matt sets out to reform his country, establishing a show more constitutional monarchy, and (most revolutionary of all) attempting to ensure that children's rights are protected, by creating a Children's Parliament alongside the adult one, in order to give young people a voice. But despite all of his sincere efforts, Matt discovers too late that reforming (as the "Sad King" had warned him) is a dangerous business, and that envy, fear and discontent are powerful forces in the world...

Originally published in 1923, as Król Maciuś Pierwszy ("King Macius the First"), this classic of Polish children's literature is notable, not just for the story it contains - a story which incorporates its creator's ideas about pedagogical reform - but for the identity of its author. Janusz Korczak was the pen-name of Polish-Jewish pediatrician, author, and educational theorist Henryk Goldszmit, who, in the years prior to WWII, ran both a Catholic and a Jewish orphanage, and who, when offered a chance to escape the ghetto, and the Nazi Final Solution, refused to abandon the young Jewish orphans in his care, going to his death, with them, at the Treblinka death camp. Korczak's own story has been retold for children in such books as The Champion of Children: The Story of Janusz Korczak, and his immensely influential ideas about child development can be found in such works as When I Am Little Again and "The Child's Right to Respect".

That said, this is a deeply flawed book, ethically speaking, and I am rather surprised to see how infrequently any of the online reviews I have been reading, see fit to challenge (or even mention) the overt racism to be found in its pages. Bruno Bettelheim, who wrote the introduction to my edition, at least acknowledges that some might find the content problematic, although he goes on the offer the standard defense/apologia, claiming that King Matt the First was simply the product of its own time, and that people back then, in 1920s Poland (and elsewhere in Europe, one presumes) simply didn't know any better, when it came to the peoples of Africa, and (to a lesser extent) the 'Orient.' Ignorance as an excuse for... well, ignorance. And prejudice. I'm a little less blithe about the issue, however, and couldn't read any of the passages about the 'savage' 'cannibals' of Africa, without wincing. It isn't that they are depicted as terrible people - as Bettelheim correctly points out, King Bum Drum, and his daughter Klu Klu, are the only royals who don't betray Matt, and are depicted as genuinely moral - but the constant sense of patronizing condescension, the way in which Matt sets out to 'educate' them, and correct their cultural mistakes, is intensely grating, and constantly threw me out of the story. The preoccupation with cannibalism that can be seen in Korczak's work, even if tempered with a kinder depiction of the cannibals than is usually seen, is itself a marker of a colonialist mindset - yes, there were cannibals in Africa, but I'm not sure how widespread the practice was, and certainly do not believe that every culture and kingdom on the continent (as depicted here) was involved, until shown the error of their ways by the more civilized Europeans - and seems to surface rather frequently in the children's literature written before a certain point.

Still, I'm not one of these people who believes that ethically imperfect works of literature should be abandoned, if they have something to offer, artistically or intellectually, and despite the issue of the Africans' depiction here, I did find much of interest in King Matt the First, and am not sorry to have read it. The idea of giving children a say in their own governance, as enacted in the story, mirrors Korczak's methods in running his orphanages, which had parliaments as well. The notion that 'civilization,' as embodied by European monarchy, leads to a less moral people than the 'barbarism' of Africa - an argument that I think the author is making, and which might stand as an anti-racist counter-point to the unfortunate nature of his depiction of non-Europeans - is ground-breaking, for its time. I cannot say that I rushed through the book - sometimes I found it something of a struggle to stay involved - but then, I imagine that young readers might relish a tale in which the young are in charge (even if the results prove disastrous!), and the adults must obey. All in all, a book worth reading, if one bears in mind that it has problematic aspects. I would recommend it - with the caveat that adults should be available to discuss the outdated aspects of the tale - to young readers who enjoy adventure stories, and to anyone who appreciates more philosophical children's books. show less

Повести Януша Корчака «Лето в Михалувке» и «Лето в Вильгельмувке» были впервые опубликованы в Варшаве больше ста лет назад, и поразительно, насколько актуальными они остаются, насколько стиль и идеи Корчака не устарели со временем. Так и хочется побывать в этих летних show more «колониях»-лагерях вместе с теми детьми: сразиться за право съесть горбушку, поучаствовать в товарищеском суде, построить корабли на деревьях, собрать корзинку грибов или послушать перед сном те самые истории того самого Януша Корчака. Ведь это и есть счастье! Счастье — не только быть ребенком, но и быть рядом с ребенком, учиться его понимать и вместе с ним стараться понять этот не всегда счастливый «взрослый» мир. show less

I would recommend this book as a supplement to Korczak's biography or Holocaust literature in general. It has a hard time standing on its own. Part memoirs and part diary, most of the entries are undated and very sketchy, and it's hard to tell what really happened and what is creative fiction on Korczak's part. He was in poor health at the time of writing and much of his diary was basically shorthand which he planned to expand upon later, but he died before he could do so.

That said, if show more you've read The King of Children: the Life and Death of Janusz Korczak and want to get an even closer look at the man, you should read Korczak's ghetto diary. His preoccupations as the Warsaw ghetto is being ground to dust make heavy food for thought. show less