Reading globally--Children's Literature

Have any of your childhood favourites been works translated from a language other than your native one(s)? Would you say you were aware in any special way that these books were somehow "different", especially if they did not form a large portion of your reading? Or were you completely oblivious of the "foreigness" of these books?

Since I'm starting this--I've had many childhood favourites that were translations; I was pretty much a literary omnivore, and completely oblivious to the aspect of "foreigness" of these reads. Verne, Dumas, Lofting, Travers, Carroll, Lindgren, Herge, Uderzo & Goscinny, and a gaggle of others, all existed on the same plane for me--fascinatingly diverse worlds, to be sure, but all "mine", all speaking directly to me.

I was fortunate to grow up in a household with a library, where buying and collecting books, reading, receiving and giving them was the most normal thing in the world. By the time I was ten my "own" books must have counted in low hundreds. Most of these I reread dozens of times.

So here's a small sample, loosely ranked, and mixed by reading age, 6-12 years, followed by the book's or author's original language:

1. "Pippi Longstocking" (Swedish), followed at an older age by "Three Fat Men" (Russian), and Schwab's retellings of classical myths (German).

2. Asterix and Tintins (French)

3. Heroes of Paul Street (Hungarian); Karel Capek's fairy tales (Czech)

4. Stories from Shakespeare (English)--the Lamb retellings, and numerous comics versions of Shakespeare's plays, in Italian; Grimm (German); Andersen (Danish); Perrault (French)

5. Karl May's Wild West, Arabian and Balkan adventure books (German); Erich Kastner's books for children (German)

6. Zane Grey's Wild West novels (English); Jules Verne (French)

7. Dumas père (French)

8. Big, bigger, biggest (Polish)--this one's a great SF story, the title refers to 'adventure'

9. Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic fairy tales and stories in various editions

10. Ladybirds, especially the ones dealing with historical subjects, especially antiquity, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Sorry for not providing touchstones, if I find the time later I'll edit to link.

I suppose I didn't actually read it until high school, but I simply adore Le Petit Prince/The Little Prince. I have repeatedly read it in both French and in English and it is one of my top 5 books. It is definitely different from other books I would have read in late elementary school.

There are quite a few books I read when I was little that I didn't know were 'foreign': Pippi Longstocking, Heidi (maybe I knew that one?), Brothers Grimm/Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales (probably the tamer retellings). I don't think I ever gave much thought to where the author was from, though. In fact, I think that I sort of thought that books sprang up full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus.

Oooh, Heidi! Yes, for me too. Her marvellous grandfather, and melted cheese sandwiches, and the ceramic stove with town scenes painted on the tiles!

I don't think I ever gave much thought to where the author was from, though. I think that I sort of thought that books sprang up full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus.

Oh yes. For those I read in translation, it is only much later that I'd notice (or learn) such things. Same with movies. It took mid-teenage before I bothered to find out what exactly a "director" does.

Among the pre-reading age stories, there were certainly many Biblical stories, and Aesops Fables.

Most of my fondest very early reads also were not particularly global (Misty of Chincoteague, the Black Stallion, Indian Paint - yes, there is a theme there). But I have a strong memory of Heidi and The Swiss Family Robinson - perhaps those were remnants of my Swiss grandfather - as well as Jules Verne.

Oh, the pleasure of Pippi Longstocking! I remember thinking "what an interesting name the author has..." And I too thought the books materialized magically on the library shelves.

A treasured memory is of my second grade teacher reading to us after lunch each day. It was then I met Stuart Little. I think he's due for a re-read, just because.

The Swiss Family Robinson--loved it! In conjunction with "Robinson Crusoe", I expected (hoped) for years to get marooned on some uninhabited island--it seemed to happen to everyone eventually. No notion that the author was Swiss (he was, no?) until adulthood.

I read "Stuart Little" only as an adult. I thought the ending was sad...

Pippi Longstocking was my hero. I remember wanting to live where kids could have their own houses and money, and have a pet monkey. I, too, loved Heidi. My memory of it is of the descriptions of the countryside. The idea of flowers growing rampant was indeed very foreign to an Arizona kid!

Now that I think about, I did read a lot of children's literature from outside the U.S. Pippi Longstocking, Heidi and Jules Verne were all staples. I definitely remember knowing that Heidi was Swiss and Jules Verne was French, but that didn't stand out as special to me; it just blurred into the background of the more exotic settings of fairy tales and Star Trek.

I didn't start reading foreign literature until I moved to Japan in 2004. It just seemed logical that if I were living in a country, I should try to get to know some of its literary classics. The Makioka Sisters really stands out for me. Before that, I read a lot of non-fiction about foreign places, usually in the form of travelogues, but it bothered me that many of them seemed to import American stereotypes about a country. While I would never claim that a single work of literature could fully educate me about a country, I do think of it as a learning experience -- a point of reference so that I can have some pictures in my mind when I see a country on the map.

Having said (elsewhere) that I didn't read much children's literature, I was a big Asterix and Obelix fan, and also read a lot of folk tales and myths from around the world. I think I knew that Asterix was French, but the myths and legends could just as well have taken place on another planet for all I knew (similar to Cestovatela).

I suspect as kids we don't notice or care too much about setting, and that distinguishing between author origins is something some of us 'learn' later in life?

I loved the Moomin stories by Tove Jansson, and one of my favourite books when I was younger was The Wheel on the School. The difference in culture was negligible for the Moomins but I think part of the appeal of The Wheel on the School was the difference in culture (although part of that was time, which I think I was less aware of!) My childhood reading was, in general, pretty insular though. Occasional American books but mostly just English.

I was pretty horrified when I found this group originally and looked at where I'd read books from - most of my "international" reading had been totally accidental, either because they were classics (Russia, France) or because a book from that country was a bestseller or prize winner (India, South Africa). Though I had started trying to read books from countries I visited, it was slightly tricky often, partly because I kept visiting countries that were rather lacking in literature translated into English... Anyway, I've been really enjoying spreading my literary wings a bit, even if not quite as much as some in this group!

Moomin is another adulthood discovery for me. It is never too late, though!

Adding: Rudyard Kipling (English), The jungle book, and selected stories.

Oooh, Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Through desert and jungle" too (Polish). And Karl Bruckner's "Sadako wants to live" (German), about the aftermath of the atom bomb in Hiroshima... cost me a river of tears. Huh, in English it's translated as "The day of the bomb"...

It occurs to me we also read translated books as part of the required reading in school. Even in elementary--that Kipling for instance. Dickens and Verne, Collodi, De Amicis...

I teach a world literature class that consists only of translated authors. I think that may be unique to my high school though.

I had almost forgotten Karl May - he used to be one of my favourites, too. And Zane Grey. You mention many of those authors I loved to read. I used to like adventure stories when I was a child. I think my number one favourite was Enid Blyton. The Famous Five books are quite dull from an adult's point of view, but children seem to like them even nowadays.

My favourite book for a long time was Toyon: A Dog of the North and His People by Nicholas Kalashnikoff. I read that over and over again.

Here are the books in translation that I remember reading as a child

The Count of Monte Cristo I loved this book.
The Three Musketeers
Pinocchio
Heidi
Dora by Johanna Spyri - another orphan tale
Anderson's Fairy Tales
The Complete Stories of the Brothers Grimm
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by SELMA LAGERLÖF
Bulfinch's Mythology
Pippi Longstocking
The Swiss Family Robinson - When I was little, I used to play the Swiss Family Robinson while I was sitting in my favorite tree.
The Boy Who Drew Cats and Other Japanese Fairy Tales
Tales from the Arabian Nights
Lots of folk and fairy tales from all over the world
The Odyssey in a dumbed down prose version for children
Tales from the Niebelung
French fairy tales by Perrault and others
Deidre of the Sorrows - Irish
Gudrun's Lay
All of the Moomin books
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Two Thousand Leagues under the Sea
Irish legends and Fairy Tales
The Tales of Hoffmann

Oh and I did read War and Peace the summer before my sixth grade year, but I mostly skipped all the war parts because I thought they were boring. I liked the rest of the novel though. I was fascinated to find the each character could have half a dozen different names.

This is all I remember right now.

I read recently Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson--very cute, and probably embarrassing for someone of my age (not six!), but I can always use the "testing for the niece and nephew" excuse.

It IS a bit young--I'd keep it for ages under eight or so.