The article is an attempt to indicate a turn towards Mother Earth in children’s and young adult literature and to capture the possibilities offered by this turn in terms of spreading pro-ecological attitudes among the indicated audience. The extensive introduction is intended to introduce the reader to the issues related to the climate catastrophe and to familiarize them with the assumptions of ecological humanities. The main part of the article is devoted to identifying and classifying examples of texts for children and adolescents in the field of both Polish and foreign ecoliterature. The analysis of selected books aims to emphasize the educational value of children’s and young adult literature for climate action and to show that it is, among others, thanks to literary texts that young people take / will take up the fight for a better tomorrow for the planet.

he research problem addressed in this article concerns the method of constructing images of “otherness” and of “the Other” by authors of Polish multicultural literature for young readers in the last two decades. Multicultural literature is defined as literature that challenges a social order that is based on discrimination against minority groups. Multicultural literature deconstructs cultural stereotypes and prejudices and promotes intercultural dialogue and inclusiveness. Weronika Kostecka assumes that due to the ethnic and national homogeneity of Polish society, a literary character that uses a language other than Polish, has a skin color other than white, or cultivates other traditions than those commonly identified as Polish, is perceived (in an intra-textual sense and probably also by many prospective young readers) as “the Other.” This leads her to consider — from a postcolonial perspective — the difference between the concepts of otherness and cultural diversity; she points out that the former concept is related to privileging only one — dominant and ego-centric — way of perceiving socio-cultural reality. Finally, Kostecka analyzes the construct of “the Other” on the basis of Polish children’s literature about refugees. She argues that the authors focus on the trauma experienced by the characters as a result of forced migration and solely on their identity as refugees. In conclusion, Kostecka points out that this way of creating refugee stories significantly limits characterization, although it probably serves to emphasize the ethical responsibility of target readers.

This article presents the ideas of factfulness created by H. Rosling and “new realism” presented by R. Bregman in his book Homo Sapiens. The author connects these ideas with subjects and topics present in obligatory reading according to “Podstawa Programowa” [core curriculum]. The author is convinced that “people are better than we think” (Bregman, 2020) and that we should use critical thinking and the idea of factfulness. In this article, she analyses whether those obligatory books are somehow still up-to-date for primary school students and presents some alternative books worth reading in class in order to bring hope and an optimistic look at the future of humanity.

The article is devoted to reflection on the canon and required school reading from the perspective of ecocritical studies, with particular emphasis on the Pieśni Panny XII [The Song of the Virgin XII] by Jan Kochanowski. The author presents the most significant theoretical information on Polish achievements in the field of “environmental humanities” and the role of veganism and vegetarianism in the era of advancing climate change. The article also discusses the dangers of the anthropocentric way of perceiving reality. The author points out the necessity to use the achievements of “environmental humanities” in Polish literature lessons and shows examples of how to read school books through this methodology.

Addressing the challenges of the contemporary world, the climate crisis among them, Samanta Dryja-Zabielska presents her reflections on the function of assigned reading at school and on the role of the teacher in educating young generations. After analyzing the core curriculum and the texts of Polish educators, she goes on to recommend methodological pluralism in literary education. This idea consists in taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the ecocritical reading model in combination with the ethical and intertextual methods of reading literary texts. Dryja-Zabielska presents the main assumptions of these two methods and justifies her choice. A comparative analysis of poems by Czesław Miłosz and Artur Rojek enables her topoint out references to traditional literary and cultural motifs. In the final part of her article, the author emphasizes the role of the teacher, who needs to be open towards the Other: both the student and the literary text. The aim of this approach is not solely to make possible an intellectual and an emotional experience, but also to teach students how to be critical and responsible readers as well as creators of culture and the surrounding world.

This article discusses the introduction of Polish books to children and young adult readers in South Korea. Its particular focus is on picture books which address environmental issues. Wioletta Hajduk-Gawron and Younghwa Kim examine the conditions favourable to the presence of translations of Polish books on the Korean publishing market, the phenomenon of the picture book and the values of eco-education through literature. Using several books as examples, the authors conduct a sample analysis of the chosen strategies used by publishers in the selection of books to be translated. They also examine strategies used in adapting a Polish book for the different cultural context; these strategies involve explication and textual or graphic modifications.

The article discusses the translation of Polish children’s and young adult literature into Slovenian from the beginning to the present day. The first part includes a statistical overview of all Slovenian translations of Polish works for children and young adults published in book form between 1912 and 2020. The overview provides information on the dynamics of translations, the most translated authors and works, and the most prominent translators. The second part focuses
on the young adult bestseller W pustyni i w puszczy [In Desert and Wilderness] by Henryk Sienkiewicz, which is the most popular Polish work for young readers in Slovenia. The discussion of the Polish original is followed by a translatological analysis of the Slovenian editions and a presentation of their reception. Both parts of the article deal with a topic that has not been studied in detail so far and fill an important gap in the research on Slovenian-Polish contacts.

Kateřina Váňová argues that reading narrative literature both contributes to the development of competencies in school-age readers and has a positive influence on a child’s personality in general. In the article’s analytical-interpretative part, she examines the potential of using artistic texts in the process of building emotional maturity in children. She draws attention to the method’s practical application in the process of socialization and of building self-knowledge.

The work focuses on pedagogical translation as motivational tool. In particular, as a tool that works on the motivation of the beginner L2 student. The specific working language is Czech, but we believe that what has been observed may also apply to other languages, whose teaching is characterized by a small number of students. The aim is to offer a theoretical and practical framework to better frame translation as a teaching tool even for beginners L2 at the University. After presenting what we mean with lower-frequency language, pedagogical translation and beginner group, we move into the work with translation and how this activity fits into the investigation of motivations in the LS.

The aim of the article is to consider whether Agata Tuszyńska and Iwona Chmielewska’s publication is a literary redefinition of the act of testimony. The author analyzes the relationship between text and image, at the same time referring to the life-writing trend. Moreover, the author raises questions about the relationship between the borrowed past and collective memory. In the article, the author also draws attention to the creation of a child’s perspective, which is mainly generated through the mother tongue. The parent is the only person who creates the imaginary synthesis of the individual elements of Polish culture in miniature. Therefore, the author analyzes the stylization aspect of Tuszyńska’s story on the child’s perception, which often turns out to be simultaneously inscribing the extreme situation into the space of a fairy tale.

On the basis of diaries and memoires of children of the Holocaust (Rywka Lipszyc, Renia Knoll, Helga Weissova, Dawid Sierakowiak, Dawid Rubinowicz, Maryla, and Rutka Laskier), Justyna Szewczyk outlines the image of God that emerges in the minds of the protagonists. Using the methodology of the linguistic image of the world, she analyzes this image based on a number of categories: God as seen in tradition and in everyday life; God as seen through feelings, through human identity, fate, suffering, and fatherhood. Of great importance in extrapolating the image of God found in diaries and memoirs is personalization. Personalization manifests itself, for example, in replacing God’s central position, during religious holidays and festivals, with human problems; in transferring God’s traditional competencies to the worst enemies; and in describing God in terms which are familiar to children (spatial ones and those related to the senses). In the analyzed texts, God also acquires a historical coloring: as the creator of tradition and the performer of great miracles in the past, but also as an entity whose presence is no longer experienced today. Some personal accounts testify to a psychological manner of perceiving God, as when the protagonist transfers to God tasks not fulfilled by his or her earthly father.

The article shows the universality of Dr. Jacek Kurek’s conception of teaching through rapture. Originally used in teaching history, this idea can be successfully adapted to lessons of the Polish language, literature and culture. Alicja Podstolec indicates three interpenetrating levels of didactic activity: unusual use of school space, building relationships with students and a congenial atmosphere in classes, and various educational activities that give the teacher the opportunity to implement the principles of teaching through rapture (involving the use of music, literature, and painting to create a space for experience and emotions). Podstolec shows that the idea of experiencing rapture, as conducive to cognition, also works well in the space of Polish language lessons, but should never be a simple duplication of solutions and ideas of other educators.

This article is an attempt to examine whether literature can be a remedy for the problems faced by children of different ages. The report Children’s rights from the perspective of children, parents and teachers was published in 2019 by UNICEF Polska. It has been used to diagnose the reasons for unhappiness among children aged 12—17. Among the reasons are: school and education, relationships with loved ones, relationships with peers. In her article, Katarzyna Kotaba refers to such authorities as Irena Borecka, Maria Molicka, and Bruno Bettelheim and to their unanimous opinion that good and valuable literature takes seriously children, their concerns and difficulties; moreover, this kind of literature helps children to overcome difficulties by building their self-confidence. Kotaba identifies the main thematic motifs in Gawryluk’s fiction and shows how this writer’s novels can help under-age readers cope in specific life situations,
such as the parents’ divorce, emigration, and racism. In conclusion, she suggests that Gawryluk’s novels could be regarded as a cure for young readers’ problems as identified in the UNICEF report.

In this article, Krystyna Zabawa analyses Barbara Gawryluk’s novel for older children Czarna, Klifka i tajemnice z dna morza [Czarna, Klifka and the secrets from the seabed] from the perspective of the commentaries this novel makes on language issues and on aspects of interpersonal as well as interspecies communication. Zabawa identifies the ways in which the novel presents foreign languages (Swedish and English) and how it encourages young readers to learn
them. Zabawa interprets Gawryluk’s novel a text about communication problems and about the conditions necessary for mutual understanding among people. She also analyses passages in the novel that address human-animal and animal-animal communication.

The article attempts to present one of the extremely important themes in the work of Barbara Gawryluk, which is emigration and the creation of a new home abroad. The author of the article, referring to selected works by the Krakow writer, tries to present how Gawryluk constructs the motif of a journey and the topos of the home and read the meaning that the writer gives to these spaces. The researcher notes the differences between the literary images of emigration caused by difficult economic conditions and the images of refugees forced to leave their homeland to save their lives.

In her article Oliwia Brzeźniak-Pałgan analyses Barbara Gawryluk’s novel Zuzanka z pistacjowego domu [Zuzanka from a Pistachio House], which in 2010 received the Kornel Makuszyński Polish Nationwide Literary Award, in the context of the features characteristic Kornel Makuszyński’s work. The analysis takes into account the specific features of Makuszyński’s four most famous novels for children and adolescents (Panna z mokrą głową, Szatan z siódmej klasy, Awantura o Basię, Szaleństwa panny Ewy): unconventional protagonists, crazy (and dangerous) adventures, the readiness to help others, complicated family situations, humor, happy ending.

The article reviews the book Disability in Polish Children’s and Young Adult Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries by Alicja Fidowicz. The author of the review analyzes the book against the background of the changes in the humanistic reflection on disability studies in the context of social changes and the history of children’s and young adult literature.

The article discusses the content of the book by Małgorzata Chrobak, The Hero of Polish Children’s and Young Adult Literature from the PRL Period. Between Creation and Reception, valuable for a diverse audience, including young researchers of literature. The author of the review emphasizes the cognitive value of the first chapter of the monograph, which contains a description of the customs of the PRL period, thanks to the analysis of contemporary works for a young audience set in socialist Poland. Next, the content of the second chapter of the book, which deals with the definition of young adult literature from various perspectives, is presented. The third chapter, entitled “The Hero of Young Adult Literature in the Face of Initiation”, written in the spirit of cultural poetics, is a successful analysis of the creation of several heroes from novels from the PRL period. In the last, fourth chapter of the book, Agnieszka Kania notices a certain lack of examples in an interestingly thought-out and presented clash of the heroes with various aspects of the reality of the People’s Republic of Poland.

The aim of the article is to present Zofia Kossak’s scout reportages that were written in the 1930s and newly published after 63 years in 2020 and to analyse them in terms of shaping and thematising time. The purpose of the analysis is also to place the described events in the context of four elements. At the end of the text, the author outlines new prospects for research and the possibilities of using the analysed book in education which could be recommended because of its artistic values and timeliness of its message.

Interview with Beata Ostrowicka — children’s and young adult literature author, the finalist of the 27th Kornel Makuszyński Polish National Literary Award. On October 9, 2020, the awards gala was organised by the Municipal Public Library in Oświęcim. The talk concerns Ostrowicka’s book Szczygły [Goldfinches], which, among ten other nominated books, alongside Marcin Przewoźniak’s Puk Puk! Zastałem króla? [Knock, Knock! Is the King Home?] and Roksana Jędrzejewska-Wróbel’s Pracownia Aurory [Aurora’s Workshop] fought for the main prize. In the book, the author takes up, among other things, ecological themes and those related to exclusion and coming of age. It fits into the extraordinary space of a children’s world full of magic.

The interview with Marcin Przewoźniak took place on the occasion of the author winning the Kornel Makuszyński Polish National Literary Award for the book Puk, puk! Zastałem króla? [Knock, Knock! Is the King Home?]. The creator talks about what inspired the creation of the awarded book, how to present history to a contemporary young reader, how to prepare to write about history. He also talks about his favorite childhood books, literature and its creation, and his attitude to the thought that one of his books could be on the school reading list.