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Narrative Changes in Norwegian Children's Literature Exemplified by the Picture Book Snill
Norway is a small country that produces a great amount of high-quality literature for children. Modern children's literature is often experimental, challenging the reader, playing with old truths, turning the world upside down, asking questions rather than providing answers. Furthermore, it is often humorous, ironic, playful, and dealing with serious and difficult questions in human life, with existential problems, or even criticizing society's power structures.
A new tendency in Norwegian children's literature is an increasing number of narrative layers in the texts, like metafiction, intertextuality, allegory, and parody. These different narrative devices might appeal to different readers, and in this way modern children's literature appeals equally to both children and adult readers. One example of a modern children's book that plays with old truths and successfully addresses both child and adult at the same time is the 2002 prize winner of the Norwegian Literature Prize, Brageprisen. It is a picture book called Snill (Oslo: J.W. Cappelens Forlag a.s, 2002), which can be translated as "kind," "good," or "good-natured."
The text is written by Gro Dahle, a writer of children's books and poetry for adults, and the illustrator is her husband, Svein Nyhus, who has both written and illustrated his own children's books. The front cover is in pink with yellow stars placed in order, like wallpaper, and with a picture of the girl Lussi, the main character of the story. In the first pictures, she is drawn very small, sitting at a big table, doing her homework. She looks as if she is concentrating very hard, and there is a strong feeling of silence in the pictures. The book asks questions about what the ideal child should be like. Is kind the same as silent? Lussi is...