Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature

In the past few weeks, the image of a little boy, Alan Kurdi, lying dead on a beach has shaken the world, and it has shaken me. That image changed things. It is no longer easy to look the other way and ignore what is happening. Yes, finally, the catastrophic situation of the refugees fleeing war in the Middle East has sunk in, even among us who lead sheltered and comfortable lives far from war and destitution. Many of us want to help. A transformation is hopefully taking place.

The first time I saw the image of Alan Kurdi was on the internet. It was one or two days before the start of my class on children’s literature. I was preparing what to say in my first lecture but kept returning in my thoughts to the three-year old boy lying face-down in the sand. In my mind, the image merged with that of Pinocchio: the shocking scene at the end of the Disney movie, when Jiminy Cricket finds Pinocchio on the beach, drowned. This comes after Pinocchio has saved Gepetto and the others from death by fleeing Monstro in a raft. Of course, in the story, Pinocchio is eventually resurrected and transformed into a “real boy” by the Blue Fairy. But the scene is disturbing nevertheless—and today, after Alan Kurdi’s death, even more so. The visual similarities are apparent: the size of the victims, the clothes (the shorts, the red and black colors of the clothes), the face-down position and eerily relaxed posture, the site (and sight) of death. Even the situation or back story (flight from danger across the sea) and the tragic outcome, are similar.

I am of course not suggesting that the photographer was consciously referencing Disney’s Pinocchio. Nor am I saying that the (temporary) death of a fictional character and the death of a real boy can be compared—they cannot. But the power of photos, films, literature—whether fictional or documentary—resides in their ability to appeal to our imagination. Art can be transformative both when it serves invented comedy and real life tragedy. The real transformation miracle in Pinocchio is not that a puppet is resurrected or even that he is turned into a real boy but that we, the audience, have been transformed: we have started caring for him. In this world, Alan Kurdi will not [End Page 2] be magically resurrected by a Blue Fairy. But the image of his death is truly transformative. And that is a miracle.

The ability to respond imaginatively and caringly to images and texts, such as the ones described above, goes way beyond the requirements of functional literacy. To be able to decode pictures and words is important, but if the words and pictures do not connect at some deeper level of our being, and make us feel, how can we claim that we can read and see? The oral tales, the verses and songs, the picture books, the movies, the books—in the end, they are important because they teach us what it is to be human.

Bookbird matters because books and stories matter. I am not the only one who thinks this way. In this issue, Beverley Naidoo writes about why and how she became a writer, but also why and how children’s books matter. From another angle, Steven Withrow discusses the hows and whys of translation. The work of translation is often overlooked, which is a pity; without translations all countries and languages—even the biggest and most widely dispersed—would be poorer. Translation makes it possible to connect with peoples and cultures all over the world. One of the featured articles, Lisa Chu Shen’s “Translation, Children’s Literature, and Lu Xun’s Intellectual Struggles,” brings up one such case. Moreover, besides the topic of translation, there is also a geographic connection here to two other China-themed texts in this issue. Xu Xu writes about “The Image of China in Red Scarf Girl: Promoting International Understanding or Reinforcing Western Hegemony?” And Qi Tongwei contributes with a Letter: “Traditional...