The Ugly Duckling, Harry Potter and Others. A Guide to Children's Books About Orphans

There are topics that seem to lie on the surface, yet at the same time are poorly studied. How many pages of world literature are devoted to orphans - countless. Ancient and medieval authors wrote about children without fathers and/or... mothers, followed by Charles Dickens and Roald Dahl, Astrid Lindgren and Hans Christian Andersen, Benjamin Kaverin and Korney Chukovsky, and this topic continues to receive attention today. What causes such interest in the archetype of the orphan? How has this image evolved over the centuries? What values are conveyed in "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" and "The Hunger Games"? The author of the book "The Ugly Duckling, Harry Potter and Others. A Guide to Children's Books About Orphans" Olga Bukhina poses similar questions and finds many unexpected answers that say a lot about us, the readers. The book provides a detailed analysis of the motif of orphanhood in world literature, focusing on the most popular, read, and discussed books of the past and present. The nineteenth-century orphan suffered and tried to find a way to survive in life, in the twentieth century, he became resolute and active, and in the twenty-first century, he turned out to be capable of saving the world, like Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen. Translator, literary critic, and children's literature specialist Olga Bukhina analyzes the reasons for these changes and outlines possible future developments of the image. The guide will be useful for parents, librarians, and educators striving to select the most suitable literature for children's reading. It will aid them in their choices with well-organized reference material, including lists of books and films, as well as a unique author's "Encyclopedia of Orphans." Furthermore, the book will appeal to connoisseurs of cultural phenomenon studies. Olga Bukhina, a translator and specialist in children's reading, is educated as a psychologist. This is evident in her remarkably precise observations of numerous literary characters: she always focuses on the personal traits and motivations of the characters, whether it is an animal from a fairy tale or a teenager from a dystopian future world.