Outside In
by Edited by Deborah Halford and Ed Zaghini
How many children's books do you know that are translations from other languages? Yes, well Emil and the Detectives and Pippi Longstocking and Asterix. But the editors of this welcome collection have found 170 titles, from countries as diverse as Holland, Norway, Greece and Portugal and Dual language books with texts in Somali, Bengali, Turkish and many other languages.
But this is not just an annotated list, useful as that would be. There are intelligent articles by Nicholas Tucker, award-winning translator Sarah Adams and others. I was especially pleased to see the books of Lene Kaaberbol featured, together with an article by her. I came across this Danish writer only this year and have enjoyed her splendid "Shamer" quartet, which she translated into English herself.
And as she writes in her article, "Translation is impossible. Transformation is not. Praise be to the unsung heroes who perform such miracles."
And praise be to these two tireless editors for bringing us so many new names to look out for.
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