Is children's literature not too linked to education?

In general, this is considered everywhere. Many say that it is a field that also has to live on the margins of education, and I think it should be, but the reality is different. We live here thanks to schools, although, as Mariasun Landa recently said, “a book is pedagogical when it is well written”.

Argentine writer María Teresa Anduetto, awarded the Andersen Prize in 2012, questions the value and values of children's literature. He says that this close connection with education is counterproductive, because it puts children's literature at the mercy of the didactic tab, because it makes it always worth something, and because all art takes away what it needs. I agree with him, but we live here…

It is precisely in this small Basque world.

Yes, and here's what's out there. However, the strategic use of education is fine, but not to say that a book is to work equality. Equality has to be worked on every day, the book can help, but literature is something else. After all, the whole chain is at stake, and it would be good if the teachers knew it too. It seems that today all things have to be practical, useful. And that's OK, but besides serving to learn how to read the child, it has something else. Literature, like all arts, has to work emotions, has to have magic and illusion. Without them, I don't know what it is, just letters and paper.

The literature on children has no place in the learning processes.

It's not a big deal. In the teaching schools there is didactics of language and literature, but it is closely linked to language. The Early Childhood Education modules offer a small space for the subject.

In Barcelona there is a three-year master’s degree. This is where the branches, the intermediaries, the exquisite librarians, the teachers, the critics and the nodes that will form the system are formed. We do not have it, but we have people who have been working for years and, therefore, a fundamental experience. The key would be how to convey that experience.

You've done school at school. What do you see?

It's all seen in schools. You see the child, the teacher, the parents, the educational system, the relationships, what works and what doesn't... Where will this experience be?

What do you claim?

I am no longer claiming anything. I try to do whatever I want, and it's enough. Otherwise you lose yourself on the road or get angry. And what I want is for the child to be face-down when he's in front of him, and when there's an intermediary, he'll also be heard wanting and smiling. In these times we have to do so with as little money as possible, and that is something that experience provides, to a large extent, a dynamic balance of experience and up-to-date information.

The Children's and Youth Literature should be cultivated, appear, vindicate and show. We must pave the way for people to know them. It needs standardisation. What is normalized is used.

Children's poetry is becoming more and more abundant.

And in addition, it was magnificent. There are for young children and for the elderly. Kids love it, and parents love it, too, when they discover it. The problem is always, they're afraid in schools, because they don't know. Narrative predominates, and in terms of writing, above all, textualization oriented to concrete forms.

Illustrated albums have also increased.

But not enough is known yet and little is used in schools. If children's and youth literature is considered a subgenre of low prestige, think about what illustrated albums are. Most people think they're for very young children. When I go to classes, I also teach 8-12 year-olds and they like the counterpoint of text and image, but the general convention goes on to say that reading is reading many pages full of letters.

Every book is said to be a world.

Yes, but no: books are paper and letters. Books are made by people -- writers -- so that other people -- readers -- enjoy them. Therefore, we give life to books. People usually go to the courses to find recipes, asking what is good, but it's not that simple, there are no recipes. Providing information, but managing it individually according to your wishes, needs or capabilities. Everyone will have to adapt to their reality, as children, situations, tastes or life processes are very different. On the contrary, this process of adaptation to the search can be nice, because it is also creative. Therefore, these three workshops should be to give their importance to children’s literature and promote its value. In general, in all three of them the emotion will be worked, the illusion will be worked, because without that there is a party with the children, and, of course, magic; also magic, like silence, because we can build it ourselves.

We will meet the hidden friends who accompany the letter: the echo of the silences, the stimulating attention, the intrigue, the emotion, the inner world. Without them, because literature is paper.

What do you need in your workshops?

In schools, I want a big place. I use chairs and tables, but I also really like the free space, to act, to read, to move, to sit on the ground… The goal is not to be quiet and standing, but somehow “trapped”.

Do you explain in the workshops what the role of literature should be?

When I studied anthropology, what a wise man from a tribe said was stuck in me. People need three kinds of food to move forward: bread to feed the body, companions to cheer the heart and accounts to reassure the soul. That's where I start my workshops. Because we know very well how the body feeds, we have at the base the rites of filling the stomach, how to breastfeed, when to start giving the fruits… We also know very well what about friends…

Do you have to know why the soul has no peace?

I myself asked myself that question earlier, but now I find it more effective to look for it, simply, with effort, and that is where the book can have an auxiliary function. With children, you often need an indirect language to get to them. Many times at night you're telling a story, and all of a sudden the kid starts telling things, so he did this to me or whatever. The world of emotions is there, it has its home, and to get to it, direct questions don't always work. Literature does not always guarantee that the door is opened, but some key may be kept.

What has changed in these twenty years?

A lot of things. The passions are the same, while the attention time has been greatly shortened. In the case of adults, the literature on children arouses curiosity, especially among the parents of young children. For example, parents have also started asking for workshops. At Donostia-San Sebastian, Book Day had a talk workshop in which men and women participated. We had a great time.