ACROSS TIME, ROLE, AND GENRE. A REVIEW OF THE BOOK: FIELDWORK IN UKRAINIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE. ED. BY M. ŚWIETLICKI AND A. ULANOWICZ. NEW YORK: ROUTLEDGE, 2025

Abstract

The review of the collective monograph Fieldwork in Ukrainian Children’s Literature, published in 2025 under the editorship of Polish researcher Mateusz Świetlicki and the American researcher Anastasia Ulanowicz, provides a detailed analysis of the book about Ukrainian children’s and young adult literature. The review examines the structure and content of the monograph, describes the team of authors, and highlights the significance of the publication as a contribution to the development of the designated research problem, presenting it within a broad cultural, historical and literary context. In their works, the authors of the monograph demonstrate that modern Ukrainian children’s literature is evolving dynamically, reflecting both the influence of classical literary traditions and the impact of contemporary socio-political events, such as armed conflicts and the processes of change and national identity formation. The chronological and thematic scope of the research subject is, on the one hand, quite broad — ranging from traditional folklore to contemporary children’s literature and mass genres — while, on the other hand, it remains clearly defined by the boundaries of national culture. The author of the review outlines the main content of the twelve articles included in the monograph, briefly characterizes the research approaches to the stated problems, and examines the theoretical role of the introduction and conclusion, which gives a fairly complete picture of the book under review.

Keywords: children’s literature, Ukrainian literature, diaspora, picture book, memory of the next generation, war in children’s literature, identity