TENDENCIES OF HUNGARIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE IN 2020 AND OTTÓ KISS’S CHILDREN’S MONOLOGUE TITLED A BÁTYÁM ÖCCSE [THE LITTLE BROTHER OF MY BIG BROTHER]

Abstract

The present study discusses Hungarian children’s literature of 2020 with a focus on its decisive works. We analyze works whose authors were nominated for or won the Author of the Children’s Book of the Year prize in the under 12 years age category. Within the corpus of the investigated works two strong genre-based tendencies prevail: tale novel and children’s monologue. We will be discussing how the position of lyric poetry gets re-positioned and becomes the marker of the mystical based on the analyzed works. From a poetics perspective, we will discuss the effects postmodern text-creation strategies have on children’s literature, the lyric self of certain works / role-play of narrators, but we also touch upon the question of which works can be connected to active illustrations. Lastly, we shed light upon what solutions these works have for inspiring the reader to become co-resolvers and co-creators. We will analyze Mari Takács’s Bingaminga és a babkák [Bingaminga and the Babkas], Erzsi Kertész’s Éjszakai Kert [Night Garden], Borbála Szabó’s A János vitéz-kód [The John the Valiant Code], Edina Kertész’s Lajhár, a sztár [Sloth, the Star], András Dániel’s Nincs itt semmi látnivaló [Nothing Here to Be Seen] as well as the prize-winning A bátyám öccse [The Little Brother of My Big Brother] written by Ottó Kiss.