As in the case of
all other children’s writers, childhood was of great importance to Jens
Sigsgaard’s (1910-91) oeuvre. He had grown up on a farm in northwest Jutland in
a home inspired by the ideals of Grundtvig and Kold and with a sense of a
working fellowship on the farm. According to his own words, his upbringing was
“distinguished by what we today would call ‘self management’”.
He trained as a teacher and also qualified as a psychologist, taking the degree of cand. psyk.
And for almost 35 years he was principle of the Frøbel Training College in
Copenhagen, which trained nursery school teachers. He stands as one of the
leading educational reformers of his generation, helping to set the agenda for
the pedagogical debate and for pedagogical progress for several decades from
the end of the 1930s. He was radical in his views – rounded and pragmatic in
his formulations.
Jens Sigsgaard
called himself a lucky devil, and it is true that only a very small number of
authors have the fortune to enjoy a world-wide success with their first book –
and a picture book at that. The book was Palle
Alene i verden (Palle Alone in the World, 1942) with illustrations by Arne
Ungermann, one of the most important Danish illustrators of the 20th
century and until his death in 1981, harmoniously collaborating with Sigsgaard
as his illustrator par excellence.
As a result of his
studies in psychology, Sigsgaard took an interest in the opposition which will
be children’s inevitable reaction during the process of upbringing that within
a few years is to change their biological reactions and train them to adapt to
a “civilised” life. A study of more than a thousand 5-8-year-old children who
were asked what they would do if they became invisible turned up, in the
author's words, some “interesting stuff”. They form the inspiration to Palle alene i verden. Here, we meet a
boy, a male counterpart to the almost contemporaneous Swedish Pippi
Longstocking, who has dreams in which he can do everything he wants. Meanwhile,
he soon discovers that it is too uninteresting to be alone in the world. The
moral is that we need each other in a social commonalty. No one can be
sufficient to himself or herself.
The critics gave
the book an extremely positive reception and today it can be read in 35
different languages published in still more countries. It is a book that so to
speak has kept pace with time, as it has been revised time and time again. In
the last picture in the original version, Palle was seen sitting in bed,
crying. After a discussion of positive and negative endings in books for small
children, the picture was replaced in 1954 by a new one in which Palle is in a
playground with other children. The next modification came as the result of
social change. The book was again illustrated throughout by Arne Ungermann, who
modernised the entire range of pictures, for instance replacing trams with
buses. This modernised version lasted for ten years. In 1984 Palle returned to
his original appearance in which, in 1992, he was able to celebrate his 50th
birthday – still young and resilient.
Jens Sigsgaard’s profound interest in children’s folklore inspired him to write two books that
have become classics in Denmark: Okker
Gokker Gummiklokker (Easy Peasy Nice and Squeezy,1943) and Abel Spendabel (Abel Spendable, 19454).
The starting point for these books is a collection of two thousand rhymes by
Copenhagen school children. Several contributors to the public debate at the
time described this kind of poetry as rubbish. But “nonsense verse” has
subsequently become a positive term for a characteristic genre.
In addition to picture books starting out in children’s everyday worlds, Jens Sigsgaard found
inspiration in the world of Greek legend and myth. He also wrote a new Danish
version of Robin Hood (1952), this
time for older children on the basis of the English Robin Hood, Ballads and
Songs Related to that Celebrated Outlaw (1852).
Sigsgaard, who ran
a book agency for a time and thus helped to make known some important oeuvres
from an early stage, for instance Astrid Lindgren, translated a number of Elsa
Beskow’s books for children into Danish as early as the 1940s. He was
international in outlook, and as a result was a co-founder of the organisations
O.M.E.P. and I.P.A. of which he became an honorary member.
In his work as author, psychologist and college principal, Jens Sigsgaard devoted himself
primarily to children of pre-school age, who at that time constituted a
neglected group – especially in the media. He never became an art pour art author, but on the contrary
spoke out in favour of “children’s need to discover the diversity and mysteries
of a motley life”, as he put it.
(2001)
