History: Faculty Publications

Children and the Character of Italy: Consuming Juvenile Literature in Wartime and Conflict

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2023

Publication Title

Women and Children in Conflict, 1900-1950

Abstract

This chapter examines the Italian women who published individually bound books aimed at children during and immediately after the Great War to gauge contemporary attitudes about how girls were supposed to respond to war. Almost all Italian children’s books (both fiction and non-fiction) about the war adopted a patriotic, prowar stance that valorized soldiers and encouraged sacrifice. Almost none featured female characters. Despite sharing similar views about the war and how to present it, the Italian women writing about the Great War for children formed a diverse group. They came from different generations and were disproportionately Jewish. Some became avid Fascists, others committed anti-Fascists. This chapter discusses the central themes of the works published by women and investigates where their wartime patriotism took them during the Fascist regime.

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