"Astrid Lindgren"
By: Eva Maria Metcalf
Published 1995
"Lindgren equates childhood with an abundance of imaginative play, and her stories revive the freedom of play that was lost together with childhood. It may be true that this freedom was more intensely felt eighty years ago when ideas about rearing children were stricter and more authoritarian, and when children could throw off the shackles of convention and strict discipline only while at play. Playful imagination became a compensatory expression of freedom in the face of narrowly defined rules and truths. Now that the education of the average child has been liberalized and multiplicity of values has stretched rules, morals, and truths, the need to escape into the free and wild world of play and adventure may not be quite as great. In any case, the chances for playful escape in real life have been narrowed for many middle-class children, whose play-life has become more organized and structured and has come under greater supervision. By going back in time Lindgren offers her readers the chance to partake at least mentally in the free and imaginative play she once experienced.
By: Eva Maria Metcalf
Published 1995
"Lindgren equates childhood with an abundance of imaginative play, and her stories revive the freedom of play that was lost together with childhood. It may be true that this freedom was more intensely felt eighty years ago when ideas about rearing children were stricter and more authoritarian, and when children could throw off the shackles of convention and strict discipline only while at play. Playful imagination became a compensatory expression of freedom in the face of narrowly defined rules and truths. Now that the education of the average child has been liberalized and multiplicity of values has stretched rules, morals, and truths, the need to escape into the free and wild world of play and adventure may not be quite as great. In any case, the chances for playful escape in real life have been narrowed for many middle-class children, whose play-life has become more organized and structured and has come under greater supervision. By going back in time Lindgren offers her readers the chance to partake at least mentally in the free and imaginative play she once experienced.
