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How can it be that an early 20th-century classic Swedish children's text deals with such up-to-the-minute 21st-century concerns as the importance of preventing ecological disaster? Björn Sundmark's reading of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils in light of the work of Peter Kemp on citizenship of the world also looks at new interpretations of this classic book and identifies its true heir not in Sweden but in Denmark
Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige (1906/7) (published in English as The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf is by general agreement a remarkable work. Charmed by the extraordinary tale, one easily forgets that the story of the spoilt boy Nils, who is - literally - cut down to size by an elf, and then has to travel the length and breadth of Sweden on goose-back before he can return home reformed, is in fact an elementary school reader-cumgeography-book. In 1901, Alfred Dalin, a leading representative of one of the teachers' unions in Sweden, asked Selma Lagerlöf if she could undertake the writing of a new school reader. By that time Lagerlöf was already celebrated for Gösta Berlings saga [The story of Gösta Berling] and Antikrists mirakler [The miracles of the Antichrist], and she won the Nobel prize for literature in 1909. It was a bold but far seeing initiative to approach the best writer of the age to write for children. But Lagerlöf, with her teacher's background, naturally warmed to the suggestion. She soon came up with the idea that the book should deal with Swedish geography:
'In my mind I have asked myself what a child needs to feel and have a fresh and living knowledge about first and foremost. And the answer is obviously that what the little ones ought to be well acquainted with is their own country' (Ahlström 1942).
One has to acknowledge that the result was formidable. With The Wonderful Adventures, Lagerlöf provides a uniform 'national language' for all Swedes to learn regardless of provenance or class. Through it Lagerlöf creates a powerful picture of Sweden. She takes stock of the nation's natural resources, characterises its inhabitants and draws upon legend and history. Nils's journey delimits the borders of Sweden. All of this is achieved through the framework of the...