일제강점기 아동문학 서평의 양상과 의미

Abstract

I analyze the book reviews for children’s literature from Japanese colonial era by dividing them into the following: reviews of preface and postscripts; children’s story and tale collections; children’s literature anthology; and children’s song collections. Children’s literature was poorly treated in the literary world, and reviews accounted for only about 20% of published books. Book reviews function to introduce books and help readers choose. In addition, from the perspective of authors and publishers, it has promotional effects that leads to sales. For this reason, book reviews were mostly commissioned by authors or publishers to acquaintances and authorities, thus being favorable for sales but not significant in terms of criticism. However, there was a lot of sharp criticism in independent reviews, and even in requested reviews some expressed their criticism indirectly. Book reviews of children’s literature from the Japanese colonial period were lacking in many ways, but they hold historical value from today’s point of view. In addition, they contributed to the formation of the field of children’s literature and functioned as a cornerstone enabling self-renewal of the literary circle. In the future, it is necessary to progress to book review research of the liberation period and beyond. This will show what effects book reviews had on the development and readership of Korean children’s literature, consequently giving direction to the current and future publication of children’s literature as well as the reader’s choice.