Who’s got the power? : An analysis of the power structures in children’s literature in the 1970’s and today

Each year a significant number of children’s books, with a wide range of themes, are being published. The relation between children and adults is a common theme. In this study I have analyzed ten children’s books, five from the 1970’s and five from the 2010’s. I have in my analysis used Steven Lukes’ (2008) power theory to examine and compare the power relations between the children and the adults in these books. To find out more about the views that authors of children’s literature have on the adult characters in their books, I have interviewed two authors, Barbro Lindgren who has been writing children’s books since 1965 and Åsa Mendel-Hartvig who started to write children’s literature in 2010. I have compared their views and used them in my analysis. From my studies I could see a change in the power structure. The young characters have more room to act and the adults show less of authority in the books from the 2010’s. There are many possible explanations to this and I choose to see the Swedish curriculum as one of them. Today’s guidelines of letting children be part of decision makings could be an influence on our society as well as on the children’s literature