‘Every Person His or Her Book’: 20th Century Tamil Children’s Book Design
Masters thesis | Distinction | Feb 2020
Students reading in the library of The Children’s Garden School, Chennai. Photograph c.1960s, reproduced in Celebrating 80 years of The Children’s Garden School, 1937–2017.
AbstractThis dissertation applies a design history approach to the Tamil children’s book, across a fifty year period from 1920 to 1970. It places the book within the home, school and library space to consider why the image of the reading girl became a popular image on children’s book covers and how representative this was of the material reality of girlhood and the book object.
Through this it is argued that the reading girl image epitomised growing middle-class and elite values, which positioned the child within formal education, and the book as an idealised symbol of leisure, curiosity and knowledge. In contrast, an analysis of the materiality of Tamil children’s books during this period suggests that the book was approached by students as an instrumental object within formal education. Finally, this dissertation explores how the library was seen as a possible bridge between the idealised book object and material reality of use.
The title quote is taken from S. R. Ranganathan, The Five Laws of Library Science (Madras: The Madras Library Association, 1931), p. 75.