Picture books represent an extensive part of literature through which children gain their first reading experiences. Pre-school children lack reading skills which is why their parents or other adults enable those experiences. When reading picture books, we can observe that children do not understand their message in the same way as adults; moreover, they might not understand it at all. Social norms, values and known environmental factors are the reasons adults perceive motifs differently from children who are not influenced by these factors. These types of picture books are known as crossover literature because they cross from child to adult audiences. Svetlana Makarovič is a representative of a crossover author. At first sight, her fairy tales are intended for children. However, when reading them, adults discover new truths that are presented through her characters’ trials.
The theoretical part of the master’s thesis firstly focuses on children’s literature, its definitions, beginning and development in Slovenia. Afterwards, we introduce the term dual audience and this way move on to crossover literature. The thesis then draws attention to picture book. We describe its history in Slovenia, define the term and list some of its basic characteristics. The final chapter in the theoretical part focuses on the author Svetlana Makarovič and her literary creation. We define her style of writing, which is distinctively crossover, and provide concrete examples to support our statement. We introduce the term animal tale, a genre typical for Svetlana Makarovič. The chapter continues with a presentation of her three fairy tales Sapramiška, Pekarna Mišmaš and Veveriček posebne sorte. The presentation includes some of the stories’ characteristics, the years of their first editions and reprints, as well as the changes of details in the stories and illustrations considering the editions and different illustrators. Each fairy tale is briefly summarised and we have included some interesting facts about them as well. The thesis also introduces the author’s collection of poems Pesmi muce potovke, which includes all her poems for children accompanied by illustrations of a number of authors.
The empirical research consists of a literary analysis of the three fairy tales by Svetlana Makarovič – Sapramiška, Pekarna Mišmaš and Veveriček posebne sorte. The analysis is based on a cognitive theory by Bettina Kűmmerling-Meibauer (2004). It includes quotes from the picture books accompanied by comments. We have tried to establish what makes the studied fairy tales good quality and whether the feedback of readers of different ages differs in any way. The collected data has been shown in tables and each motif has been accompanied by arguments.
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