ABSTRACT
By the middle of the twentieth century, the American children’s book market had exploded and had long since reached a level of self-suffi ciency. Under those conditions, a book that faces the stiff odds of a costly translation and an increased uncertainty of success attributable to a public challenged by cultural differences, might not be considered for publication in the fi rst place and, if published, might receive less promotion and fewer reviews. Throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-fi rst centuries, the American market has presented and still continues to present extremely high barriers to any foreign-language children’s book. Citing estimates by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in Madison, Wisconsin from 1996, Carl Tomlinson mentions that only 1.2% of the approximately 4,500 books published for children and young adults that year were translations, and most of these were picture books. Only eight of the fi fty-four translations that year were books of “substantial length” (“Children’s Books” 13). Even if these numbers are not entirely verifi able and may vary slightly from year to year, the fact remains that extremely few translations are launched on the American children’s book market.
