ABSTRACT
Childrens literature has always been vulnerable to a high degree of adaptation, thanks to its subordinate position in the literary hierarchy and its classification as ephemeral, or popular literature. Abridgements, adaptations, retellings and multimedia versions of well-known childrens stories are common, so that a spectrum of adaptation from minor alterations to radical rewriting has long been associated, for example, with fairy tales and the classics of childrens fiction. Characters belonging to a childrens canon that is familiar across the world, such as Cinderella, Pinocchio, Alice, the Moomins, Winnie-the-Pooh and the Little Prince, encourage the common perception that childrens literature is an international literature. When working on the translation of a collection of folk tales from written or oral sources, a longstanding connection with the culture of the source text is an advantage, as is the reading and hearing of as many folk tales as possible to detect patterns such as opening and closing rhymes, specific phrases or epithets.
