A História como veículo de identidade nacional nos livros infanto-juvenis portugueses: alguns títulos entre 1880 e 1940

Abstract

Some books intended for children and juvenile readers are teeming with contents that largely surpass the simple educational and recreational roles, inherent to the act of reading and the access to countless scenarios of enchantment and imagination. They serve, above all, the purpose of shaping ideologies, morals and behaviors, throughout the different political Portuguese regimes in power between 1880 and 1940. The sense of a national identity is an extremely important subject, recurrently present on children’s and juvenile books, is often introduced by the telling of the Portuguese History, embedded with the code of moral values, as well as the political, cultural and socioeconomic conceptions of each time frame, intended not only to perpetuate, but also and most importantly, to establish social templates or models deemed to be assimilated at young age.