Why do children need footnotes? The role of footnotes in books addressed at young readers

Abstract

Footnotes in books for youth and children seem to be of minor importance. At the first glance, they are used by publishing houses for the purpose of necessary explanation of difficult or foreign words appearing in the text, additional description of characters, places, events of phenomena. However, apart from the explanatory footnotes by the editor, there are also ones by translators or authors, which leads to questions to questions concerning the reason for their appearance, otherness or role. As the author demonstrates, there is great variety among the types of footnotes: written in prose and in rhyme, dictionary or factual, informative and biographical etc. At present, they are increasingly often more than merely a comment, an addition to the text, but serve as an integral graphic and literary part of books, introducing a chorus and a dialogue, as well as various games with the reader. In addition, in books for young readers footnotes not only help with reading the text, but are also a mark of the presence and changeability of the outside world. Footnotes are evidence for a young reader’s knowledge, as well as the image of children and youth and the resulting manner of treating them in different periods, and as such they constitute a subject of not only editorial, but also literary studies and social sciences. The factors which are both important and rich in information are both the reasons for their appearance and lack of them, their content and form, as well as the recipient they are created for.