Jardins publics, aires de jeux et bacs à sable dans les albums narratifs pour enfants : des espaces ludiques de contrôle ou d’affranchissement ?

Abstract

Urban playgrounds for children have been the subject of a great deal of thought in the context of urban policies, but also in the fields of education, anthropology and, more recently, in geography and sociology. Designed for children, for their leisure and development within cities, they are often seen as places where childhood is controlled, secured or spatially assigned. Based on a corpus of children’s books published between 1967 and 2022, in different cultural areas, this article examines the representations of these specific spaces from three perspectives. Firstly, it will look at the way in which creators relate these spaces to the urban environment in which they are set. It will also look at the sociability they enable or hinder within these fictions in text and images. Finally, we’ll look at how the albums also turn these spaces into places where other spaces can be hijacked, by invoking the games and imaginations of the children themselves.

Keywords

• playground
• socialization
• city
• heterotopia
• picturebook
• public park