Nietzsche For Tots


Have you ever interacted with a three year-old and thought, “what this kid needs is some Nietzsche”? Me neither. Those who are before good and evil don’t need to be encouraged to move beyond it, in my experience. 

But perhaps that is a mistake. A reader recently shared with me Nietzsche in Shapes and Colors, a board book aimed at introducing Nietzschean themes to children by way of simple phrases and beautiful illustrations, including naturalism:

will to power:

perspectivism:

resilience:

and more.

(The book is listed as being written and illustrated in the 1970s by one Hålla Dagdrömma and recently translated from its original Swedish by Theresa Vishnevetskaya, but that may be more Kierkegaardian flourish than bibliographic fact.)

You can check it out here.

Related: readers may recall the project of John Holbo (NUS) to produce a Dr. Seuss-like version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra for kids.

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Ken Friedman
Ken Friedman
7 years ago

Thanks for the note on Nietzsche in Shapes and Colors. This is a brief note on the author.

The name Dr. Hålla Dagdrömma is most likely is pseudonym. “Hålla” means “keep” and “dagdrömma” means “daydream.” The name means something like, “keep the daydream,” or perhaps it has the tone of “keep on dreaming.”

Ken Friedman

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia

Email [email protected] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn

H
H
7 years ago

“Hålla Dagdrömma” is not only a pseudonym – probably no Swedish original exists at all. If you search for Hålla Dagdrömma in the online catalogue of the Swedish National Library, you do not get any results. It would be very interesting to get more information about all this.

Wendy C Turgeon
7 years ago

Just a quick comment. Clearly you have ever lived with a three yeat old as they are riveted by good and evil, every day, every hour. eg., Ice cream is good; bedtime is evil. Those binary concepts are some of the first philosophical ideas (along with truth and falsity, beauty and ugliness) that very young children grasp and begin to ponder. so this book may be right up your average three year old’s, or forty three yar old’s, alley!
p.s. I am not the author so this is not a plug.