Pojedziemy w cudny kraj… O aspektach teorii i historii książek dla dzieci w dorobku naukowym Janusza Dunina

Abstract

Professor Janusz Dunin-Horakiewicz (1931–2007) – a humanist, bibliologist, academic lecturer, bibliophile. He studied the development of the forms of children books and their structural differentiation, he analyzed the language of signs allowing to read not only in a book, but also a book itself as an object filled with meaning; his signature method of conducting research was the structural – typological identification of the publications and their purpose. The path-clearing character of Dunin’s works, his search for methods and ways to articulate bibliological knowledge pointed him towards interdisciplinarity. The scholar often used his bibliophile knowledge and underlined that among the old children books the important ones are those which survived within the collections, becoming the important element of the culture, even if they don’t possess any artistic value. Professor Dunin was one of the most important book historians and theoreticians in Poland, and his works deserves to be analyzed and interpreted by modern day researchers.