Epp Petrone: How to build a bridge and preserve language and ‘language’
Epp Petrone writes about music and children’s books that help us keep apace with the children of the new generation.
What is the bridge that connects all Estonians across generations and across the world? I think that bridge is music. The songs we all know.
The world is, as it is, going through difficult times. The same goes for the new generation. It is said that there have never been children living in an information system so different from that of their parents. What exactly they are looking at on their screens, in which language and in what ‘language’ all this is happening, can be controlled and directed... But instead of the stick method, carrot is always better – both to coax your children and yourself.
Today we eat candy, tomorrow we eat candy! This song, for example, can be used as a carrot. I lived with my first child in a small Estonian capsule in the suburbs of New York. That was 20 years ago, and instead of tiny screens, we looked to the big VCR-DVD player for entertainment. I was fully aware of my goal, or rather, it was not the goal, but the only possible solution: my child had to learn Estonian, and continue my world. I was also aware that local neighbours, friends, relatives and the information flowing from the screen did not work in favour of this plan. As counterbalance, there was just me, occasional train trips to the Estonian house in New York, an Estonian nanny-friend from the other side of the city, a few Estonian-language children’s books... In order to improve the situation, I wrote a handful of Estonian stories about her life during her lunchtime naps and gave her a handmade book for her third birthday, which later became a collection of stories called Marta’s toes, a hit with babies, one of the most popular books I have written. If I see a three-year-old child or his (grand)parents somewhere, then one of the two will happen: they are already shouting that they spend their evening bedtimes with the Marta stories, or I am confident about what to recommend to them. Later, I wrote another similar story, Marta jumps, about the everyday life of a child protagonist. These are very short and very realistic stories, very specifically from the child’s perspective. Mum takes her into her lap and cuts her nails. A window is open and an insect flies into the room. Water flows into the bath and bath foam grows, eventually flowing away. So, these kinds of short stories! I am proud and grateful that I accidentally captured something that was needed in our culture.
Today we eat candy, tomorrow we eat candy! There is a similar leitmotif in one of the little stories in the Marta book. Because that is how it really was. One of the helpers in creating my Estonian world in the capsule of a New York suburb was the DVD The Greatest Friends (Kõige suuremad sõbrad) purchased from Estonia, where stars of my childhood programmes, including Tipp and Täpp, sang. By the way, I once got a completely understandable fan letter from an eco-mother, who asked whether it was a good idea for an otherwise fine eco-friendly children’s book (Marta’s toes) to include this little comedy song that spoils children and ruins their teeth... True. But what can we do about it! It is Tipp and Täpp, after all, and they can be forgiven for anything. Anyway, we sang this song together at the top of our lungs with Martha, a couple of years old at the time. The Estonian-language songs from this DVD were one of the few cases of Estonian spoken by my daughter without it ever being mixed up with English. I am sure she learned some new words from there. She already knew the song Where are my suspenders? and I was looking for a way to show her what these ‘suspenders’ actually were.
For my other two children, the songs from ETV’s children’s programmes also served as educators of language and culture, although less so because we spent their formative years already in Estonia. Their sister, Marta, is about to turn 22 and half-American, living in New York again. But she still remembers the candy song. She still speaks Estonian, and that’s a great fortune for me. I have done something right in my life, I have still passed on our secret language to my daughter who has grown up internationally.
Language and ‘language’
In addition to language, there is also ‘language’, by which I mean cultural details. With ‘Ah, ah, ah, I’ve learned about A!’, we are learning the alphabet, but there is actually a lot more to this than that. Together, we are initiated into a secret culture, the world of Mõmmi and the ABC. Or if someone is fibbing – when we have grown up and some of us become politicians or advisers, for example – you can put your hands in a certain position and sing: ‘Aivaravai, aivaravai, what brought wealth to my house...’ Lembit Ulfsak, Snow Queen, Adviser, you know?
Where can one get a sense of security?
I have never consciously accomplished a so-called mission in my life. Just something comes to mind and it won’t go away! This was also the case with the book series Sing Along, which started last year. In truth, I had a low period and an identity crisis: why do I do anything at all, where do I get my personal sense of security and joy in this complicated crisis-ridden world? All right, we have the My... book series in my publishing house, but it reflects the world today and in all its diversity... Our publisher has also been asked whether we are destroying the Estonian cultural identity with this series because ‘we are promoting moving abroad.’ True, in contrast, it can be recalled that for years now, the My... series has had a strong Estonian counterpart, where we introduce small places around Estonia in exactly the same way as some exotic corners of the world. Come and read My Naissaar and My Prangli, through stories and cultural conflicts.
However, at this low point, I must have felt that I was sick of these cultural conflicts. I am looking for something of my own, something that reminds me of something ‘warm and sweet’ that resonates in my soul. What is it? That search took place, frankly, in a dentist’s chair, where the doctor had politely advised me, apparently in a routine manner, to let my thoughts take me to a good place. So it happened that while lying in that chair in a meditative state, I arrived in at the music of my childhood and teenage years. I left the dentist with the idea of the Sing Along book series.
My brain still cannot process the fact that it is a job. In order to map the two-volume book of Lasteekraan’s Songs, I had the great opportunity of getting acquainted with the ERR’s streaming materials, i.e., rewatch children’s programmes, find songs there, check their lyrics. Then there was a good detective moment: I had the opportunity to connect with the people who made these programmes, and I began to feel a kind of race against time during the process. Two of the people interviewed for this book have already passed away because of their age.
What do you mean – the books sing themselves?
It also quickly became clear that we need to make these books ‘sing.’ Technology is developing rapidly, the DVD culture that seemed cutting edge 20 years ago is already outdated. But let’s be honest, almost all of us have a smartphone nearby almost all the time. Whereas usually I am in favour of putting the phone on the top of the cupboard and on flight mode while reading books, the Sing Along books are different. These books are essentially a collection of fragments, which together form a big narrative (in the case of Lasteekraan songs, it is the history of ETV’s children’s programmes and anecdotal stories by the people who made them, set on a timeline), but it is also possible to take any song that is suitable at the moment and play it as a video with the help of a QR code. Of course, lyrics are available with the song. No, there are no notes. But it is the same original performance (with a few cover versions) that you can sing along to, just like my 2-year-old Marta shouted in front of her DVD player. Programmes can also be watched for a long time using the information found through these QR codes.
And this, as I understand it, is the bridge that connects the new generation and us, the older ones, who remember the golden age of ETV either from watching black-and-white TV ourselves or later when watching them on VHS and DVDs. In my opinion, this needs to be addressed consciously so that children can also get a taste of Estonian culture in addition to the dominance of American, Japanese and other cultures. Yes, books are black and white and full of retro images, but the QR codes are something that children quickly understand thanks to their cultural context. And before it’s too late, they can already sing, ‘Where are my suspenders...?’
Can children read about vodka?
The behind-the-scenes stories about these songs are not your average children’s literature.... We also discussed this with ETV employees, many of whom were excited and grateful that I was doing something like this. However, they were also asking who was the actual target audience anyway? If it is a children’s book, how can it be published and revealed that, for example, the creators of the Vandersellid show recall that in order to mimic a hot sauna in a sauna that was actually cold, they were drinking... vodka? Well, and this is not an isolated case of the creators recalling their vodka-drinking...
After giving it some thought, my answer was that it is a bridge of a book, a book for the whole family. Parents greedily dive into these anecdotes, children are probably not keen on reading them at first, and even if they do, the fact is that compared to what they have unfortunately already experienced on their screens, there is nothing violent about these stories. How the sweat was flowing under the bear masks or how a live donkey had to be brought into the studio – let the children read about it when they are ready for it! It seems to me that dividing people into ‘children’ and ‘grownups’ is a dubious concept anyway. Above all, we are all human beings, we are children at heart, and we are Estonians.
