Oscillating Spaces and Species

The Exceptional and the Everyday in Frida Nilsson‘s Lindormars Land (2020)

Vortrag von Ben Dammers auf der Child and the Book Conference 2025: “Children Shaping The(ir) World: Between the Exceptional and the Everyday”, Tilburg/Niederlande (23.-25. April 2025)

The motif of fleeing into fantastical secondary worlds is a recurring theme in children’s literature, reflecting the desire of young protagonists to escape their precarious realities. Frida Nilsson’s Lindormars Land (2020) represents a contemporary example of this tradition, offering an opportunity to examine the interplay between exceptional and everyday spaces through the lens of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory (2013, 2024).
Notable works in children’s literature, including C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia (1950), J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997), and Michael Ende’s Die Unendliche Geschichte (1979), provide comparative frameworks that elucidate the thematic undercurrents of escapism and transformation present in Nilsson’s narrative. These texts underscore the pivotal role of fantastical realms as sanctuaries and arenas of self-discovery for children, thereby engendering crucial debates surrounding the ramifications of exceptionalism in children’s literature.
In Lindormars Land, the protagonist’s journey serves to exemplify Lefebvre’s spatial triad, which encompasses the perceived, the conceived, and the lived space. The narrative artfully intertwines the child’s lived experience of hardship and alienation in the everyday world with the allure of the fantastical realm. This movement between spaces highlights the tension between the child’s desire for agency and the constraints imposed by socio-economic circumstances. The fantastical world serves not only as a space of escape but also as a transformative environment in which the protagonists confront and redefine their identity.
Furthermore, this movement is not exclusive to the distinction between reality and the fantastical; it also manifests in the character of the narrator, Sem. His journey reflects a duality, whereby he navigates between his own vulnerabilities and the extraordinary experiences that shape his understanding of self and the world around him. This introduces a further layer of complexity to the narrative, indicating that the interplay between the exceptional and the everyday is fundamental to the formation of the protagonist’s identity.
The paper will examine the implications of Lefebvre’s theory for understanding childhood as well as humanity as a socio-spatial construct. The exceptional spaces depicted in Lindormars Land challenge the conventional boundaries of childhood, prompting a re-evaluation of the dynamics of power, agency, and imagination in children’s lives.
Furthermore, this spatial negotiation will be examined in relation to the role of the reader. It will be argued that the act of reading facilitates a traversal between the everyday and the exceptional. As readers engage with the text, they experience the complexities of childhood through a lens that transcends mere escapism (cf. Levy/Mendlesohn 2016, 225).
In conclusion, this paper proposes that Frida Nilsson’s Lindormars Land contributes to the discourse on children’s literature by offering insights into the spatial dynamics that shape perceptions of childhood and its possibilities. This aligns with broader literary research on the relationship between the extraordinary and the everyday in children’s narratives.