Criticism on the Methods and Techniques Employed when Translating International Children’s Literature in the Arab World

Literature translated for children in the Arab world is governed by ideological and cultural concerns, which controvert the Arabic values and morals. To try to overcome some of the issues that arise while translating children's literature, this study examines some selected Brothers' Grimm fairy tales emphasising whether the translators' faithfulness to the source text affects the translation product, or not. In addition, it seeks to find whether translators take the target reader and culture into consideration while they attempt to render those fairy tales into Arabic, i.e., whether they use adaptation as a method of translation, or not. The results portray that those translators were faithful to the source text neglecting the age of the target reader; child and his culture. Thus, translating for children should be governed by some rules and principles, in order to avoid the threats caused by the international children's literature on the target culture.