The Right Kind of Curiosity

In this reflection, the author examines Tenfjord and Oxaal’s popular Norwegian children’s novel Jens krysser himmelrommet (Jens Crosses Space), published in 1954, as an exceptional case among typical juvenile novels of the time, in that it portrayed in moral terms both the practice of science and the attitudes and attributes of scientists. He argues that in the early (and politically charged) days of the space race, this novel was unusual in offering young readers moral and intellectual model...