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Complex trauma history is one of the incarcerated girls' most salient characteristics, and two of the most injurious outcomes are suicide ideation and attempted suicide. However, to the best of our knowledge, not one published study has thus far focused on the suicide experiences of rural girls in detention facilities. Guided by theoretical perspectives on females' pathways into crime and using data derived from in-depth semistructured interviews with 39 girls housed in two West Virginia detention centers, the main objective of this article is to help fill a major gap in the extant literature on rural girls in conflict with the law. The key themes that emerged from qualitative data analyses are sleep deprivation, substance use, and a history of sexual and physical abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the influence of Alexander Key's novels on children's culture of the sixties and seventies, his work as a science fiction writer has not been widely considered by children's literature scholars. This study moves beyond ideological and structural examinations of children's SF to analyze the responses of real child readers to Key's novel, The Forgotten Door. Utilizing children's letters housed at the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection alongside reviews from adult readers posted on Amazon, it traces how the novel encourages readers to think more critically about issues such as discrimination, violence, animal welfare, and their own behavior. At the same time, it shows how children understand the book as speaking to their own experiences and concerns and the sense of kinship they share with Key. Their responses demonstrate how science fiction novels like The Forgotten Door can serve as a point of connection between adults and child readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We begin developing our relationship with and for Nature during childhood, and over the last 20 years research has advanced our understanding of human relationships with Nature. However, a focus on human-animal relationships dominates environmental understanding, including through the medium of literature, especially children's literature. It is critical that children know, engage with and care for plants at this time of climate crisis and this could be facilitated through climate literature. The popularity of children's climate fiction has increased dramatically in the last few years due to what publishers are calling the 'Greta Thunberg effect' – resulting in many more books now available that aim to empower young people to save the planet. However, in these texts, we argue that there is still an emphasis on animal and human consequences of climate change rather than on those of plants and the agency of plants (or lack thereof). We argue it is imperative that children understand not just the importance of human-animal relationships in regard to the climate crisis, but also the fundamental role of botanical life forms in preserving life on Earth. Taking three recently published children's books of fiction we consider how botanical encounters are represented in these texts, and how this can undermine the perceived environmental importance of plants and people's relationships with them. Informed by the recent work of Lykke Guanio-Uluru (2020), we consider the position plants play in these examples of contemporary children's climate literature and encourage a more critical consideration of the place of plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Texts carry traces of the language, social and cultural characteristics of both the period in which they were written and the period before them. Because of this, it is important to read intertextually in order to make sense of the text. The reader needs to discover the mystery revealed by the author during the intertextual reading process, and to know where the intertextual relationship begins and ends. While adult readers may notice the intertextual relationship due to their experience with the reading process, children may have more difficulty in this situation than adults. The activities that children do with their teachers are important in the process of discovering intertextual relationships. Children's interaction with different text types and the questions asked to understand the text support the process of establishing relationships between texts. However, the activities for the discovery of intertextual relations differ for beginning or more skilled readers. In this study, sample activities that can help beginning and advanced readers to discover intertextual relationships are presented to teachers to enable students to discover the relationships between texts, to construct meaning through questions, and to use cognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ian Serraillier is best remembered for his children's book, The Silver Sword, first published in 1956. However, along with his wife Anne, he was also instrumental in creating The New Windmill Series, an imprint of Heinemann Educational Books, and one of the first collections of teenage fiction aimed for the education market. This article discusses the way in which Serraillier's ideological beliefs, rooted in his Quaker faith, can be traced not only through his nuanced depiction of children displaced by war in The Silver Sword, but also in his objectives for the New Windmill list. It explores the Serrailliers' progressive approach to the provision of reading material for young people moving towards adulthood, and their early understanding of the need to broach the contested and complex boundaries between children's and adults' fiction. The New Windmill Series was created in 1949 and the Serrailliers remained the list's editors and driving force for over thirty years, throughout a period of great sociological and political change. Both The Silver Sword and the books selected for The New Windmill list reflect the way in which attitudes towards the sharing of difficult truths and challenging ideas with this audience changed for ever during this time, due in no small part to the work of visionary authors and editors such as the Serrailliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Olam Katan ['Small world'] was the first illustrated Hebrew periodical for Jewish children, published first in Vienna (1901–1902), then in Cracow (1902–1904). Although the periodical reached three continents, the overwhelming majority of its readers were located in Eastern Europe. This article analyses the editors' efforts to create an attractive yet educational magazine for young readers as a part of a much bigger enterprise: raising a generation of Hebrew users and contributing to the revival of Hebrew. Through a content analysis of the periodical, I reconstruct not only the editors' strategy to reach children and young readers but also the obstacles they faced in the process. I also seek to determine what the role of adults was in the process of children's Hebrew education in general, and in mediating the content of this Hebrew periodical in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite primarily catering to a U.S. audience for whom religion exerts a greater influence than anywhere else in the Western world, children's picture books dealing with the first landing on the moon in 1969 are reticent to conceptualise it in religious terms. Significantly, this is the same approach that NASA adopted when seeking to communicate their understanding of space exploration (Bellah, 1967; Tribbe, 2014; Wilson, 1984). The authors and illustrators of When We Walked on the Moon (Long and Kalda, 2019), Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race (Shetterly and Freeman, 2018), My Little Golden Book About the First Moon Landing (Lovitt and Sims, 2019), One Giant Leap (Burleigh and Wimmer, 2014), The First Men who went to the Moon (Gowler Green and Brundage, 2019) and Where once we Stood (Riley and Impey, 2019) employ the nationalistic "rhetoric and belief and the ritual and symbolism of the American space program" and celebrate the international scientific-technical achievement which enabled its success (Wilson, 1984, p. 210). By positioning their work within the parameters of a civil religion, which by its nature is a fluid belief system, and only implying a religious dimension, the authors and illustrators avoid polarising the reading public. In the U.S. context this is a vital commercial consideration, for research has consistently shown that religious belief is associated with less positive explicit and implicit attitudes to science and lower levels of science knowledge. This has its counterpoint in a greater interest in science on the part of people from non-religious backgrounds. The analysis of these picture books is framed by four of the 'secular' tenets of civil religion identified by Anthony Squiers. The findings reveal that the authors and illustrators have used civil religion as a means of engaging with the moon landing without adopting a solely scientific or religious perspective, a strategy that enables a wide cross section of readers to derive an understanding of the landing consistent with their world view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I look at how gender is performed in fanfiction, specifically in gender-swap stories within the Harry Potter fandom. Fanfiction is not constrained by any editorial oversight, and there are no financial considerations attached to either reading or writing it, two facts which make it a unique and essential part of the discourse surrounding children's literature. Anyone can write and read it, and there are very few narrative constraints, both of which make the characters and the worlds open to almost infinite types of adaptation. Rather than being closed off within a printed text, the characters take on an elasticity which allows them to exist in worlds, relationships and stories outside their source material. This narrative freedom means fan fictions act not just as textual adaptations, but also social commentaries, narrative sites which are plastic enough to allow writers to project themselves and their opinions onto pre-existing and familiar characters. This elasticity and textual fluidity lends itself very well to a study of contemporary performances of gender, which in turn reveals how the offline publishing market's adherence to a patriarchal hegemony continues to produce a gender imbalance in terms of both subject and author privilege, something which doesn't adequately reflect either the desires or the reading habits of contemporary children and young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines the perspectives of animal studies and reception theory to trace the audience shift of narratives foregrounding interactions between adolescent boys and animals published in the US in the first half of the twentieth century. More precisely, it argues that a text's focus on human–animal bonds can result in its "kiddification," a term explained by Beverly Lyon Clark as trivialization that leads to dismissal. We argue that the reasons for this shift include the solidification of the boy-and-his-dog convention in the 1940s as an example of formula fiction for juveniles, combined with the simultaneous proliferation of animal movies geared towards a family audience. The case under scrutiny is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's novel The Yearling and its film adaptation from 1946. Despite the book's initial success among general audiences (awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939), with time Kinnan Rawlings's novel became "kiddified" and then passed into oblivion, rarely discussed by critics who deem it undeserving of attention and unread by contemporary juveniles, who perhaps find the book difficult, long and tedious (Groff, Harper's, https://harpers.org/archive/2014/01/the-lost-yearling/, 2014). Consequently, the foregrounding of affective human–animal bonds in the book resulted in its later association with children's literature, which was amplified by the film adaptation as well as the publisher's marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's books play a central role in today's classrooms. Educators can use children's literature to promote children's social and cultural understandings and critical thinking skills. This is particularly important when extending children's knowledge and understandings of themselves, their identity and those who may differ culturally, socially or historically, thus supporting diversity and inclusion. Further, when diversity is considered, valued, and supported through Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP), outcomes for children from underrepresented backgrounds improve. This paper reports on a study conducted in four early learning settings in Western Australia investigating educators' practices when sharing diverse literature with young children. This study found in the majority of book sharing in these centres the cultures, backgrounds, life experiences and funds of knowledge of children from underrepresented backgrounds were invisible. Further, educators' practices were bereft of CRP and likely to demean and confuse those from underrepresented backgrounds and increase all children's misconceptions of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article examines the significant body of recent literature addressing children's experiences in the aftermath of mass violence and genocide. Taking a global perspective, it argues for understanding the similarities in children's lives in diverse geographic contexts while simultaneously calling for the importance of historical specificity in writing histories of childhood and genocide. The first section addresses children's lack of international legal protections and the context surrounding the UN Genocide Convention's forcible transfer clause. Drawing on the experiences of child survivors of the Maya genocide, the next section examines questions of postwar identity and the concept of trauma in children's lives. Part three seeks to examine the crucial question of agency as an analytical category in children's histories of genocide. The review concludes by discussing the centrality of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of children's experiences and the ways in which children's histories can contribute to the burgeoning field of genocide studies. Major works examined include Ruth Amir's Twentieth Century Forcible Child Transfers, Shirley Heying's Child Survivors of Genocide, Pothiti Hantzaroula's Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Greece, and Rebecca Clifford's Survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This large‐scale survey study examined how teachers select and integrate global and culturally diverse children's and young adult literature for their classrooms. Results from the survey captured self‐reports of the selection process, suggesting if and how teachers were selecting and integrating this literature and reflecting possible influence from children's and young adult literature courses taken in teacher preparation programs. Taking general children's and young adult literature courses, and specific courses on diverse literature and global literature was found to be related to teachers' responses to questions centered on selecting, evaluating, and integrating global and culturally diverse literature. These courses may be pivotal to increase the needed integration of global and culturally diverse children's and young adult literature into secondary and elementary classroom instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of children's literature, specifically mathematical story picture books, in mathematics education has demonstrated significant benefits. Nevertheless, its actual implementation largely hinges on teachers' beliefs. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the beliefs of 78 teachers regarding the integration of children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning, with a focus on identifying its barriers and enablers. Data were collected through an open-ended survey and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis framed by the concept of belief indication. The study identifies 15 barriers (across five themes) and 16 enablers (across six themes) that, teachers believe, affect their decisions to integrate children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning. This paper contextualizes the findings within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a framework from social psychology, to provide actionable recommendations and compare findings from studies conducted in Asian and Western countries. Ultimately, this research offers a broader understanding of teachers' behaviors and their receptiveness to educational reforms, such as the integration of children's literature, across diverse cultural and international settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pamukkale University Journal of Education is the property of Pamukkale University Journal of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

"Seasons of the Patch: for Kristijonas Donelaitis" is a poetry book by Kerry Shawn Keys that pays homage to the eighteenth-century Lithuanian poet, Kristijonas Donelaitis. The collection consists of over 300 pages of poetry that explore various themes such as nature, history, and the concept of time. Keys draws inspiration from both Western and Eastern literature, resulting in a diverse and thought-provoking collection. The book is divided into two sections, each containing poems of different forms and lengths. Overall, "Seasons of the Patch" offers a unique and expansive exploration of life and the human experience. [Extracted from the article]

Children's literature scholars, specifically picturebook theorist and researchers, need to better understand the complicated nature of the separation and coming together of textual matter (words) and visual matter (images) and the range of relations between these entities. Various scholars have conceptualized the relations between word and image in vastly different ways, advocated for a range of analytical frameworks to understand these relations, and subsequently have provided a theoretical foundation for exploring the roles and functions of words and images in narrative picturebooks. More attention focusing on how picturebooks are instantiated as meaningful multimodal ensembles across technological, sensory, material, semiotic, modal, mediational, as well as ideological dimensions is necessary if we are to fully understand the ways words and image work in picturebooks and the educational potential of available and future multimodal ensembles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Main purpose of this research is to analyse the global brand symbols that take part in the 'National Geographic Kids' magazine which is known as children's literature publication. The research about analysing the children's literature publications with this focus was considered to be quite important because of the fact that in recent years, the global brand symbols have the power to change the social world and the consumption behaviours of humans. Document analysis method, which is among qualitative research methods is used in the research. The National Geographic Kids magazines, which contain the global brand symbols and are published in 2018-2020, are the samples of this research. Two researchers analysed in detail a total of six children's magazines containing 327 pages of text about global brands. It is seen that the global brand symbols appearing in the analysed magazines are Apple, Google, Nokia, Time, Bitcoin, Amazon, Toshiba, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, Tesla, Mercedes and Speedo. According to the other result obtained, the sectors of brands covered by the magazines are IT, communications, finance, technology, social media, automotive and clothing. In summary, it is known that the children's magazines in the study are distributed across a total of 15 different global brands and 7 different sectors. Looking at the results of the research in more detail, it can be said that some of the global brands involved in children's magazines have a direct impact on children's lives, while others have an indirect impact. Based on the results of the research, some key recommendations are made to researchers, parents, authors and publishers regarding global brands in children's literature content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Al-Adab / Al-ādāb is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Yearbook for Dutch Book History / Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Yearbook for Dutch Book History / Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis is the property of Amsterdam University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the extent to which the Indonesian conditional cash transfer (CCT), known as the Family Hope Program (FHP), impacts the probability of children engaging in labour activities. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey in 2014, focussing on periods following the implementation of the FHP. To estimate the impact of FHP on child labour in Indonesia, the authors employ a propensity score matching strategy to balance the characteristics observed between the participant and non-participant groups. Findings: The estimates show that FHP has no statistical impact on child labour across all matching techniques. This implies that receiving the CCT does not always help poor households decrease the probability of stopping their children from participating in labour activities. Social implications: The conditions applied to the beneficiaries, which only require children to attend school without requiring them to stop working, may not effectively address the issue of child labour. The current structure and design of the FHP need to be re-evaluated and improved to effectively combat child labour. Originality/value: Despite numerous studies examining the impact of CCT on child labour which remains inconclusive in Indonesia, this study contributes to the existing literature by considering children participating in labour activities across all types of work without focussing on specific education levels or regions. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2023-0580 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A lack of representation of diverse families in children's books can affirm insecurities and contribute to a sense of "otherness". This study reports on the representation of family diversity in award-listed Australian children's picture books. A critical theoretical framework was employed to analyse both texts and images. This study found a lack of diverse family structures in children's books, especially LGBTIQA+, foster, step and blended families. This paper argues that to ensure inclusive and equitable literacy learning opportunities for all, educators need to go beyond award-listed books when selecting books for early literacy environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article interprets the problem of socialisation and resocialisation of "feral" children on the example of real-life stories, folklore and literary works. A pedagogical commentary is made on trends, causes and results, as well as on educational and methodical approaches to the inclusion of children raised by animals in the wild. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Slovenská Literatúra: Revue Pre Literárnu Vedu is the property of Institute of Slovak Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The relevance of the presented research is due to the importance of familiarizing modern children with the culture of reading, in the context of which illustrations for children's books play an especially important role. Book illustrations attract the attention of a child and create the necessary focus in the perception of the information presented in books. The purpose of this article is to analyze the creativity of illustrators of children's literature and to study the modern trends in the art of children's book illustration. During the study, the methods of theoretical and comparative analysis were used; in addition, special attention was paid to the study of the basic concepts of creating a children's book and the analysis of available research publications. The main trends in the development of the art of illustration of children's books were determined. The main vectors of illustration development were also defined. The applied value of this research work lies in identifying the main directions of the development of the art of children's book illustrations with the aim of the subsequent introduction of progressive methods for creating such illustrations that meet the requirements of the present day. In general, this study contributes to the formation of a coherent picture of the perception of the main trends in the work of modern illustrators and the formation of the art of book illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines literacy as a sociocultural, personal and human practice dependent on and derived through relationships between people, settings and culture. Drawing on a recent empirical research study that combines learner, teacher and author perspectives [Curtin (2023) Reading and Writing Pathways Through Children's and Young Adult Literature: Exploring Literacy, Identity and Story with Authors and Readers. Routledge], I explore how children's literature may be used to develop meaningful and authentic literacy pedagogies in the primary classroom. The research methodology for this study employed interviews with sixteen international and award-winning children's literature authors. This paper presents one author's interview from the study in detail in an effort to illustrate the importance of identity and personal resonance in literacy learning. To this end, funds of knowledge [Moll, Amanti, Neff, and Gonzalez. (1992). "Funds of Knowledge for Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms." Theory Into Practice 31 (2): 132–141. ] and light and dark [Zipin (2009). "Dark Funds of Knowledge, Deep Funds of Pedagogy: Exploring Boundaries Between Lifeworlds and Schools." Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 30 (3): 317–331. ] pedagogical approaches are applied in a discussion of genre study using (auto) biographical text in the primary classroom. Identity affirming and culturally resonant pedagogies developed seek to engage learners in literacy as a human practice. The paper concludes by considering key insights and ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an update on key developments in research related visual literacy, children's reading and children's literature. Beginning with an overview of the field, we chart several distinctive 'turns' or research trajectories: the aesthetic, the intercultural or empathic, and the ethical. We then consider how questions of power, authenticity and representation are visible in three important areas of the field: research with marginalised groups; research that focuses on mediation within the visual reading process; advances in the types of visual texts being used in research. Key emergent ideas include the challenges of adult mediators' expectations on children's visual reading, the potential of texts' material affordances, and new directions in open, more inclusive opportunities to respond to, and with, visual texts. We conclude with a hopeful look forward at emerging directions in policy and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Buletin Al-Turas is the property of Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Humanitas: International Journal of Social Sciences / Uluslararasi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Humanitas: International Journal of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Humanitas: International Journal of Social Sciences / Uluslararasi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of Humanitas: International Journal of Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The status of adults and children in children's literature is a complex, long-debated issue. Marah Gubar introduced the kinship model, challenging the notion of children as voiceless and emphasizing their agency as human beings. This study argues that the model can serve as a fruitful framework for examining the representation of children in death-themed picturebooks because the phenomenon of death places children and adults in a relatively equal position and implies similarities between them. It analyzes 11 picturebooks featuring agential child protagonists and published in the UK, the US, Japan, and Taiwan. The analysis is directed at four representations: the independent child, the atomized child, the helpful child, and the analogous child and adult. Each exploration describes whether and how the texts illustrate the model's key points: (1) a child's voice and agency; (2) the relatedness, connection, and similarity between children and adults; and (3) the gradual, erratic, and variable nature of development from childhood to adulthood. The findings highlight the heterogeneity of agential children across cultures and suggest that scrutinizing childhood requires engagement with adulthood. This perspective inspires us to reconsider the adult-child dichotomy and expand our imagination of what children can be across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lisbeth Bergh's nonfiction picturebook En lappefamilie: tekst og bilder fra Nordland (A Lappish family: text and pictures from Nordland) from 1905 is one of the first Norwegian nonfiction picturebooks for children about the life of Sámi. It contains Bergh's own illustrations and text passages in Norwegian, English, and German, which signals that the book addresses a national and international audience. Simultaneously, the book is published in an era characterized by an increasing interest in indigenous tourism, demonstrated through the popularity of world exhibitions and «human zoos». In this article, I explore Bergh's nonfiction picturebook in the light of "human zoos" and "living exhibitions" at the beginning of the 1900s and how her book alludes to the depiction of the Sámi for entertainment and information purposes. My close reading shows how the book reflects the categorization and systematization of the world and of exotic ethnic groups at the time. Furthermore, the reading confirms the book's very distinctive position in Norwegian children's literature history, and how it may have acquired a particular role in the promotion of Norwegian tourism at the beginning of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A debate over whether children's nonfiction should "speculate" was launched in 2011. Understood within the context of changing demands on children's nonfiction, it reveals a contested construction of childhood and suggests that the rules of critical engagement might be different in different genres of children's nonfiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More and more informational picturebooks on environmental topics have been published in recent years, many focusing on the inevitable climate change. Conversely, there is still a tendency in contemporary picturebooks to represent the climate traditionally, irrespective of actual climate change. A particularly interesting case is the representation of the seasons, especially in books aimed at the youngest 'readers', such as wimmelbooks. Not only are they crucial for developing emergent and visual literacy, but they also contain normative images that constitute a prototype for the child. The 'norms' picturebooks present are based on the authors' ideologies that constitute all informational picturebooks as their authors interpret facts. Hence, this article aims to analyse the visual strategies used and the ideologies expressed by wimmelbooks from Poland and Germany in representing the seasons (Marcin Strzembosz's Jaki to miesiąc? [2002] and Ali Mitgutsch's Mein Wimmel-Bilderbuch: Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter [2007], among others). The preliminary research shows that the authors seem to propose traditional, idyllic, ecologically normative images of the environment, which I propose to call econormative (inspired by the word 'aetonormative'), such as snowy winters, sunny summers, etc.; hence, wimmelbooks seem to assent to stereotypical depictions of the seasons associated with the notion of ideal childhoods set in econormative environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the significance of plants in literature, specifically in picturebooks for children. It emphasizes the need for quantitative research on the portrayal of plants in fiction and introduces a database that analyzes the plant world in Scandinavian picturebooks. The article discusses methodological challenges and aims to provide a comprehensive overview of plant representation in picturebooks, rather than focusing solely on plant-centered narratives. It also compares the representation of plants in Scandinavian picturebooks to Anglo-American picturebooks, suggesting that plants play a more prominent role in the former. The article concludes by outlining the methodological and theoretical foundations of the database and discussing its potential applications for research and education. The Phytobibliographical Database is a collection of fictional picturebooks published in Scandinavia between 1900 and 2020. The database focuses on books that strike a balance between text and visuals, excluding wordless books or non-fiction texts. Its goal is to analyze the portrayal of plants in Scandinavian picturebooks, utilizing both distant reading strategies and close examinations of individual books. The Phyto-Analysis Map and the Nature-in-Culture Matrix serve as analytical frameworks for exploring the ideological and formal aspects of plant representation in picturebooks. The database includes descriptive metadata, creator information, and a botanical entry for documenting plant species. The Phytobibliographical Database aims to facilitate research on plant representation in Scandinavian picturebooks for children from 1900 onwards. It provides tables for documenting plant species and types, as well as analytical questions to investigate the strategies employed in representing [Extracted from the article]

The theatre looks out from both directions. On the one hand, the artist's (director's) gaze determines our (spectator's) gaze, and on the other hand, there is the question of whether the artist's gaze is able to see through our eyes and, of course, whose eyes they are. Are they created by the theatre itself – in the name of all its direct creators and thus in its own image and according to its own wishes, or is 'their studio' also open to those who come to the theatre from the substance itself – from the living substance of the dramatic texts? So also to those who find it difficult to afford a theatre ticket. Is a theatre that does not look backwards, then, still credible as a universal or legitimate representation of the world and its social relations? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In France, many social representations refer to gifted children who describe them as hypersensitive, curious, and creative. Although sometimes inaccurate, these representations can be conveyed in media intended for children and contribute to an erroneous transmission of characteristics of children with particularities. The objective of this study was to identify the social representations of gifted characters in French children's literature. For this, we used a coding grid to analyze a corpus of 23 French books. The grid was designed based in the emotional and creative characteristics and their associated behaviors. Results showed that the representations of the gifted characters in the books studied were stereotypical, particularly in terms of their emotional characteristics. Applications and perspectives for future studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines literary depictions of the Slovak National Uprising (1944) in the post-war period and in the years of stabilisation of the emerging communist regime. Special attention is paid to works intended for children and youth that used the adventurous themes of the Uprising to convey current interpretations of recent events, role models, ideals, and norms. It illustrates how individual heroic cults evolved and transformed against the backdrop of the central narrative leading to victory. In this context, it also highlights the emergence of texts written while the war was still ongoing. Through a comparative study of textual modifications in reissued literary works, it documents the gradual shaping of the official narrative of public memory regarding the Uprising, including elements that were subject to censorship. It also highlights how authors employed uprising themes to actively demonstrate their conformity and loyalty to the new political regime. Despite its apparent outward rigidity, the theme of the Uprising provided many authors with a relatively wide field for influencing public discourse and also for advancing their individual or group interests.

Since the 19th century, British literature addressed to young readers begins to emerge an unusual image of the world, in which, without the intervention of a fantastic element and almost imperceptibly for the reader, different times and eras are harmoniously combined. The crucial technique for creating such a universe is an anachronism, skillfully used by the author and not exposed to him; the latter, in turn, can leave clues for an attentive reader ready to join his “game.” The image of such a space turns out to be consonant with ideas developed in literary studies in recent years, such as the concept of “mythical (nonlinear) time” (M. Nikolaeva), “closed world” (P. Hunt), “palimpsest world” (M. Certeau), etc. The most important locus of such a world in the texts we are considering (Water Babies by Ch. Kingsley, The Wind in the Willows by K. Grahame) turns out to be a noble estate, to denote which we propose to use the term we introduced — “house on the edge of time.” As an additional task, we will analyze the world of W. Maine’s novel Earthfasts (1966), a fantastic “borderland,” which, in our opinion, serves as a development of the image of the Vendale in the tale by Charles Kingsley.