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Abstract: This article was initially published with the incorrect title: “A Three Dimensional Jigsaw Made of Pliable Bits: Aidan Chambers’ Postcards from No Man’s Land or Analysing Adolescent Identity as an Intertextual Construct in Aidan Chambers’ Postcards from No Man’s Land.” The correct title is: “A Three-Dimensional Jigsaw Made of Pliable Bits: Analysing Adolescent Identity as an Intertextual Construct in Aidan Chambers’ Postcards from No Man’s Land (1999).” The original article has been corrected. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: In the original publication of the article unfortunately contained a mistake in the name of co-author Vera Sotirvoska.The correct name should be Vera Sotirovska. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract The politics of children’s literature and the actors surrounding it have never been more visible than they are now, in the digital age. As one of the first children’s series to gain widespread popularity concurrently with the spread of the internet, the Harry Potter septet arrived on the global stage at the perfect moment to develop an avid, connected fandom. But the fandom has laid bare the many conflicting ideologies of the fans themselves and of the actors surrounding the texts. This article examines the contentious issue of gender nonnormativity and its relation to the Harry Potter texts, the queer/trans reading practices and political resistance common to the fandom, and the ongoing disagreements over gender, made visible on social media, between Rowling and the fans of her series. The article discusses the Harry Potter novels’ varied and conflicting ideologies; queer/trans readings of the Potter septet, including both invitations and resistances to queer/trans reading by Rowling herself; how gender is queered and queried in and through fan fiction; and finally, the recent hostilities between Rowling and her fans. It concludes by discussing the worsening relationship between Rowling and her fans and highlighting how fans are using their collective power to undermine Rowling’s gender politics through fan fiction. By doing so, the article traces the complex politics of the reception of books for young people in the digital age, demonstrating that authors’ powerful voices continue to shape readers’ responses to texts long after their publication but showing, too, that readers often resist authors’ attempts to influence not only their textual interpretations but their politics. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract The article discusses the image of the family and the family home in a series of novels for young people by the popular Polish writer Małgorzata Musierowicz in the context of literary conventions and stereotypes about the family in contemporary Polish society. The novels, which cover a period of over 40 years, generally fit contemporary Polish realities; however, the didactic function of the novels results in the author creating an idealized image of the Polish intellectual family, filling the readers with optimism. The picture created by the writer, on the one hand, fits perfectly into the stereotype of the family, which is one of the values highly esteemed by Poles. On the other hand, it adapts to the conventions of novels for girls. In this article, the stereotype of the family is reconstructed on the basis of language data and surveys. We present the meanings and contexts of family as a noun and family as an adjective. We also present the results of our survey, the aim of which was to determine an essence of a stereotypical family and how the traditional family model is comprehended by respondents coming from various groups. We also present the respondents’ attitude to the patriarchal family model and the division of roles into male and female. In our opinion, the correspondence between the family picture created in the novels and the image of the family operating in social consciousness is the reason for the popularity of the series. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract Oscar Wilde was described by W. B. Yeats as “a man of action, a born dramatist.” Although people did not recognize him as a serious playwright until the 1890s, Wilde had managed to find other outlets for his theatrical passion, for example in writing fiction. In this paper, it is argued that Wilde incorporates metadrama into his 1888 fairy tale collection, The Happy Prince and Other Tales. The discussion focuses on how Wilde employs the metatheatrical devices of the-play-within-the-play and role-playing to treat the social problems of self-immolating altruism and identity crisis respectively. In representing the social malady of exaggerated self-sacrifice, Wilde adopts the satirizing strategy which maintains the sense of the illusion evoked by the inset tale while simultaneously estranging the outer/inner story connection by dint of nonrecognition. Similarly, identity crisis is reflected through an estranged mode of role-playing: Wilde’s characters impress the reader as performing too much to have a real-life identity. The ironic detachment enabled by the two metadramatic tactics in question constructs a mask, which allows Wilde to criticize social problems in a non-imitative manner, the central aim of the 1888 volume. In Wilde’s fairy tales, the use of metadrama, in facilitating representations from a critical distance, can be seen as an example of what is labelled as “sincere mannerisms.” Beneath the mask of his insincerity, Wilde is truly a serious humanist, assiduous in imparting to us the knowledge of ourselves and our existential condition. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract Children’s books of Nazi propaganda prove that a society can venerate science to the point of making biology the organizing principle of its educational system yet nevertheless produce children’s literature shot through with fabrication and falsehood. Three children’s books of Nazi propaganda that are frequently mentioned in accounts of anti-Semitism but seldom analyzed are discussed: Elvira Bauer’s Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud auf seinem Eid (1936), Ernst Hiemer’s Der Giftpilz (1938), and Hiemer’s Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher (1940) illustrate the ways in which racist science and ideological narrative tautologically reinforce each other in an extreme version of how “narratives play a key role in communicating science” (Pauwels, 2019, p. 434) in children’s nonfiction. These texts of lurid racism, all issued by the book publishing arm of Julius Streicher’s virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, offer a monitory case study of how bad science and toxic narrative can coalesce into a literary poison intended to indoctrinate young readers. This analysis of Nazi nonfiction for children demonstrates how science and story can be exploited to promote a racist agenda. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract This paper considers the Twilight novels alongside the Vampire Academy books, as young adult readers regularly invoke these series as touchstones of the contemporary adolescent Gothic genre. The abiding appeal of these vampire novels is related to the ways they reflect the experiences of young adults with the rapacity and greed displayed in our time, especially in our recent financial crises. This paper examines the limitations of Stephenie Meyer's resolution to the conflicts attending growing up among vampires through a comparative analysis of her novels and those of Richelle Mead. The theories of psychologist Melanie Klein about infant development are used to show that these two series represent different responses to the greed of our times. Klein's insights distinguish Meyer's Bella Swan and Mead's Rose Hathaway with respect to their psychic integration and in the way each models a process for readers of dealing with a society structured by vampiric rapacity. Bella learns to control herself in the stage Klein calls persecutory anxiety, but without the larger-scale integration that betokens maturity. She displays an acceptance of the fundamental nature of her world, with no attempt to revise or improve it beyond gaining peace for her own household. Rose achieves a better balance on the personal level, and she works to effect change in the fabric of her society. Her actions convey a message of hope to readers with respect to the struggles they must undergo in their own world. The contrasting way of dealing with societal greed that is exemplified by these books is especially important to young adults who are in the process of developing their personal identity, providing them with assistance with the anxiety attending their changing attitudes to financial responsibilities. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract This study explores the potential of illustrated barcodes of picturebooks in the educational context. The study reviews the modification by artists of conventional and mandatory barcodes into creative barcode placements in picturebooks. By raising awareness of the aesthetic subtleties of barcodes, the paper articulates how these attractive and ironical peritextual elements may have pedagogical applicability. The study brings to the surface these invisible artistic elements to better appreciate their aesthetic potential for read alouds. For exploring the rich diversity of depictions, a corpus of 500 illustrated barcodes was grouped and analyzed into categories with the creators’ explanation for the use of these artistic peritextual features. Findings based on quantitative and qualitative content analysis suggest that illustrated barcodes comprise significant information that educators may use during picturebook read aloud sessions. Educators familiar with the hidden information within illustrated barcodes may guide children into exploring these peritextual features and talk about them during interactive storytime. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: Abstract The framework of visual grammar (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, via Serafini, 2014) is used to examine the artwork of Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll’s Speak: The Graphic Novel, which tells through words and pictures the story of Melinda Sordino, a girl who is raped just prior to beginning her freshman year in high school. Three key sets of images that depict the various dimensions of Melinda’s silence are analyzed in order to demonstrate how Carroll’s images, in conjunction with Anderson’s text, work to convey Melinda’s ongoing trauma and eventual recovery: Melinda’s artwork, the various mirrors that appear in the book, and the abandoned janitor’s closet that Melinda transforms into her private refuge. The overall purpose of the paper is not to compare the original novel with the graphic adaptation, but rather to interrogate how—and how effectively—Carroll is able to depict silence, and Melinda’s eventual triumph over silence, through the visual grammar of pictures. The paper argues that the visual grammar instructs us in how to read the images, which ultimately work to show us what Melinda cannot tell us. PubDate: 2022-06-01
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Abstract: In the context of a global crisis around climate change, children continue to be largely excluded from environmental conversations. In order to change this, there has been an increased effort to produce children’s media that educates young readers about the origins, effects, and possible solutions to climate change. These environmental texts for children can contribute to the ecopedagogical project and provide children with the information and the language that are necessary to become conscious ecocitizens. This paper analyzes how children’s non-fiction books from the Netherlands enable young readers to develop socio-political agency regarding climate change and position themselves within discussions about this topic. A potential trap for children’s environmental literature lies in its tendency to simplify the complex issue of climate change and to offer potential ways for fighting climate change which are not accessible to all young readers. Therefore, the paper pays specific attention to the processes of inclusion and exclusion that are used in these books. The analysis is structured around Greta Gaard’s critical model for inclusive ecopedagogical texts, based on recognizing and dismantling alienation, hierarchy, and ultimately domination. The study finds that the books selected use contrasting techniques that alienate the reader from the already abstract concept of climate change. They encourage the reader to see themselves as possible “eco heroes” and propose different strategies for contributing to help the direct victims of climate change who are frequently positioned as distanced from the intended young reader. Nature is largely represented as a passive entity, which can play no role in restoring ecological balance. PubDate: 2022-04-06
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Abstract: Abstract While the opioid epidemic rages on in the US, adolescent drug use and abuse is often left unaddressed in university and public-school classrooms. In an effort to support educator’s conversations with youth about drug and alcohol addiction, this study draws on the theory of figured worlds to conduct a critical content analysis of 10 YAL novels to understand how adolescents with addiction are constructed within the selected texts. Our findings detail three themes that work together to construct figured worlds in which: the majority of protagonists in the texts are middle class, white, teenage girls; the protagonists’ experiences around addiction are preceded by one or a series of traumatic events; and, due to their privilege, the protagonists have ready access to rehabilitation facilities and other mental health supports. We offer both implications for our findings and directions for future research. PubDate: 2022-04-02
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Abstract: Abstract Wild animal stories, as a children’s literary genre, often oscillate between authentic representations of animal behaviour and various degrees of anthropomorphic projection. The study identifies how the voices of wild animals are articulated in two contrasting Chinese wild animal stories, Shixi Shen’s Hongcai (2010/2019) and Gerelchimeg Blackcrane’s Heiyan (2006/2017), and how culture-specific understandings of genre, gender and environmental education are negotiated in the published translations. Informed by Michael Cronin’s model of “eco-translation” and David Herman’s “narratology beyond the human,” it argues that the eco-translation of the source texts is mainly manifested in the reduction of sexism and sentimental anthropomorphism, problematisation of genetic descriptions and reappropriation of non-fictional texts. These strategic interventions enhance eco-translation’s potential as an anti-anthropocentric narratology, a co-authored life writing that recognises the generic ambivalence within animal storytelling practice and further speaks for nature with more conscious allocation of agency across the species lines. PubDate: 2022-03-26
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Abstract: Abstract Lying and deceiving are prominent topics in ethical narration. This has to do with an often absolutist stance against lying that shapes a large part of philosophical, religious, and political discourses. At the same time, lying and deceiving are topics in the field of moral education in which moral values such as honesty, sincerity, and truthfulness are propagated. Bringing these issues together, this article demonstrates how reflection about honesty and autonomy is narrated in Mats Wahl’s young adult novel I ballong över Stilla havet (In a Balloon over the Pacific Ocean). This novel shows that, while lying and deceiving undermine trust and can lead to harmful results, there are ways to fight against the moral destruction. This fight involves not only prosocial (versus mendacious) lying but also acknowledging individual motives for the lying behavior of others. Thus, while hating adults’ lies and deceptive actions as well as learning to lie himself, the male protagonist matures and takes on responsibility for his actions. We contend that this protagonist may constitute a moral exemplar that invites moral learning. PubDate: 2022-03-15
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Abstract: Abstract In this article, we begin by discussing approximately thirty picture books dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic published digitally in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other English-speaking countries in the first six months of 2020. The worldwide impact of COVID-19 resulted in the rapid global digital publication of numerous English-language children’s picture books aimed at informing child readers about public health concerns and how children could contribute to improving health outcomes. This exploration of contemporary picture books is intertwined with examinations of two other public health crises that appeared in literature for children: the discussion of British children’s health in the Junior Red Cross Magazine in the 1920s and the American polio outbreak discussed in educational materials and fiction in the 1940s and 1950s. These comparisons not only enable us to situate the COVID-19 pandemic within a history of transnational responses to concerns about children’s health but also to expand our understanding of how children are positioned to take individual responsibility for community public health issues. This wide range of Anglophone texts published in the United Kingdom, the United States, and around the world demonstrates the extent to which adults attempt to guide children towards specific behaviours to promote individual health. They also reflect a common understanding of childhood in which children have an obligation to contribute to societal wellbeing through their individual actions. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-021-09439-8
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Abstract: Abstract The numerous ecological catastrophes of the twentieth century caused by humans have found their way into mass culture. Among them is the Chornobyl nuclear accident that took place in Ukraine in 1986. This disaster became a subject of reflection not only in Ukrainian literature but also in world films and computer games. Along with other works on the nuclear theme in world literature, books by Ukrainian writers for children and young adults (YA) such as Leonid Daien’s Chornobyl – trava girka (Chornobyl – the Bitter Grass) or Yevhen Hutsalo’s Dity Chornobylia (Children of Chornobyl) that depict the Chornobyl accident and its consequences for Ukrainians. I explore the Chornobyl catastrophe concept in the above-mentioned books as well as in the cartoon Travel-book. Ukraine. Ghost Town and in the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I claim that Ukrainian works on the Chornobyl theme belong to the genre of ecofiction as a warning to humanity about the negative effects of human behavior on the ecosystem, based on ecocritical theory referred to by Buell, Dwyer, and others. My position is that the Chornobyl nuclear theme in children’s literature is centered closely on the cultural memory of Ukrainians. In reference to Erll’s interpretation of cultural memory as the interplay of present and past in socio-cultural contexts, I consider cultural memory in children’s literature as a need to deal with the traumatic experience of the Chornobyl nuclear accident and ethnocide of Ukrainians in their colonial past. My analysis then focuses on the investigation of how these concepts are implemented in children’s books, films, and games, via their imagery. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-021-09437-w
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Abstract: Abstract While child abuse and neglect have been explored at length, less attention has been paid to the role of contemporary realist Young Adult Literature (YAL) in denouncing abusive treatments of young people in conjunction with adultism. It is hereby suggested that age inequality is at the core of youth maltreatment, and it is this intersectionality that should lead attempts to confront this global problem. YAL offers a bottom-up approach to deal with these social issues through first-hand experiences of oppressed, yet cognizant protagonists. This article foregrounds the voice of Sarah, the lead character featured in A. S. King’s Still Life with Tornado (2016), in addressing the drastic outcomes of ageist stereotypes at the family level. The emphasis on the perspective of young people provides an informative understanding of youth subordination, parental power, and adultist discrimination in an effort to challenge such practices. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-020-09434-5
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Abstract: Abstract Given increased attention toward nonfiction and informational texts due to recent educational reforms in the nation, it is critical to examine how various cultural identities are depicted in nonfiction children’s picture books. Focusing on the Orbis Pictus honor and awarded texts (n = 60) from 1990 to 2019, this article reports the findings of a critical multicultural analysis of the depictions of age, sex, socio-economic status, ethnicities, and geographic regions of these awarded texts. Using a secondary analysis of opportunities for agency, we examine how focal subjects (Crisp in Lang Arts 92(4):241–255, 2015) exert their agency in their respective contexts. Our aim in doing so is to problematize the notion of agency in these texts, specifically understanding who exerts agency, how, and for what purposes. Findings suggest that the authors of these awarded texts rely on highlighting White, European males where agency is typically depicted as an act that occurs in adulthood. As a result, discussion focuses on how such texts, although well-meaning, perhaps perpetuate the traditional notion and passivity of young children in relation to their agency and calls to question the lack of multiple perspectives and voices in the awarded texts. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-021-09435-y
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Abstract: Abstract War, like other stressful situations and experiences, entails a threat to one’s subjective well-being, and war fiction for children represents this threat in different ways: some narratives minimise it, and others do not. War fiction, then, provides material for a case study of war and its impact on representations of subjective well-being (SWB), and how this is communicated to children in the stories they read. This article examines representations of SWB in the context of Australia’s involvement in World War I in two recently published picture books: Midnight: The Story of a Light Horse (2014) by Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac and One Minute’s Silence (2014) by David Metzenthen and Michael Camilleri. These picture books invite young readers into conflicting views of war and its impact on SWB. On the one hand, in Midnight schemas and scripts construct the belief that war is a glorious event that has a positive impact on SWB. On the other hand, in One Minute’s Silence schemas and scripts challenge the view that war is a viable means of solving national problems and enhancing SWB, and remembers its war heroes as tragic participants in a violent and senseless war. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-021-09442-z
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Abstract: Abstract This Critical Comparative Content Analysis employs theories of poststructuralist feminism to examine two versions of a nonfiction fitness text for young adult readers, one written for females and one for males. The analysis reveals the persistent naming of gendered assumptions about the appropriateness of particular sports to particular athletes, purposes of fitness, understandings of the ideal athlete, and emotional capacity of young adult readers. These assumptions result in regular and repeated performances of gender that have the potential to suggest to readers that there are certain expectations around fitness that depend upon whether an athlete is a girl or a boy. Taken together, they reflect a particular positioning of athletes and expectations around performance, suggesting to readers that how bodies are shaped and how bodies perform are normative and distinctly gendered, a finding that holds particular resonance when we consider the authoritative nature of informational texts. PubDate: 2022-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10583-020-09432-7
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