Correction to: Examining Agency in Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

Children's Literature in Education - 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...     

Between Fiction and Reality: Maps and Cartographic Logic in the Works of Peter Sís

This article examines the use of maps in the works of Czech author- illustrator Peter Sís in order to consider the role that cartography plays in the construction of four of his biographical picturebooks: Follow the Dream: The Story of Christopher Columbus (2003/1991), Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei (1996), The Tree of Life: A Book Depicting the Life of Charles Darwin, Naturalist, Geologist and Thinker (2003), and The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (2013). The profusion of maps found in Sís’s biographical picturebooks expresses an understanding that the exploration of identity is intimately linked with the exploration of the spaces in which that identity is formed. The maps represent three basic functions for Sís: first, he uses maps to situate the reader in a specific time and place; second, maps are elements that initiate adventure; and third, the profusion of maps, combined with other textual elements, raises a question that runs through all of Sís’s work regarding the limits of representations of reality. The article illustrates the three functions by presenting a walk through the pages of the four chosen picturebooks, describing and analysing the different types of maps that Sís uses.     

Pictures in Pictures: Art History and Art Museums in Children’s Picture Books

Children’s picture books that recreate, parody, or fictionalize famous artworks and introduce the art museum experience, a genre to which I will refer as “children’s art books,” have become increasingly popular over the past decade. This essay explores the pedagogical implications of this trend through the family program “Picture Books and Picture Looks” conducted at the Art Institute of Chicago. Program sessions were observed to learn the extent to which picture books featuring the painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 (Seurat) informed and impacted children’s experiences with the original artwork. The books Katie’s Sunday Afternoon (Mayhew, 2005), Babar’s Museum of Art (De Brunhoff, 2003), and Willy’s Pictures (Browne, 2000) provided the foundation for the program. In addition to these three books, The Dot (Reynolds, 2003), which does not include a reference to La Grande Jatte (Seurat, 1884–1886), acted as a “control” variable. This research demonstrates that while most picture books can be used to establish a level of comfort in an environment that is new to children, those that directly referenced the painting provided a base level of knowledge from which children could confidently draw upon encountering the original work. The research further indicated that, when used in conjunction with original artworks, children’s art books provide unique and distinct entry points for talking about art. The inclusion of artwork in children’s picture books elicits an enthusiasm and recognition that enhances the museum experience, and such books can be effective tools for enabling reflective, imaginative experiences with art.     

Reading and Reinterpreting Picture Books on Children’s Television: Implications for Young Children’s Narrative Literacy

Bookaboo is a television programme aiming to promote literacy and reading among young children. In each episode, a celebrity reads a book to Bookaboo, a dog who plays the drums in a rock band, in order to help him overcome stage fright. Using the episode featuring the picture book (Cowell and Layton in That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, 2006) as a case study, this article explores how this type of adaptation of picture books transforms the original narrative, with implications for children’s developing narrative literacy. Taking a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this study investigates the changes in meaning which result from the employment of semiotic resources such as animation, sound, and camera movement in the representation of the book on the television show. We argue that the deployment of such resources can subtly reshape the meanings expressed through the modes of language and images in the original picture book, potentially affecting the child viewer’s engagement with the narrative. Examining the use of these resources in the picture book’s televisual representation is thus an important first step towards developing frameworks for evaluating the ability of television programmes that incorporate picture book reading to support children’s literacy.     

Do Worlds Have Corners? When Children’s Picture Books Invite Philosophical Questions

In this article, we want to present and analyse the picture book The World has no Corners (2006/1999) by the Norwegian author and illustrator Svein Nyhus. The book represents a new trend in Norwegian picture books for children by inviting the readers into a world of thinking and wondering about existential topics such as life and death, growing up and getting old, God, children’s relationship to nature, etc. The picture book does not give clear answers to the questions that are raised, but has a potential for exploratory dialogues between child and adult readers. In our analyses of verbal text and images—and the relation between these—we build on social semiotic theory by Halliday, Kress and van Leeuwen, reception theory by Eco and Iser, and aesthetic theory represented by Dewey and Rorty. Through analyses of some selected spreads, we want to show both the framework keeping the readers inside the text, and the indeterminacies inviting the readers to wonder and speculate about the questions raised. We also want to draw attention towards a special way of co-reading of the spreads. Compared with the process of reading picture books where the adults often confirm or correct the child readers’ way of putting their interpretation into spoken language, the co-reading between children and adults in this picture book seems to be rather existential and poetic as well as democratic. We will shed light upon this reading process, as we consider it as a way of the readers fortifying themselves into the world.     

Improve Your Marketing Results by Asking Peter F. Drucker's “Five Most Important Questions”

ABSTRACT

This case study focuses on the Office of Marketing & Public Relations at Claremont McKenna College, a highly-selective liberal arts college located in Claremont, California. It demonstrates how Geoffrey Baum, its new PR Director used the five Drucker Tool questions to improve significantly both the image of “marketing” on campus and awareness of the College among its key constituencies. It concludes with a re-evaluation of the initial marketing strategy, based on the growing importance of the internet and Baum's current “customer” perspective as Executive Producer at C-SPAN.

The methodology and analytical process is based on the extensive research conducted by Constance Rossum in her Ph.D. dissertation study of eight nonprofits (including three in higher education). It utilizes the Drucker Self-Assessment Tool she developed in 1993, on behalf of the Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, based on the management principles of Peter F. Drucker.     

“Seeing the Light”: A Cognitive Approach to the Metaphorical in Picture Books

Picture books, as both sophisticated aesthetic objects and literary texts, provide the ideal site for critically examining how values and ideology are transmitted to children. How the child reader might be affected by the process of reading a picture book—that is, how he or she might be moved emotionally and potentially gain new insights about the world—is of interest to scholars and educators alike. This article draws upon cognitive literary theory as a conceptual frame through which to explore the cognitive and emotional affect that reading may have upon children. “Reader response” and “cultural criticism” are approaches to literature that seek to understand how readers interact with texts. Cognitive theory, when applied to literature, builds on these discourses by focusing on why reading fiction might cause the brain to produce emotional and cognitive responses in readers. As metaphors are a feature of language and of thought, a study of the metaphorical in picture books aptly lends itself to the theoretical framework offered by cognitive literary theory. Drawing on examples from four picture books produced for children, broadly correlating to different developmental stages, this article examines the role of metaphor in encouraging skills in decoding and creative thinking. Talking to children about visual metaphor or metaphorical expression introduces them to a feature of language and thought that provides a conceptual frame for richer understanding and expression of ideas. Examining how the metaphorical operates in picture books thus takes us a step closer to understanding how the process of reading affects children and enriches their lives.     

‘Keep Telling Until Someone Listens’: Understanding Prevention Concepts in Children’s Picture Books Dealing with Child Sexual Abuse

Children’s picture books dealing with the topic of child sexual abuse appeared in the 1980s with the aim of addressing the need for age-appropriate texts to teach sexual abuse prevention concepts and to provide support for young children who may be at risk of or have already experienced sexual abuse. Despite the apparent potential of children’s picture books to convey child sexual abuse prevention concepts, very few studies have addressed the topic of child sexual abuse in children’s literature. This article critically examines a selection of 15 picture books (published in the US, Canada and Australia) for children aged 3–8 years dealing with this theme. It makes use of an established set of evaluative criteria to conduct an audit of the books’ content and applies techniques of literary discourse analysis to explain how these picture books satisfy criteria for child sexual abuse prevention. The analysis is used as a way to understand the discourses available to readers, both adults and children, on the topic of child sexual abuse. Key themes in the books include children’s empowerment and agency, and the need for persistence and hope.     

“My Heart Beats in Two Places”: Immigration Stories in Korean-American Picture Books

This article examines the impact of immigration on Korean children through a content and literary analysis of 14 children’s picture books. A majority of published children’s literature dealing with the subject of Korean Americans or Korean immigration contains culturally specific themes common to the Korean immigration experience. These include English acquisition difficulties, assimilation through name selection, language mediation, family separation and abandonment, and positive experiences post-immigration. While unassumingly couched in children’s fiction, these issues reflect real-life experiences and are analyzed here through a social and cultural context. I provide suggestions for applying the article’s findings in classrooms, schools, and districts in order to ease acculturation and transition procedures for Korean families. The article may appeal to readers interested in immigration issues, the interplay between home and school environments, language barriers for second language learners, and social studies issues found in children’s fiction.     

Humanizing the Journey Across the Mexico–U.S. Border: Multimodal Analysis of Children’s Picture Books and the Restorying of Latinx (Im)migration

Children's Literature in Education - In response to current anti-immigration rhetoric and policy coming from national leadership, the authors engage in multimodal analysis of picture books that...     

Peter’s story: reconceptualising the UK SEN system

This paper addresses the broad question of whether or not the UK SEN system works from the perspective of the parent and the child, at the moment when a need first becomes apparent. The sparse literature on this topic suggests parental experiences may differ substantially, but there is growing evidence from small‐scale studies that parents are unhappy with the situation and children’s needs are not being met. The findings of a longitudinal participant observation study are presented. It is argued that current conceptualisations of the SEN system are located exclusively or primarily within the educational domain and fail to take into account the full complexity of the system. To access support via the SEN system, a child and his/her parents have to interact within three distinct domains: educational, legal and medical, and in each of which the child occupies a qualitatively different space as “pupil”, “case” and “patient”. There is scope for errors and failings to occur within each domain, at multiple levels, and in the interstices between domains. Furthermore, at all levels, the system has both formal and informal dimensions. We argue that this alternative “whole systems” perspective on the SEN system transcends current conceptualisations and that existing “solutions” proposed to improve the SEN system will not work unless they take into account these complex dynamics.     

Von Glaserfeld‘s Radical Constructivism: A Critical Review

We explore Ernst von Glaserfelds radical constructivism, its criticisms, and our own thoughts on what it promises for the reform of science and mathematics teaching. Our investigation reveals that many criticisms of radical constructivism are unwarranted; nevertheless, in its current cognitivist form radical constructivism may be insufficient to empower teachers to overcome objectivist cultural traditions. Teachers need to be empowered with rich understandings of philosophies of science and mathematics that endorse relativist epistemologies; for without such they are unlikely to be prepared to reconstruct their pedagogical practices. More importantly, however, is a need for a powerful social epistemology to serve as a referent for regenerating the culture of science education. We recommend blending radical constructivism with Habermas theory of communicative action to provide science teachers with a moral imperative for adopting a constructivist epistemology.     

What’s in a Name? A Critical Literacy and Functional Linguistic Analysis of Immigrant Acculturation in Contemporary Picture Books

This article investigates how immigrant children’s acculturation experiences are characterized through the symbolic literary feature of name in children’s literature and how the language of the text functions to communicate these messages. We draw on the theoretical frameworks of Critical Literacy (CL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to inform our analysis, showcasing how the connection and interrelation of these theories maximizes the potential for meaning-making. Texts were examined to reveal dominant themes around acculturation communicated through the use of protagonists’ names and trends in the language used to construct young readers’ understandings. Findings indicate that the construct of a name is a key theme in the literature used to forge a cultural identity for immigrant children, generate cultural conflict, and stimulate others’ judgment.     

Biological Evolution and Children’s Books: Whimsical Storytelling and Darwinian Origins

Science & Education -     

A Cautionary Tale: How Children’s Books (Mis)Teach Shapes

Research Findings: Children’s conceptions of shapes, including misconceptions, are quite robust by 6 years old and persist into adulthood, so it is important to inspect early sources of these conceptions. This study aimed to uncover whether children’s books about shapes could be a source of inaccurate initial learning that remains with many adults in spite of school instruction. Thus, the study investigated the content of trade books to identify (a) 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes portrayed, (b) reasoning level used, (c) explicitly accurate and inaccurate information conveyed, and (d) implicit inaccuracies conveyed. This content analysis of 66 shape books found that books portrayed a limited range of shapes in ways that encouraged low-level reasoning. A total of 76% of books had at least 1 explicit inaccuracy of 2-dimensional shapes. Explicit and implicit inaccuracies throughout the sample were consistent with common child and adult difficulties with 2-dimensional shapes. Practice or Policy: This study provides insights into possible sources of shape conceptions. Such knowledge suggests instructional implications and future research about ways in which teachers, librarians, parents, and other caregivers might better select and use trade books to facilitate more accurate shape concepts for young children that may have long-lasting influence.     

Lenguaje y teoría de la mente: el caso del síndrome de Williams

Resumen

A partir del análisis de las características psicológicas de las personas con síndrome de Williams se revisa su perfil psicolingúístico y las relaciones entre éste y los resultados en pruebas mentalistas. Se toman algunos resultados de lenguaje y “teoría de la mente” en personas con síndrome de Williams como pretexto para reflexionar sobre las relaciones entre ambos ámbitos.

Se sugiere la necesidad de adoptar una perspectiva ontogenética para el estudio conjunto de ambos procesos.