Juvenile picture books about the Holocaust: Extending the definitions of children’s literature

Despite a variety of definitions, children’s books and picture books generally adhere to certain conventions. Depicting the Holocaust in children’s books challenges these conventions. The authors review the Holocaust literature for children, paying special attention to two picture books: Let the Celebrations Begin! by Margaret Wild and Julie Vivas, and Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Christophe Gallaz. Their analysis leads them to conclude the books for children that deal with horrific events should be viewed as a category of their own. Virginia A. Walter is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has a Master of Library Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Susan F. March is on the faculty of Kehillath Israel Religious School in Pacific Palisades, California. She has a Master of Arts in Education degree from the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and a Master of Library Science from UCLA.     

The gay family in literature for young people

Virginia L. Wolf is Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. She is the author of nearly fifty articles on literature for young people and is a past president of the Children's Literature Association.     

‘You can tell kind of about the body’: young children,health, fitness and fatness

Fears of an ‘obesity epidemic’ in New Zealand and elsewhere have led to a growing focus on children’s weight, diet and activities. The aim of this research project was to highlight children’s voices, stepping back from obesity interventions to explore how health and obesity discourses are taken up by young primary school children. Nine 6 and 7-year-olds took part in individual semi-structured interviews which involved play and craft activities to focus discussion. Discourse analysis was used to explore how children talked about bodies, health, fitness and fatness. Children primarily drew on a series of clear-cut dichotomies around good foods and bad foods, and being active, able and fit, as well as constructing health in relation to the body in two distinct ways: fat vs. thin, and big-and-strong vs. small-and-weak. These findings support previous research suggesting that children, from a young age, are taking up narrow corporeal constructions of health in relation to food and fitness ‘choices’, and additionally children assume that these constructions can be ‘read’ off the body. On the other hand, children were also often hesitant, and at times resisted or problematised these straight-forward constructions, occasionally drawing on alternate understandings, including notions of pleasure and practicality, moderation, and being happy and healthy. Future research could explore these ideas further, investigating how children and adults utilise alternate meanings to negotiate the complexity of bodies, health, fitness and fatness.     

Book reviews

Northeastern University