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Children's picture books contribute to children's development of gender identity and can impact aspirations and expectations of roles in families and society. However, the world represented in children's books reflects predominantly middle class, heterosexual, male heroes and characters. This paper reports on a cross-cultural study investigating gender representation in frequently read picture books across eight early learning centres in the United States and Australia. Forty-four educators working with 271 children participated. Data were collected from book audits and observations. Unique to this study is the presentation of a new data analysis instrument, Harper's Framework of Gender Stereotypes Contained in Children's Literature. The majority of the books shared by educators in this study promoted traditional, binary and stereotypical viewpoints of gender and gender roles. These findings are concerning as the evidence shows that gender development is a critical part of the earliest and most important learning experience of young children and a requirement of educational policies rooted in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to examine an experimental neo-Herbartian and Frobelian curriculum Work in the kindergarten: An Australian programme based on the life and customs of the Australian Black published by Martha Simpson in 1909. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper uses both primary and secondary sources to understand the context of production and reception of the settler narratives advocated for use in the curriculum. Simpson's curriculum and other primary literary texts provide case study examples. Findings -- The research found that colonial and imperial literary texts provided a departure point for learning activities, enabling the positive construction of white Australian identity and the supplantation of Aboriginal people in a post-federation kindergarten setting. Originality/value -- By considering the role of imperial and colonial narratives in post-federation experimental curriculum, this paper offers insight into the role such narratives played in the formation of Australian national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child's family, culture, language and values is increasingly articulated in educational policy. Diversity and inclusion are central themes of the guiding principles of early childhood education and care in Australia. Children's literature can be a powerful tool for extending children's knowledge and understandings of themselves and others who may be different culturally, socially or historically. However, evidence suggests many settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children's literature to support principles of cultural diversity in the kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. The study was conducted within an ontological perspective of constructivism and an epistemological perspective of interpretivism informed by sociocultural theory. A mixed methods approach was adopted and convergent design was employed to interpret significant relationships and their meanings. Twenty-four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. This study identified that current book collections in these four kindergarten rooms of long day care centres promote monocultural viewpoints and 'othering' of minority groups through limited access to books portraying inclusive and authentic cultural diversity. These findings have important social justice implications. The outcomes of this study have implications for educators, policy makers, early childhood organisations and those providing higher education and training for early childhood educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on theories of the gift to address the ethics of representing Aboriginality in Australian children's literature, which is a contentious debate that centres on who is eligible to tell Aboriginal stories and how the stories can be told. Considering the historical indebtedness in Australian racial relations, the paper suggests that children's books that incorporate reference to Aboriginal cultural elements constitute a metaphorical 'gift' exchange between Aboriginal custodians as the givers and writers as the recipients who are expected to 'return' such an intellectual gift through their books in an appropriate manner. In this view, the paper specifies the ethical issues confronted by non-Aboriginal writers for children, including Patricia Wrightson, Phillip Gwynne and Kate Constable, and examines the way in which the gift relationship sheds light on the question of how to avoid infringement of Aboriginal protocols without submitting to self-censorship. A caring gesture, underlining the relationship between self and others in gift exchanges, is identified to negotiate the writer's interests in Aboriginal stories with cultural sensitivity against unauthorised appropriation. The paper therefore argues that the morality of gift exchanges, which demands a balanced consideration of disparate interests in obligatory reciprocation, offers a possible solution to the dilemma of non-Aboriginal writers in the treatment of Aboriginal subject matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss how taking a particular literary theory— the implied reader—serves to offer a focus for the teacher's initial reading of a text and provides a formative assessment tool. Iser's Implied Reader theory is discussed, after which a picture book, Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker, is analysed from this perspective. An account of a series of reading events with Year 4 children then follows. An analysis of these readings highlights where the pupils were able to take up the invitation offered by the text and where there were difficulties. Finally, implications for teachers' subject knowledge are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Australian children's literature responded to a conservative turn epitomised by the Howard government and to new world order imperatives of democracy, the market economy, globalisation, and the IT revolution. These responses are evidenced in the ways that children's fiction speaks to the problematics of representation and cultural identity and to possible outcomes of devastating historical and recent catastrophes. Consequently, Australian children's fiction in recent years has been marked by a dystopian turn. Through an examination of a selection of Australian children's fiction published between 1995 and 2003, this paper interrogates the ways in which hope and warning are reworked in narratives that address notions of memory and forgetting, place and belonging. We argue that these tales serve cautionary purposes, opening the way for social critique, and that they incorporate utopian traces of a transformed vision for a future Australia. The focus texts for this discussion are: Secrets of Walden Rising (Allan Baillie, 1996), Red Heart (Victor Kelleher, 2001), Deucalian (Brian Caswell, 1995), and Boys of Blood and Bone (David Metzenthen, 2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research is particularly scarce on the changes which are occurring in primary school playgrounds in Australia. This recent doctoral study looked at three primary school playgrounds and reported on the types of play children engage in at primary school. At the heart of this study was the researcher's belief that the right to play in the primary school playground is a fundamental right of all children attending a primary school, as well as a vital opportunity for learning life skills. This research has grown from a concern that Australian primary school playgrounds may be following the path of many other first world countries, becoming less and less child friendly and increasingly restricting children's play opportunities as described by Armitage (2001), Evans (2003), Neto (2005), and many others. This study was prompted by the researcher's desire to better understand the types of play children were engaging in, in the playgrounds of three Melbourne primary schools, built during different periods, in different locations and in different socio-economic contexts. Each playground was viewed from the perspectives of the principal, teachers and children and, using a schedule of play categories developed in a pilot study, playground observations were conducted. This resulted in a clear picture of the types of play children were engaging in, how they were using playspaces and equipment, how teachers were supervising the playground and how they were interacting with the children during playground supervision. This paper specifically explores children's use of playspaces and equipment with regard to the types of play they are engaging in, the age group and gender of players. Numerous examples of children's unexpected and innovative use of playspaces and equipment were observed and recorded. An example from each of the schools in this study will be used to illustrate children's innovative use of playspaces and equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative survey study set out to investigate in-service and pre-service primary school teachers' perceived barriers to and enablers for the integration of children's literature in mathematics teaching and learning in an Australian educational context. While research over the past three decades have documented pedagogical benefits of teaching mathematics using children's literature, research into teachers' perceptions regarding the use of such resources is virtually non-existent. The study thus filled this research gap by drawing responses from open-ended survey questions of 94 in-service and 82 pre-service teachers in Australia. A thematic analysis revealed 13 perceived barriers classified under five themes with Lack of Pedagogical Knowledge and Confidence, and Time Constraint, representing 75% of all perceived barriers. Moreover, 14 perceived enablers were identified and classified under five themes with Pedagogical Benefits and Love of Stories representing around 70% of all perceived enablers. Findings also showed that most of the teachers in the study (around 75%) never or infrequently used children's literature in their mathematics classrooms. The study highlights the role of professional learning and teacher training in ensuring that both in- and pre-service teachers have the necessary pedagogical knowledge, experience and confidence in using children's literature to enrich their mathematics teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Bigglesworth, known as 'Biggles', is a children's fictional character created by the English author Captain W. E. Johns in the 1930s. The 'Biggles' books became some of the most popular children's titles of the twentieth century. Biggles had adventures worldwide, but after World War II his adversaries were often communists. These stories reflect Cold War tensions, and many explore issues that are directly pertinent to Australian readers, including Korea, China and even a story set in Australia itself - where Biggles was particularly popular - in which Biggles thwarts a planned communist uprising involving Aborigines. This article explores the extent to which the books were influential in shaping Cold War attitudes during the 1950s and 1960s, in light of Johns' expressed intentions when writing the books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The youth services strategy framework was developed by a brains trust of youth services librarians in Victoria, in consultation with Paula Kelly (State Library of Victoria) and Mylee Joseph (State Library of NSW). The framework is designed to highlight the objectives of library services to youth holistically, guide planning and to be scaleable to meet local needs. It supports public library staff in developing youth strategies and planning services and is available freely online. The framework considers the vision, mission and values underpinning the delivery of library services to young people and specifically addresses planning, collections, spaces, staff and training, technology and access, programs and services and communication. Edited version of a paper presented at '12 to 24s @ your public library in Australia and New Zealand conference' Beenleigh Qld 11-12 June 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of children's literature in Australia in 1950s from several women writers including Nan Chauncy, Joan Phipson and Patricia Wrightson. It states the use of bush and rural settings in the earliest novels for children involving the conservation of the natural environment. It also emphasizes that the setting depicts the unique challenges and child characters that would encourage independence and strength of character.

The prevailing humanist ideology in fiction produced for children entails that thematic explorations of race usually pivot on the notion that humans are all created equal, regardless of race. However; this position fails to acknowledge the privileged status of whiteness as a racial category. This article examines two recent Australian picture books which explore the relationship between white and non-white identities in an Australian social context, arguing that the construction of whiteness as a normative standard of human experience must be interrogated before genuinely intersubjective race relations can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The myth of home is what distinguishes children's literature from adult novels (Wolf ). Nodelman and Reimer (The Pleasures of Children's Literature, ) write that while 'the home/away/home pattern is the most common story line in children's literature, adult fiction that deals with young people who leave home usually ends with the child choosing to stay away' (pp. 197-198). In a critical content analysis of recent award-winning middle reader novels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, a new pattern was observed. This pattern, called a postmodern metaplot, begins with the child being abandoned, rather than the child leaving the home. The child's journey is to construct a home within a postmodern milieu complete with competing truths and failed adults. Ultimately, the child's postmodern journey ends with very modern ideal of the child leading the adults to a hopeful ending, a home. The article explores the changing roles of childhood and adulthood in children's literature and questions if the mythology of home can be undone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that historical fiction functions as a collective memory: it provides a social framework for recollections that speak of a national agenda often through personal experiences. Taking as its examples three Australian and New Zealand fictions for children and young adults, from the late twentieth and early twentieth-first century, the article examines texts that focus on how we remember the past and what aspects of that past should be remembered: Memorial (1999), a picture book by Gary Crew (author) and Shaun Tan (illustrator), The Divine Wind (1998) by Garry Disher, and The Swap (2004) by Wendy Catran. Close analysis of these texts suggests that, like memory itself, historical fiction tends to eulogise the past. In historical fiction, for children especially, whilst power relations of cultural significance can be perpetuated, they can also be re-positioned or re-invented in order to re-imagine the past. Shifts in the present understanding of past power relationships contribute towards the reinvention of race relations, national ideologies and the locus of political dissent. The article concludes that historical fiction, because of its simultaneous claim to fact and imagination, can be a powerful and cunning mode of propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses highlights of the 2015 International Children's Book Day (ICBD) celebrations in Australia. The event featured a speech by International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY)-Australia President Robin Morrow on the work and achievements of the organization, a professional development session and award ceremonies.

In Australian children's literature' was the assessment Paul Jennings made of Alan Marshall (1902-1984) during an ABC Radio National program broadcast to celebrate the centenary of Marshall's birth. When Marshall released this "space age fairy tale" (Marks, 314) into the "moon-mad" (Marshall, "What Happened to "Whispering"?" Stephen Murray-Smith noted something similar in 1974, ten years before Marshall's death, when he commented that Marshall had been "punished" for being neither "pretentious", "trendy", nor "selfconsciously folksy"; Murray-Smith said that he would be 'very surprised if Alan Marshall's creative reputation does not bloom very considerably over the next fifty years, as his deceptively concealed powers become more accessible to investigation' (quoted in Marks, 343). [Extracted from the article]