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This article focuses on the difficult event of death. The audience for this article is classroom teachers, librarians/media specialists, curriculum developers, and so on. The purpose is to share points to consider when choosing quality picture books focusing on death as well as exemplars to represent these points. These points were concluded as a result of a multimodal content analysis of 100 picture books. We begin by presenting a rationale for using picture books to help children deal with the difficult topics including the topic of death. Next, we describe why we chose the topic of death. We continue by describing our inquiry and present characteristics of quality picture books that we discovered during our inquiry. For each characteristic we highlight an exemplary picture book to illustrate the characteristic. We end with final thoughts.

Purpose: The paper shows the interpretive impact of different constructions of the point of view available to the reader/viewer in book and animated movie versions of a children's picture book, a novel for pre-adolescents/early teenagers, and a graphic novel for adolescents and adults. Design/Approach/Methods: Excerpts from book and animated movie versions of the same story are compared using multimodal analysis of interpersonal meaning to show how the reader/viewer is positioned in relation to the characters in each version, complemented by analyses of ideational meaning to show the effect of point of view on interpretive possibilities. Findings: Focusing mainly on multimodal construction of point of view, the analyses show how interpretive possibilities of ostensibly the same story are significantly reconfigured in animated adaptations compared with book versions even when the verbal narrative remains substantially unchanged. Originality/Value: The study shows that it is crucial to students' critical appreciation of, and their creative contribution to, their evolving digital literary culture that in this new era of educational technology, attention in literacy and literary education focuses on developing understandings of digital multimodal narrative art, and that animated movie adaptations are not presented pedagogically as isomorphic with, or simply adjunct to, corresponding book versions.

This is a conceptual paper that explores critiquing picturebooks set in Africa. The paper is grounded in BlackCrit (Black Critical Theory) and Racial and Ethnic Socialization (RES). Using pragmatism as a method, we offer a detailed analysis of 3 carefully selected books, on the broad basis of authenticity, accuracy, and respectfulness. A deeper dive into the books looks for hidden messages that dehumanize, oversimplify, exotify, and generally present Africa from a Eurocentric lens. The critique goes beyond the books by looking at how they are shared on YouTube and other forums that offer pedagogical ideas for sharing the books with children. Overall, from the critique we find that books authored by cultural insiders are favorable while the reverse is, in most cases, true with authors who are cultural outsiders. The paper emphasizes the power of accurate, authentic, and respectful pro-Blackness representations as beneficial for all children in developing positive behaviors, attitudes and agency toward pro-Blackness and antiracist rhetoric. We also found that there is an urgent need for more pro-Black books on our educational shelves.

Pekrun and his colleagues highlight the significance and diversity of emotion in education. Their analysis suggests that these emotions can be categorised by their stimuli into those related to the classroom: activities, outcomes, relationships, topics and knowledge processes (epistemic). Most research in this area has focused on achievement emotions, with relatively limited research exploring topic emotions. This paper develops a framework for conceptualising topic emotions. It reports on a design-based study that captured children's expressions of emotion in response to a climate change education programme using picturebooks. The data brought together emotional responses to climate change, to learning about climate change and to climate-related picturebooks. Qualitative analysis of these responses highlights how they differ not only with regard to the emotions expressed, but also the structure of the emotional experience. Emotional responses to the broad topic of climate change were expressed as ongoing analytical judgements, where those related to learning about climate change were immersive and finite. Reading climate-related picturebooks involved exploring how emotion is communicated and evoked. This supported quasi-emotional experiences, where the reader imagines the emotions of the characters. The picturebooks are also shown to create vicarious emotional experiences, involving ethical-based responses to the behaviour and circumstances depicted. Based on this analysis, the paper proposes a framework for disaggregating these differing emotional experiences related to topic.

Children with intellectual disabilities (CID) are born with incomplete development of intellectual capabilities. This deficit in intellectual competency is said to affect, to some extent, their language development. The present study aimed to investigate CID's communicative development, namely plot understanding, from their produced narratives. Participants were 29 9- to 15-year-old Thai CID from Chiang Rai Punyanukul School. The story-retelling technique (Reese et al., 2012) together with the picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1967) were used for data collection. Building from Freytag (1894), Berman & Slobin (1994), and Rungrojsuwan (2019a), a modified version of narrative macrostructure including onset, problem, problem-solving, and resolution was used as the analytical framework. Results showed that CID of younger ages, 9 to 11 years old, tended to have a wide range of plot understanding. Some could effectively communicate through narratives as early as 9, while others started their journey as late as 11 or 13. However, 15 years of age seems to be a significant period when CID who were once at different developmental paces, converged. In other words, their developmental gaps reduced and most of them could narrate effectively. Compared with normally developing children, CID are later at the beginning stages, but could finally reach the expected goal of narrative communication.

Previous research has indicated that the backgrounds in picture books have a higher impact on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than on children with typical development (TD). Based on prior research, this study investigates the effect of picture book presentation order on the fixation outcomes of ASD. The experiment included 59 children with ASD and 59 children with TD. The original picture book was modified to investigate the forward and reverse-order demonstration influences on gaze results in children with autism spectrum disorder. The findings revealed that children with TD had better fixation outcomes than children with ASD in both forward and reverse presentations. Children with ASD, on the other hand, exhibited better fixation scores in a forward presentation order than in a reverse one. Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the forward presentation order of the picture book is more suitable for improving the fixation outcomes of children with ASD.

Climate change education is associated with negative emotions. Picturebooks are considered powerful resources for teaching complex issues like climate change, partly for their capacity to be emotionally engaging and motivate learners. This article explores the positive emotional experiences supported by picturebook use in climate change education. It draws on data collected in a design-based study involving the progressive refinement of a programme delivered in three primary schools with students aged 10 to 12 years. Data included child focus groups, audio recordings of whole-class discussion, teacher interviews and concept maps. Data analysis included coding expressions of emotions in the data by: the emotion, the object of the emotion and the subject expressed as experiencing the emotion. Findings suggest that picturebooks with unhappy endings and difficult thematic content can nonetheless give rise to positive emotions by providing surprising, cathartic and creative experiences, which in turn, support students' critical, complex and creative thinking.

English-language teachers are increasingly recognizing the pedagogical value of using children's literature that authentically represents diverse multilingual learners, including children who have sought refuge. This study analyses representations of children who have experienced displacement and sought refuge in picture books. Framed by a critical multicultural perspective of children's literature, critical refugee studies and critical race theory, the study investigates how children's emotions and agency are represented in focal stories. Our findings suggest that, contrary to the complex intellectual and emotional ways children and youth process displacement, picture books about seeking refuge tend to represent child protagonists as incurious about why they are forced to flee. Such representations construct legally scripted narratives associated with refugee status that normalize war and violence. These narratives ultimately mask colonialism, imperialism and racism that contribute to refugee flight around the world. We discuss how policies for seeking refuge influence picture books and invite educators to critically evaluate literature for their classrooms, directly engage families to foreground generative perspectives and develop comprehensive multilingual environments that affirm learners' agency.

Picturebooks offer powerful supports for teaching diverse content across different curriculum areas. Research and curriculum resources document their use in inquiry-based education practices, particularly in relation to science and philosophy. There is, however, little theoretical analysis of this use or cross-curricular comparisons. Applying a systematic literature review process, this paper examines existing empirical research on the use of picturebooks in formal inquiry-based education contexts. The analysis considers the context in which the picturebooks were used, including curriculum context and class level, the role played by the picturebooks in the inquiries and the value ascribed to the use of picturebooks. The review proposes a framework for understanding and contrasting the varying roles played by picturebooks in inquiry-based education approaches. This framework involves seven uses: invitations, provocations, mentors, models, resources, touchstones and destinations. Varying benefits are attributed to the use of picturebooks, including their practicality, inclusivity, complexity, aid to cognitive learning, emotional engagement and association with child readers. These benefits emphasise both the accessibility and the complexity of picturebooks. The review proposes that inquiry approaches should attend to picturebook form and content and the interdependency of the two. The review's analysis supports extended use of picturebooks across the curriculum, including in history, geography, citizenship and science education, as well as in interdisciplinary approaches.

Librarians love stories, and libraries are among the few forums that can offer exposure to collections of stories in various formats as well as encourage independent exploration and group discussion. Librarians read, encourage talking, writing about, and searching for stories, but this is text-based. What of the students new to the English language, so text and language are inaccessible to them? In fact, the library experience for an English Language Learner (ELL) can be different from their classroom experience if school librarians can reduce the pressure to perform. This article discusses how wordless picture books can be an opportunity to encourage students new to the English language to approach books and to experiment with English.

The existence of transgender children is not new. However, for over 100 years, Western culture has worked to restrict the gender expressions and gender identities of children. This forces them into a binary model of gender understanding. This critical content analysis examined the ways that transgender children within picturebooks can both conform to, and resist, expected binary gender norms. The author investigates narrative picturebooks that represent transgender children who identify as a boy or a girl.

The time children spend indoors with nature-based children's literature is as important as the time they spend outdoors. Children's literature traditionally has been replete with pastoral, animal, and wilderness stories that nurture a sense of wonder and excitement about the world we share. Such literature encourages a high regard for the environment and enhances a child's capacity for empathy toward all forms of life. In this article, the author discusses how the informal, yet intact, nature curriculum found in compelling books for children helps them understand the manner in which nature sustains life itself and fosters realizations about current environmental issues that must be confronted by the global society.

In 2016, "Last Stop on Market Street," an American picturebook by Matt de la Pena, won the Newberry Medal, a Caldecott Honor, and a Coretta Scott King illustrator honor. In March 2021, Dr Seuss Enterprises, after working "with a panel of experts, including educators," decided to cease publishing "And to Think I Saw in on Mulberry Street" (1937) along with five other books that "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." Both decisions seem to have been motivated by a strong commitment to a contemporary critical multicultural perspective (Yenika-Agbaw, 2022). In this paper, I will explore another perspective through which we might assess the quality and potential impact these and other texts might have on child readers. Drawing on Peter Hollindale's (1997) contention that a children's book acts as the vehicle for a reading event during which readers form or reform their ideas of the social construction of childhood and their place within that construction, I will examine how these books portray "childness," defined by Hollindale as both a distinguishing property of a text and what a reader brings to the reading. As these texts offer snapshots of what it means to be a child in two different times and contexts, I argue that the constructions of childhood in children's books have changed significantly in the twenty-first century. I will use multimodal discourse analysis and critical content analysis to query the degree to which these texts are "childly" (a term of respect for Hollindale, as opposed to childish) by focusing on notions of the imagination, diverse representation, and adult/child relations.

This article investigates how picture books published in 2019 represent Autism to children, with special attention as to whether those representations overtly include terminology around autism or covertly present autistic characters. Although both overt and covert representations occur in children's literature, covert representation may or may not come to the attention of children. Overt and covert uses of language convey different elements of personhood to readers, portraying what we, the authors, feel is important. Our analysis of these four samples of 2019 picture books was framed by critical disability studies, labelling theory and camouflage and by developmental bibliotherapy, providing evidence that the distinction between overt and covert labelling can have influences on the perceptions of readers.

This research was carried out to determine the effectiveness and functionality of the word association test (WAT), which is a formative assessment tool that is frequently emphasized on today's modern education systems. The study group consisted of 60 students in a public school in Kocaeli in the school year 2018-2019. Participants were identified using convenience sampling technique. The data of the study were obtained by using pre-test and post-test quasi-experimental design with no control group. The data were categorized by subjecting to content analysis. The findings were tabulated using the cut-off technique and analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. When the results of the study were examined, it was concluded that conceptual change and development occurred in participants' minds and there was a significant difference in the results of the Wilcoxon test performed before and after the implementation. It was observed that the students wrote 1669 words before the implementation, and the number increased to 2193 after it. This shows that the students associate the key concept of "migration" with more words after the implementation and thus there is a wider connotation related to migration in their minds. In addition, the results of this research reveal that the WAT is suitable for formative assessment and can be used in educational studies.

In this paper, I analyze representations of refugee flight in children's literature to extrapolate related assumptions about power and agency. The findings suggest that picturebooks tend to adhere to refugee flight as a bureaucratic process and refugee as an institutionally imposed standardized identity. Specifically, stories canonically mirror the legal UNHCR definition of a refugee, establishing forced-to-flee narratives, centering persecution, and corroborating well-founded fear. Collectively, stories mask what leads to persecution and distribute power to essentialized "safe" countries resettling refugees. The implications call for diversity of representation and invite teachers to critically unpack contexts of refugee flight.

Body image is a broad, multidimensional construct that encompasses an individual's perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about their own body, most often in relation to its physical appearance (Cash & Pruzinsky, 1990; Schilder, 2013; Thompson et al., 1999). Until relatively recently, the majority of body image and body-dissatisfaction research has focused on adults, with limited research investigating its incidence among adolescents or children. However, as interest in identifying the age at which individuals can begin to experience body (dis)satisfaction has mounted, so has the number of body image studies targeting adolescent and child populations (Birbeck & Drummond, 2006; Clark & Tiggemann, 2006; Dohnt & Tiggemann, 2006; Harriger et al., 2010; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2002; Ricciardelli & McCabe, 2001). Children as young as 3 years of age engage in body evaluation. The overarching purpose of this study was to evaluate the creators, contents, and messaging of body-positive picture-books geared toward young readers. Body-positive picturebooks provide promise for use in early body-dissatisfaction prevention and body-positivity enhancement, but caution in book selection should be exerted.

Reading mediation is a concept used in Latin America and Spain, referring to the nurturing role played by adults in forging relationships between children and books. In this article, we conceptualize reading mediation as a 'technology of affect'. We propose 'mediation-as-usual', a normative becoming of this technology, tasked with producing categories and identities regarding readers. Within this technology, adults are produced as empathetic, caring, and providers of safe spaces for reading. We report on literary encounters at a school in Santiago, Chile, with a 'challenging' picturebook. We were involved in the emergence of what we term 'abject mediation', a figuration that produces the limits and boundaries of mediation-as-usual, and, we argue, has transformative potential. However, this is an ephemeral figuration, as reterritorialization works to assimilate the border elements, actualizing mediation-as-usual. We discuss how these figurations may help to question normative ways of producing readers.

Purpose: This study examined the use of African American English (AAE) among a group of young Latinx bilingual children and the accuracy of the English Morphosyntax subtest of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) in classifying these children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Children (N = 81) between the ages of 4;0 and 7;1 (years;months) completed a narrative task and the BESA Morphosyntax subtest. We identified DLD based on four reference measures. We compared specific dialectal features used by children with DLD and their typically developing peers. We also conducted an overall analysis of the BESA subtest and subsequent item-level analyses to determine if particular items were more likely to contribute to the correct classification of the participants. Results: Children with DLD used three AAE forms in their narrative samples (subject-verb agreement, zero copula/auxiliary, or zero past tense) more frequently than their typically developing peers. Area-under-the-curve estimates for the cloze, sentence repetition, and composite scores of the BESA indicated that the assessment identified children with DLD in the sample with good sensitivity. Item analysis indicated that the majority of items (84%) significantly differentiated typically developing children and children with DLD. Conclusions: The BESA English Morphosyntax subtest appears to be a valid tool for the identification of DLD in children exposed to AAE and Spanish. We provide practical implications and suggestions for future research addressing the identification of DLD among children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

This meta-analysis examines the inconsistent findings across experimental studies that compared children's learning outcomes with digital and paper books. We quantitatively reviewed 39 studies reported in 30 articles (n = 1,812 children) and compared children's story comprehension and vocabulary learning in relation to medium (reading on paper versus on-screen), design enhancements in digital books, the presence of a dictionary, and adult support for children aged between 1 and 8 years. The comparison of digital versus paper books that only differed by digitization showed lower comprehension scores for digital books. Adults' mediation during print books' reading was more effective than the enhancements in digital books read by children independently. However, with story-congruent enhancements, digital books outperformed paper books. An embedded dictionary had no or negative effect on children's story comprehension but positively affected children's vocabulary learning. Findings are discussed in relation to the cognitive load theory and practical design implications.

Artbooks, which are a combined form of picture and story book created using mixed media, can be a simple yet powerful way of supporting children affected by war and displacement to tell their stories. They allow children to work through the creative arts, which protects them from being overwhelmed by difficult memories. They also allow, even very young children, to show us how they cope with past violence and present injustice by recalling and representing the small everyday overcomings of their lives -- a garden they planted in DRC, a mother who walks them across a busy Johannesburg street, a curtain blowing in the door of their new home -- just as it did in their old home. The books allow them to witness to the injustice of xenophobic violence by neighbours and the immoveable bureaucracy attached to accessing documents, through representing the small details of their lives in crayons and paint. Making artbooks also allows for some measure of meaning-making in the chaos of the everyday in a hostile city where their parents struggle to maintain a normal life for them. Books are also a powerful way for children to safely share their stories and advocate for changed attitudes, laws and policies in the increasingly migrant-hostile South African society. The article will tell the story of a book-making project run over a number of years at a community counselling centre that works with families on the move in Johannesburg South Africa. It will also describe how some of the children's books have become a powerful advocacy tool through their inclusion in the digital library of the African Storybook project. The article will explore some of the practical details of the project and the theory around the power of the representation of the everyday which we are beginning to derive from the work.

Children's literature has an important role to play in developing knowledge of the world, and learning to understand the feelings of others. A growing body of literature explores the role of dual language picturebooks (parallel, interlingual and simultaneous) in drawing on the linguistic capital of multilingual children in classrooms. There is also research examining how dual language picturebooks privilege languages and the impact of this on the ethnolinguistic vitality of minority language communities; however, to date there is little if any literature exploring how dual language picturebooks can support novice readers to develop an understanding of language status and language learning. In this study, five children's picturebooks are analysed using close analysis of text and illustration to explore what understandings of language learning and multilingualism novice readers might gain from these picturebooks. Findings indicate that these books support understanding of the different status of the languages being learned or spoken as reflected in the stories. They also raise questions concerning who these picturebooks are written for; the extent to which different visual and textual cues are used to support the development of empathy; and the pedagogy of working with visual and textual cues for developing empathy through picturebooks.

The growing visibility of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the trend toward inclusive classroom practices present teachers with the unique responsibility of providing an inclusive learning environment for all students. This study sought to explore how teachers may use children's picture books about autism to provide nondisabled students with experiences aimed at increasing student understandings toward autism. Researchers compiled 35 children's books for content analysis and identified significant themes presented as five assertions. Findings indicate children's picture books about autism may (a) teach readers about the core characteristics of ASD, (b) illustrate how individuals with autism may be "at risk," (c) expand on ways neurotypical children are similar and different to individuals with autism, (d) emphasize the importance of influential language, and (e) present insights about autism through the use of multiple perspectives. Findings with exemplar texts representative of each theme are presented, and practical classroom applications are discussed.

The present study used an observational learning framework to investigate changes in non-native signing deaf children's narrative renditions before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) a single viewing of a signing adult's rendition of the same story. The deaf adult model rendered the picture book "Goodnight Gorilla" in American Sign Language (ASL) with the pages of the book displayed behind her. We analyzed the details children aged 6-13 years included within their narratives and how they rendered those details. Specifically, we compared their use of depicting constructions (DCs), constructed action (CA), simultaneous use of both DCs and CA, and only lexical signs before and after viewing the model. The deaf adult predominantly and equally used CA and constructed actin paired with DCs and rarely used lexical signs alone during her rendition. After watching the adult rendition, children's renditions were longer and they included more details. Children increased their use of DCs, CA, and to a lesser extent, combinations of DCs and CA. However, half of the children never used DCs paired with CA. Suggestions for pairing ASL content standards with viewings of deaf adult sign language models are discussed.

This study investigates how teachers construct the "Others" in their use of diverse picturebooks for diverse children. Data from open-ended learning prompts and focus group discussions with in-service teachers in Singapore reveal their conflicted discourse and practice in relation to using diverse picturebooks in the classroom to promote inclusive education. On the one hand, the teachers navigate their way around an "awareness of Others" but, on the other hand, they also express discomfort toward an expanded definition of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" in a relatively tightly controlled educational context. This paper aims to bring to the surface the multifaceted nature of teachers' newly found openness to broader and more inclusive notions of Others, which is conflicted but also actively compartmentalizes different discourses in order to make inclusive classroom practice possible.

In this paper, we explore how a group of 10 and 11-year-old primary school children engage with a picture book about a refugee boy from Somalia. As we examine in some detail a video-recording of the children's discussion, we suggest that the children's emotional engagement with the story was pivotal to not only their making sense of the book, but to their critical discussion of the issues the story raised. The discussion we report on here was part of a wider project to examine the use of picture books for critical literacy in schools. Critical literacy is often discussed as a rational endeavour, where children are invited to ask analytical questions about the message a text seeks to communicate and the means by which this is achieved. Following others, for example Anwarrudin (2016), who have challenged this focus on rationalism, we explore the role of emotions in the session. Data show that the children's critical-analytical discussions of the story were closely connected with their emotional engagement. We use Norris' (2004) multimodal interaction analysis to examine the children's emotional and embodied engagement with the book and its story. This analysis of the children's words, gestures, posture, gaze and voice quality reveals the complexity of their reactions to the book and specifically the role of 'emotional collisions' (Kuby, 2012, p. 35) in provoking embodied and affective reactions but also intellectual curiosity and 'critical engagement' (Johnson & Vasudevan, 2012, p. 35). With regards to the role of picture books in critical literacy pedagogy, our paper offers teachers new insights into what processes of thinking, feeling and communicating they can expect to be part of critical literacy lessons.

Teachers regularly evaluate children's literature for literary quality and age-appropriate information. Today's picture books address issues such as world population, homelessness, climate change, and other socially important themes, but when faced with social studies lessons on sensitive topics such as war and its reality, elementary teachers may hesitate when faced with realism in text and images. School librarians provide excellent opportunities for teachers to collaborate in the selection of suitable titles which will maximize student learning and understanding, especially when reading about sensitive or controversial topics. A strong social studies program provides students opportunities to explore similarities and differences within varied cultural contexts. Placing the right books at the right time in children's hands can make an important impact in developing children's worldview. In this article, the authors review a variety of picture books that look at the realities of war from several periods in recent history and from several perspectives: (1) protection of innocence; (2) Japanese experiences in World War II; (3) experiences of the Holocaust; (4) costs of war; and (5) resiliency. In this brief exploration, the authors discuss titles that will engage student attention, provide room for discussion, and address serious issues in ways that children can comprehend. They address considerations in title selection, classroom use, and Common Core Anchor Standards connections.

This article examines the ways in which exceptionality is addressed in Canadian children's literature, offering critical literacy as an avenue toward social justice. A content analysis (Berg, 2009) of 134 Canadian children's books offers a wide scope of contemporary titles to include in classrooms. We developed conceptual categories to explore patterns and trends through a qualitative interpretive stance (Seidman, 2006). Our findings include the following results: (1) ethnically diverse characters with exceptionalities, (2) authentic characters with real-world challenges, and (3) fantasy blended with other genres. As narratives that include exceptionalities become more authentic and abundant, we can become more appreciative of diversity, further affecting inclusive schools and communities. [A bibliography is included.]

Children's picture books, both fiction and non-fiction, play a vital role in introducing the reader to the natural world. Here we examine the representation of turtles, terrapins and tortoises (Testudines) in 204 English language picture books and find a mean of 3.9 (SD 9.1) basic biological errors per book. Only 83 (40.7%) of the examined books were found to be error-free in the representation of Testudines, with no significant improvement in biological accuracy being observed over time (book publication date range 1974-2017). Suggestions are made as to how biological accuracy of children's literature could be improved to help foster children's understanding and wonder of the natural world. Fantasy and imagination have an important role within children's literature, but here it is argued that the books children read should support future generations having sufficient understanding of the natural world to imagine the solutions to current environmental problems. A role of children's picture books should not be to reinforce biological illiteracy.

This qualitative study describes and analyses young language learners' spontaneous comments while sharing picture books during EFL sessions. It also explores teachers' responses to learners' comments, and considers reasons teachers may choose to ignore children's talk in their first language (L1). Data were collected from young Hungarian learners (ages 5-12) and their teachers, through qualitative processes. The main findings give insights into the role of classroom talk in negotiating meaning in the foreign language and in developing literacy.

Although the literature on picture books is extensive, very little work focuses on how they are integrated into teacher education curricula. We contend that effective use of these resources requires an understanding of the relationship between preservice teachers' conceptions of children and of picture books. Second-year South African undergraduate preservice teachers were asked to review 12 picture books of their own choosing, discuss some of these books with children, and write reflections on what they learnt from the children's responses. Two hundred and thirty picture-book reviews and 62 reflections were analyzed. The data show that preservice teachers' criteria for choosing books were disrupted by children's views. We conclude by considering our own assumptions about our students and the implications for teacher education curriculum design.

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.

This study investigates the referential choice of Mandarin-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The data consist of narratives from 16 children with ASD and 16 typically-developing (TD) children. The narratives were elicited using the wordless picture book "Frog, where are you?" Participants' referential expressions were coded in terms of referential form, function, and adequacy. The results revealed that, compared with the IQ- and language-matched TD children, the children with ASD used significantly more pronominal forms for subsequent mentions, showed insufficient ability to use definite and indefinite noun phrases to mark the information status of referents, and made fewer adequate reintroductions. Additionally, this study demonstrated the potential of the three-category classification to advance our understanding of referential choice in ASD. The outcomes underscore the importance of analyzing referential adequacy across referential functions, and suggest that referential functions are not equally difficult.

The authors believe that children need to feel safe--they need the illusion of safety--so that they can develop in a healthy way. But it is an "illusion" because in reality safety is never guaranteed for anyone. At times, traumatic events disrupt the safe environments that people have created. Janoff-Buhlman (1992) describes the "shattering of illusions"--one of them being the illusion of safety--that takes place when people experience trauma. Children sometimes experience traumatic events first-hand, but they can also experience trauma vicariously as well. When children become vicariously aware of war, large-scale violence, and terrorism, their illusion of safety may become bruised. The bruising may take the form of worrying about whether the adults in their life, whom they have assumed to be powerful enough to guarantee their safety, may not be able to keep them safe. When that happens, the illusion of safety needs to be reestablished. Adults can help to reestablish this illusory sense of safety using children's literature about violence--a rather new genre, within which some picture books have become available. It is essential, however, that when adults use children's literature focused on violent topics, they do so with an understanding of children's dominant age-related fears, behaviors, and needs and connect these to those fears, behaviors, and needs that may be created by traumatic events. This article focuses on how adult readers can assess children's picture books and use them to engender an illusion of safety, reestablished by caring adults.

How can educators help privileged children develop understanding of and compassion for immigrants in schools where there is very little diversity in their classrooms? The author used picture books to help children feel closer to those who came from challenging environments to find a better life in the United States. She discovered that asking children to imagine being in the place of the characters in the books elicited honest and thoughtful discussions that allowed them to feel empathy for immigrant families. While exploring these questions, the author came to understand that her own family's experiences with immigration and her own life of privilege were inextricably intertwined with her work with this curriculum and that both her own life and her teaching were enriched by looking at those connections.

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.

The words 'children' (Danish: 'børn') and 'young people' (Danish: 'unge') are so often combined that they almost have the character of idiomatic expressions. But what differences in the use of the words can be found? This article seeks to study the prevalent, dominant discourses about children and young people. In particular, it endeavours to answer the following question: What is thematized, and how are the thematizations created and maintained? The study is theoretically inspired by Foucault's discourse analysis. The methodological approach is that of a multiple case study. Thus, it provides examples of how children are typically referred to in positive terms such as innocent, imaginative, cheerful, spontaneous, creative and competent (a surplus discourse), while young people are typically referred to in negative terms such as irresponsible, rootless, violent, dysfunctional, hedonistic and unaccountable (a deficit discourse).

This study investigated the effects of a primary tier video modeling intervention combining with a primary tier parent education model on parent-child interactions of children with autism during a picture-book activity in Taiwan. A multiple baseline design across participants was used. Four parents and their child with autism participated at their respective homes. Four additional typically developing parent-child dyads were also recruited as the normative comparison. After the intervention, the number of turn-taking instances increased and the number of instances of child-refusal behavior decreased without direct intervention. Three of the four dyads with a child with autism improved following the intervention and maintained their turn-taking skill within the established normative ranges. However, greater variability was found in the changes in parental behavior patterns. This low-resource, low-support intervention may provide an effective universal support tool for families. Suggestions for future research and the 3-tier video modeling intervention model are discussed.

In this article, the author challenges the recurrent theory-practice divide in art teacher preparation and its splintering implications for sustaining certain pedagogical practices in K-12 schools. Specifically, the author focuses on the pedagogical practice of emergent curriculum and the derivative curricular cycle of listening, observing, reflecting, discussing, and responding to children. This article addresses the theory-practice divide by problematizing and challenging the emergent curriculum process with preservice art educators. The author found that collaborating in and through a Drawing Club helped reaffirm the importance of providing for and nurturing practical opportunities for troubleshooting what is valued theoretically but not easily translated into best practices within art teacher preservice education programs.

This article is a critical content analysis of Children's Choice award-winning picture books from 2000 to 2014. The "critical" part of the analysis consists of selecting archetypes for males presented in these texts based on applying feminist poststructuralist literacy theory that situates literacy and language at the center of gender identity manifestation. In this analysis, the dominant archetypes for male characters tended to be Wildman, Friend, and Creator. In many books, male protagonists used literacy to maintain or develop a positive identity throughout the plot of the book, as reading, writing, and symbolic communication increased choices for male characters and offered insight through language, often inspiring change. Our findings suggest that deficit views of young males' literacy practices still appear in award-winning picture books but are becoming more complex and positive. This matters because picture books reveal values of literacy as characters read or write or engage in symbolic communication.

Children's literature plays an essential role in the literacy development of children. This department column focuses on the teaching and use of children's literature and provides educators with information about a wide range of books across multiple genres that are representative of the diverse world in which we live. A strong emphasis is placed on the importance of having diverse library collections that take into account numerous factors, such as race, class, disability, and religion. This column also offers innovative approaches for bringing children and books together, as well as content analyses and rich descriptions of titles that share common features (e.g., endpapers, the blending of poetry and nonfiction).

This study investigates the relationship between visual attention and reading time using a mobile electroencephalography device. The mobile electroencephalography device uses a single channel dry sensor, which easily measures participants' attention in the real-world reading environment. The results reveal that age significantly influences visual attention and reading time. Adults' visual attention and reading time are superior to those of children; furthermore, the visual attention and reading time of adults are positively correlated, indicating that the executive function of attention and reading time increases with age. Regarding gender differences, boys' visual attention is superior to that of girls, whereas female adults exhibit higher visual attention than male adults. Moreover, multimedia picture books substantially enhance boys' visual attention, whereas girls exhibit low visual attention. This result indicates that multimedia picture books with sound, light, and animation effects are more appealing to boys and thus enhance boys' attention.