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Background: The language that children are exposed to in their early years is enhanced by children's picture books. It is important to better characterise this input, and recent research has begun to explore corpora of narrative picture books. However, previous research has been restricted by methodological limitations that make it difficult to develop large datasets. Further, information texts become increasingly important as children progress through school, but little is known about the language of their earliest form, namely, informational picture books. The current study investigates how informational and narrative picture book exposure might change the language environment of children in a way that supports reading development. Methods: The study applies data science methods to build a larger language model than previously possible and investigates the lexical profile of over 2000 narrative and information picture books. Picture book vocabulary is innovatively derived from digital sources of books read-aloud online, which pushes the field forward by providing researchers access to larger pools of data than previously possible. Detailed comparisons of informational and narrative picture books are reported regarding their lexical diversity, density, morphology, academic vocabulary and semantic clusters. Models are developed to estimate the additional word-type exposure a child may encounter in their language environment from narrative and informational picture books. Results: The study demonstrates that information and narrative picture books expose children to substantially different semantic environments. It is demonstrated that information picture books provide extensive exposure to academic vocabulary, providing important input aligned with later reading needs. Further, computational models indicate that book reading once every day or second day over a year might boost unique-word exposure by approximately 10% for some language environments. Conclusions: Combining informational and narrative picture books enhance the language environment of children more than narratives alone, providing more lexical diversity, density and complex morphology.

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.

Making mistakes and receiving feedback are crucial elements of learning. Reading picturebooks with young children can help shape their perceptions of mistakes and model adaptive responses they can emulate, both in the short term and for years to come. This content analysis identified and analyzed the story characteristics of 25 recently published and widely available picturebooks with mistake-related narratives. Findings include frequencies and descriptions of characters, plot, setting, and a host of other story attributes. Overall, messaging in these books was optimistic--emphasizing responsibility, growth, and acceptance--and making mistakes ultimately led to positive outcomes. Such stories are promising resources for the development of growth mindsets in young children. Teachers and caregivers can use these picturebooks to help children develop positive perceptions of mistakes and learn healthy ways to navigate them in their day-to-day lives.

While society attempts to shield children from death, many are exposed to and impacted by death in their early years, either through the death of someone they know or through media portrayals of death. Even though adults often avoid discussing death with children, children as young as age three can understand the concept and benefit from discussing it with a trusted adult. One way to foster these conversations is through reading picturebooks. This research examines young children's literature that focuses on dying and death. We report findings from a systematic review of children's books focusing on how death is portrayed and discussed in these books. Data indicates that most books are written in a way that does not align with the explicit messaging young children need on the topic. There are also gaps in which characters died, how the characters died, and how much diversity is present within the books. Many books lack additional resources, which would be a beneficial support as parents and teachers tackle this tough topic.

Positive body image, an important perspective in the research literature on body image with adolescents and adults, has become a popular theme in children's picturebooks. This is promising and warrants researchers' attention. Thus this study examined body image-related strategies in 50 children's picturebooks, focusing on body image through content analysis based on the lens of positive body image perspectives. Four main strategies for promoting positive body image emerged from the study including body appreciation, inner positivity, perceived support for protective filtering, and adaptive body investment. This study also examined how these strategies were presented for promoting positive body image through text and pictures. This study fills a gap in the current literature regarding positive body image-related messages for young children. Findings clarify how children's picturebooks can be used to encourage young children to love, respect, and take care of their own and others' bodies physically and mentally.

Climate change is a global crisis that all of humanity must collectively address. Therefore, there is a need to educate future generations, namely infants, on climate change through international cooperation. In this context, this study aimed to analyze picturebooks on climate change read by infants in China and Korea, two neighboring countries in East Asia. To achieve this, we examined the publication status of climate change picturebooks in both countries, identifying similarities and differences in content. The research yielded the following results. First, there were significant differences in the publication status of climate change picturebooks in China and Korea. Second, both Chinese and Korean picturebooks realistically presented the causes of climate change, but depicted its impacts as a combination of real and fictitious effects. Finally, Korea demonstrated a broader range of actions to mitigate climate change compared to China. Based on these findings, we provided insights for climate change education in China and Korea, and proposed inter-country educational cooperation.

The aim of the study was to examine two types of texts for beginning readers. While leveled readers tend to be widely used by teachers, less well known are Geisel Award books. The Geisel Award is given annually to a high-quality trade book appropriate for beginning readers. This content analysis examined one set of first grade leveled readers and Geisel books to determine what each offers in terms of support for beginning readers beyond word and sentence level features. We present findings related to the genre, plot, characters, literary language, and the distinctive features of the visual texts to highlight the differences between the two collections. Of particular importance are findings related to the differences in what the texts offer beginning readers in terms of features of engagement, the diversity of characters, and the inclusion of systems for conveying meaning beyond verbal text. The article concludes with recommendations for teachers and teacher educators.

Is children's literature only beneficial to children? Or do the benefits of children's literature also extend to the knowledge and mathematical skills of the teachers who employ it and reflect on it? This study seeks to investigate the role of picturebooks on the mathematical knowledge of preschool teacher candidates. For this purpose, in-depth examinations of how picturebooks can be used in teaching preschool mathematics and children's literature. As well as the changes in the content knowledge of the teacher candidates, were done by conducting focus group interviews with teacher candidates. This is a qualitative case study consisting of focus group discussions in which high-level knowledge sharing and production can be achieved through interaction and associations. In the research, 11 picturebooks were discussed, and 8 teacher candidates participated in 6 focus group interviews lasting a total of 338 min throughout a 7 week period. The study's findings have demonstrated that through children's literature, teacher candidates' misconceptions about measuring length can be revealed and eliminated without the need for another source, with discussions based on consciously and systematically selected picturebooks. Thus, it can be said that picturebooks act as a catalyst for the studies that aim to enhance the mathematical content knowledge of teacher candidates. The study has also observed that picturebooks can comprehensively address the fundamental concepts of length measurement.

In this article, we provide an overview of the ways one ecosystem-based literacy program uses high quality racially affirming picturebooks with kindergarten-third grade teachers within communities of practice to develop racial literacy and enact more effective and equitable reading practices. Racial literacy here refers to teachers' ability to understand the ways in which race and racism impact reading instruction and reading outcomes in their classrooms. High quality racially affirming picturebooks offer teachers important access to race-based content in ways that are accessible, emotional, and deeply pedagogical. We explore connections between racial literacy and reading practice, the role of high quality racially affirming picturebooks in this work, and provide examples of how we use these books, and the ways they support racial literacy development. Finally, we present a case study highlighting an example of our partner teachers engaging in this work that showcases the role of racial literacy in the development and delivery of effective and equitable reading practices.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and use of diverse picturebooks to support reading development and social-emotional skills are gaining acceptance and broader use. With this shift, new measures of efficacy are needed to confirm, bolster, and source new policies and strategies for family and classroom literacy practices. To this end, the Reading Builds Empathy (RBE) literacy study sought to develop and pilot a new instrument that uses picturebook reading as a way to understand empathy development. The RBE study participants included 21 parent-child dyads (N = 42) and piloted a tool that was created to measure children's empathy development for children ages six-eight. The tool includes collecting parent reports of children's at-home literacy practices and engagement with picturebooks as well as parents' perspectives on their child's empathy development. The tool also includes a researcher-administered tool to directly measure children's empathy development in a developmentally appropriate format across three domains: affective, cognitive, and ethnocultural empathy. This paper describes the process for instrument development, initial pilot data, considerations for changes to the instrument, and ideas for how the instrument can be used in future intervention studies.

Carefully chosen picturebooks offer a developmentally appropriate medium for helping children understand even the most complex challenges. However, it may be difficult for teachers to find high-quality children's books for explaining multifaceted topics such as climate change. This study explores the contents of a set of picturebooks about climate change with consideration of both their literary and scientific aspects. Through content analysis, we examine nine picturebooks available in Turkish related to climate change. We address the quality of these picturebooks in terms of narrative elements such as characters, settings, narrative structures (i.e., initiating events, problems, and resolutions), language, illustrations, and the scientific accuracy of the contents. Looking at the examples of these Turkish picturebooks, we observe that narrative structures should be balanced in terms of appropriate places and times. Furthermore, scientific terms and explanations should be more accurate and child-friendly when dealing with complex topics such as climate change. Finally, we discuss the need for high-quality picturebooks that deal with climate change carefully.

The United Nations' announcements of a rise in the number of refugees have led to questions on how refugees are portrayed in children's picturebooks. Works that introduce children, at a young age, to the concept that there are other societies and cultures besides the one in which they currently reside have the potential to broaden their worldview and provide them with new insights. To further understand this, the current study focused on analyzing picturebooks (n = 15) of children in Turkey, as the country hosts the largest number of refugees in the world The portrayal of refugees, the discourses regarding refugees, and the cycles pointing to refugees are discussed through inductive content analysis. The results showed that refugees were portrayed as victims, homeless and helpless, and as people struggling to survive. The most dominant discourse about refugees is that they are longing for a family. In the refugee cycle in books, the migration itself constitutes the broadest stage. The results are presented for discussion in terms of educational and political implications.

This article examines major themes in 24 contemporary Canadian picture books to identify their potential to support children who are newcomers to Canada. Transition to a new country can be challenging for children and picture books are an effective tool for supporting their cultural and often linguistic transition. Through multimodal content analysis, the authors identify major themes that emerge from the visual and textual data in the books. Analysis identified prevailing themes related to family, food, multiculturalism, and geographic information. Each theme offers valuable insights into the diverse perspectives represented in the texts, providing a foundation for meaningful pedagogical applications for immigrant and newcomer children.

The integration of children's literature, specifically mathematical story picture books, in mathematics education has demonstrated significant benefits. Nevertheless, its actual implementation largely hinges on teachers' beliefs. This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the beliefs of 78 teachers regarding the integration of children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning, with a focus on identifying its barriers and enablers. Data were collected through an open-ended survey and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis framed by the concept of belief indication. The study identifies 15 barriers (across five themes) and 16 enablers (across six themes) that, teachers believe, affect their decisions to integrate children's literature into mathematics teaching and learning. This paper contextualizes the findings within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a framework from social psychology, to provide actionable recommendations and compare findings from studies conducted in Asian and Western countries. Ultimately, this research offers a broader understanding of teachers' behaviors and their receptiveness to educational reforms, such as the integration of children's literature, across diverse cultural and international settings.

This study examined how 44 preservice teachers reflected on their teacher self-identities through exploring multicultural children's books, which are published in different time periods, with a focus of analyzing characterization of main characters. The researcher collected data, including a multicultural book project, pre- and post-surveys on multicultural children's literature and teacher identities, and a reflection paper. Data analysis consisted of looking for and coding emergent themes. The findings of the study showed that preservice teachers analyzed multicultural books from authentic perspectives, focused on how the authors used appropriate language, and examined trends in cultural details and illustrations published in different time periods. They analyzed characteristics of main characters by parsing the facts, by examining the context of the story, and by examining the personalities of main characters. They also refined their teacher identities and strengthened their commitment to become culturally responsive teachers by reflecting on the importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion and embedding high-quality multicultural children's books into the curriculum. Implications and recommendations are also shared.

This study explores the factors contributing to the imbalance between fiction and nonfiction materials in primary school classrooms, with a specific emphasis on the perspectives of prospective teachers. Employing a qualitative research approach, the investigation involved 30 student teachers who had completed the Children's Literature course at a Spanish university. Semi-structured interviews, with questions validated by expert judges, were utilized to gather responses, which were subsequently transcribed and analyzed through coding, following a categorical framework refined post-response analysis. The primary findings indicate a restricted exposure to nonfiction picturebooks in familial and educational settings. Despite positive emotional responses from trainee teachers, the study reveals an inadequacy in their training, hindering the development of a comprehensive understanding and the reinforcement of self-efficacy for integrating nonfiction materials into future teaching practices. Furthermore, the research underscores a disparity between the perceived significance of nonfiction picturebooks for enhancing children's multimodal reading and the inclination of trainee teachers to prioritize fiction due to a lack of confidence and previous exposure. As a result, the study proposes a reassessment of teacher training programs, recommending a more thorough focus on nonfiction materials and continuous professional development to address the disparity between beliefs and actual classroom practices.

The authors--a panel of teacher educators: an education librarian, and a high school student activist--share classroom practices, recent research, and scholarship that centers on fostering empathy and activism through picture books as part of culturally relevant-sustaining practices. A variety of new children's literature and practical ways to incorporate these inclusive picture books across the curriculum are shared. Useful strategies for teachers to locate culturally responsive & sustaining children's literature and related resources for classroom use are also provided.

The underrepresentation of women and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes in children's literature has long been a concern. This study examined the portrayal of women in children's picture books and the potential of interactive read-alouds to promote gender equity in early childhood education, with the aim of shedding light on gender inequality. This study used critical discourse analysis, theoretically informed by Rosenblatt's transactional theory and gender schema theory, to analyse 19 books and interactive read-aloud sessions between preservice teachers and children in six preschools. The results showed that books on women's inequality are discussed in three categories: the absence of female characters, gendered discourse, and the perpetuation of traditional women/maternal roles. Using examples from children's interactions, this study highlights the need for critical thinking about gender stereotypes and promoting gender equity in early childhood education. This study contributes to the literature on gender inequality in children's literature and provides practical implications for early childhood educators by emphasizing their critical role in promoting gender equity in children's learning and development.

This article examines three picture books: "The Dot" (2003) by Peter H. Reynolds, "Art & Max" (2010) by David Weisner (2010), and "The Shape Game" (2003) by Anthony Browne, to see how ideas about creativity are conceived of and pictured for children. Various ideas about creativity and the creative process are encoded in these multimodal texts: the idea of a creative genius putting their unique stamp or signature on the world, the idea of an apprentice artist learning to use the tools of the trade, and the idea of the artist as a playful manipulator of cultural signs. Each of these picture book encodings of creativity has implications for a classroom pedagogy that seeks to encourage creativity and nurture quality creative output.

Significant traumatic events affect communities and schools. Teachers need tools to help navigate challenging conversations with their students. Consequently, we utilized our children's literature course on the use of picture books that would invite dialogue supporting children responding to traumatic events. Specifically, we reconceptualized an existing read-aloud assignment to focus on selecting and using literature that facilitates children's responses to challenging life experiences. This article describes the read-aloud assignment, providing a content analysis of the books the preservice teachers selected, and examples of both preservice teachers' responses and K-12 students' responses to the literature.

Teachers of beginning readers have choices in the books they select. A careful look at the features of books provides an informed basis for choosing books that engage young readers. In this article we share insights from a comparative content analysis of leveled readers and Geisel award books that can motivate children to read and prepare them for entry into the world of authentic children's literature. We end the article with descriptions of diverse award winning and honor books that can be used in interactive read alouds with beginning readers and provide recommendations for preparing for an interactive read aloud using one of the books.

There is a new "genre" of literature that is aimed explicitly at adults and children, or sometimes simply at adults, which follow the formula of the picture book: the inclusion of a simple text accompanying provocative images, and sometimes images alone. On the surface they may seem best suited for the "children's section" of a bookstore or library. But we discover that their linguistic and visual simplicity can fool us into thinking that the content itself is simplistic. And in many cases, they are directly inviting the adult reader to view their own experiences through the lens of a child. They appear to be growing in number and it can be hard to classify them easily, just as we find it difficult to define a "children's book." One might find them grouped with graphic novels but in some ways, they appear to be their own genre. These books openly adopt a façade of being "children's stories" but in fact offer directly to adults visual and conceptual invitations to think deeply about genuine metaphysical issues. This paper offers a tour of a collection of such books and why they can provoke deep philosophical reflections for adults--and in some cases for children as well.

The need for global education is increasing in this global era, and children's literature becomes an essential resource to address this need. However, there is little research on how global perspectives are depicted in children's literature. The current study fills the gap in our understanding by examining contemporary children's picture books that were published in the United States from 2010 to 2016. Findings show that the picture books reflect several important elements of global education. However, there is an imbalance among the topics and genres. Although global awareness through environmental issues was emphasized through informational texts, transnational story lines on how individuals as world citizens connect to the other people around the world were lacking. The findings provide future directions for more diverse topics to support critical global education in this interconnected world.

Researchers and educators have explored representations of people with marginalized identities in children's picturebooks for over 30 years. Disability has not been widely acknowledged as a marginalized identity nor explored as an aspect of diversity prevalent in classrooms. In the United States, over seven million students are identified with a disability, and most will spend the majority of their school day in general education classrooms. Like other diverse students, they may not see their identities mirrored in classroom literature. Picturebooks featuring main characters with a disability are rare, and some still foreground medical models, limiting individuals with narrow, ableist notions that focus on what a person cannot do rather than what they can. The authors describe the development and teacher validation of the Strong Stories Framework, a brief, research-based evaluation tool designed for teachers to use to select picturebooks that exemplify high-quality literature while foregrounding strengths-based depictions of disability.

This study analyzed how people with disabilities are portrayed in picture books with the Coretta Scott King Award (CSKA) to address the intersectionality of African/African American racial identity and disabilities. Disability critical race theory was foundational for this study. The pool of 134 picture books that received the CSKA from 1971 to 2020 was used as the data for the systematic content analysis. For analysis, the researchers utilized a qualitative approach that guided axial coding and selective coding in looking for emerging themes. They found that 13 picture books portrayed African/African American characters with disabilities. The majority of these books did not necessarily emphasize the disabilities of these characters. When focusing on other dimensions of identity such as gender, age, disability type, and so on, the researchers found underrepresentation, invisibility, and marginalization issues, which led them to discussions of power relations. This study calls for future studies that can discover more portrayals of African/African American people with disabilities and that can deepen scholarly discussions about their representation in children's literature.

Based on critical content analyses of picturebooks about children who have sought refuge, we outline a scaffolded method for social studies teachers and teacher educators to historicize forced displacement in children's literature. The method integrates critical literacy, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and inquiry-based social studies frameworks to work toward anti-racist decolonizing stances in education. Drawing from excerpts of representative picturebooks, we share generative questions and instructional resources that invite both teachers and students to investigate the historical and sociopolitical contexts of these narratives, and to deliberately construct counter-narratives, challenging underlying values and assumptions that reproduce persistent hierarchies of power. A generative method of historicizing forced displacement in children's literature aims to nurture critical understanding of geopolitical interconnectedness of countries and cultures, and to develop a sense of shared responsibility for preventing and addressing forced displacement as a collective humanitarian injustice.

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.

The scope of digital children's books is increasing rapidly; however, the quality of these books needs consideration in view of the educational context in which they are to be read. In this article, we present seven key strands to support early childhood teachers in selecting high quality for shared dialogue-based reading with groups of children. The purpose of the key strands is two-sided: first to provide a tool for assessing the aptness of a digital book for use in shared dialogue-based reading in an early education setting. Second, the purpose is to strengthen the educational competence of professional teachers. The key strands are based on 48 video-filmed reading sessions and educational reflections by participating early childhood teachers after each reading session. This research is part of the project books and apps: evaluating e-books for use in dialogue-based reading in kindergarten (VEBB). The seven key strands identified are (1) Theme, (2) Duration, (3) Verbal text and illustrations, (4) Play with language, (5) Conversation and dialogue, (6) Medium flexibility and (7) Interactivity. The first five strands are also relevant for educational reflections on print books.

Purpose: This paper aims to evaluate children's literature that focuses on body size issues for elementary readers. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used an evaluative tool based on three categories: content, audience and other considerations. Findings: The evaluative tool was used to evaluate six children's books identified as critical literature supporting body image. The books evaluated focused on body image but were also tied to other themes such as body positivity, body neutrality, self-love, acceptance, diversity and inclusivity. All books acknowledged and celebrated the uniqueness of varied body types. Research limitations/implications: Because of the number of books evaluated, the evaluative results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to evaluate other critical children's literature focused on body image. Practical implications: The paper offers recommendations for parents, teachers and schools. Originality/value: This paper encourages the need for parents, teachers and schools to help children embrace body positivity and neutrality so that they would love their skin.

Purpose: Early childhood and early elementary are key times when children develop internal and external antifat attitudes; thus, it is necessary to better understand the available children's literature around fatness. This paper aims to examine children's picture books with fat protagonists to better understand the current landscape of children's literature. Drawing on relevant literature around fat characters and the fat studies movement, this critical content analysis considers five children's books featuring fat protagonists. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses critical content analysis to analyze texts featuring fat protagonists, including two rounds of initial reading and analysis. Using lenses of critical literacy and critical multicultural analysis, the author looks for common themes, silences and absences in the texts, images and peritext. Findings: This paper identifies themes of characters initially internalizing antifatness, then pushing back against antifat bias toward existing with joy and without stigma. Several of these texts even draw on the history of fat activism, highlighting societal critique and a potential activist component of children's literature with fat protagonists. Research limitations/implications: The study has a small number of books, due to the limited number of texts that fit the study parameters. Practical implications: The paper concludes with examples of scaffolding for teachers and parents to have conversations with young children about antifat bias while also acknowledging notable absences, particularly boy protagonists. Social implications: These themes illustrate the power of young children to push back against antifat bias and critique oppressive social structures. Originality/value: There have been very few studies looking at antifatness in children's picture books. With more books with fat protagonists coming out in the 2020s, this study offers an understanding of the themes present, while also emphasizing the need for an intersectional approach to literature with fat protagonists.

This pilot project analyzed 185 children's picture books, published 2018--2020, that feature members of the LGBTQIA + community as primary, secondary, or background characters. In developing a framework that builds upon classifications from Diverse BookFinder, the Cooperative Children's Book Center, and the Rainbow Book List, the purpose of the study was to determine which members within the LGBTQIA + community are most frequently represented in picture books and what types of stories are being shared about this community. Additionally, this content analysis explored the representation of intersecting social identities by tracking how often LGBTQIA + characters were also depicted as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) or as having a disability. While the analysis revealed a surprising breadth of representation, it also highlighted the prevalence of biographies and stories of resilience in picture books featuring LGBTQIA + characters as well as the continued erasure of some LGBTQIA + identities and orientations, including nonbinary, bisexual, intersex, two-spirit, and pansexual representation. Although more than 60% of the sample included LGBTQIA + BIPOC characters, there was limited representation of LGBTQIA + characters who were depicted as having a disability. This study also revealed some challenges and inconsistencies in labeling LGBTQIA + content and characters, particularly in respect to gender nonconformity.

Culturally authentic literature is widely recognized for its efficacy in developing children's multicultural awareness and intercultural understanding. Through systematic examination and analysis of 53 Children's picture books featuring China and its culture published in North America, this study investigated the extent to which the selected books were culturally authentic, and how these books would exert their functions as multicultural literature for readers. The results revealed that most books portrayed cultural elements authentically, while a number of books contained incorrect, stereotyped or outdated information. The mismatch of some cultural elements in illustrations with the storylines was especially notable. The ways in which the selected books would play their roles as windows and mirrors for multicultural education, and the implications drawn for writers, illustrators, and publishers of multicultural children's books were discussed.

Children's literature scholars, specifically picturebook theorist and researchers, need to better understand the complicated nature of the separation and coming together of textual matter (words) and visual matter (images) and the range of relations between these entities. Various scholars have conceptualized the relations between word and image in vastly different ways, advocated for a range of analytical frameworks to understand these relations, and subsequently have provided a theoretical foundation for exploring the roles and functions of words and images in narrative picturebooks. More attention focusing on how picturebooks are instantiated as meaningful multimodal ensembles across technological, sensory, material, semiotic, modal, mediational, as well as ideological dimensions is necessary if we are to fully understand the ways words and image work in picturebooks and the educational potential of available and future multimodal ensembles.

Scholarship has documented concerning trends related to representation in children's literature with Asian or Asian American characters and cultural themes. Grounded in mirrors and windows pedagogy and AsianCrit theory, this study aims to identify themes in children's picture books with a female Asian or Asian American protagonist. Themes that emerged in the findings included themes of family, main character identity, culture, and book author identity. Implications for disrupting these trends in publishing and for countering problematic trends through teacher decision making are discussed.

Children and adults are frequently engaging in shared reading activities and storytelling within early childhood settings. This includes children with varying abilities and intersecting identities learning in inclusive or special education settings. Researchers recognize the importance of representation in children's stories, and stories that reflect young readers, their families, and broader community (Bishop, 1990; Bishop, 2012; Oxley, 2006). However, minimal empirical evidence of disability representation in children's literature exists (Tondreau & Rabinowitz, 2021). Thus, this empirical study investigates favorite classroom picturebooks in active early childhood special education (ECSE) classrooms. The study aimed to gain insight about the frequency and quality of inclusive literature, by investigating disability representation in active ECSE classrooms. The research surveyed active ECSE teachers to generate a data corpus of 50 unique favorite classroom stories. Using qualitative semiotic analysis, the study analyzed the texts and visuals for elements of inclusion, to discern elements of inclusion within each story. Within the data corpus, 7 out of 50 favorite stories included disabled and non-disabled characters. This analysis highlighted the absence of disability within the data set, and variations between strong, some, and limited disability representation. The data suggests a need to increase young children's exposure to inclusive stories and strength-based representations of disability.

Approaching literacy through a human rights lens potentially equips children with the courage and support needed to face sources of human suffering; develop compassion for others; and identify obstacles to their sentience, autonomy, and well-being. A human rights view of literacy pedagogy necessarily involves attending to the moral reasoning of social actors and recognizing what conditions enliven literacy practices for social change. Human rights-themed picturebooks offer students models of activist leaders whose moral courage obliges them to call out injustices, inspire social reforms, and build alliances to work through political divides for the sake of justice. As preservice teacher educators of language arts and social studies, the authors ascribe to a human rights view of literacy education. In this article, the authors briefly review the existing literature on human rights activism and picturebooks, then present findings from their analysis of twenty-five picturebook biographies of human rights activists. The authors' findings reveal four typologies of activist leaders: Rescuers, Nonviolent Resistors, Integrators, and Builders. The authors draw upon examples from the picturebooks to demonstrate how these typologies provide insight into the relationship between moral courage and social activism. Furthermore, the authors invite educators and young people to examine human rights struggles and social movements with both broader and more nuanced recognition of activist orientations, approaches, and moral perception.

As they are usually chosen by adults, children's picture books offer important insights into contemporary attitudes and values. They subsequently drive the social and academic development of young children, thereby playing a key role in their ethical socialisation and education. This article will explore the role of children's literature in this process by analysing a range of Australian children's picture books that deal with First Nations issues. The books were identified in a survey administered by the State Library of New South Wales' (NSW) public library service which identified 62 books that explored diversity. Twenty-five of the books were assessed as having Indigenous characters. This article will explore the approach adopted in each of these picture books by using Rudine Sims' three categories--Social Conscience, Melting Pot, and Culturally Conscious. By doing so, the article will assess the nature of childhood literature's engagement with Indigenous cultures, contexts, and issues.

Children's literature can be both a reflective mirror to readers' lives and a window to new worlds, making teachers' selection of texts for students an important professional activity. Researchers have consistently found that teachers' choices of literature contain limited representations of ethnicities, cultures, and disabilities, and reinforce gender stereotypes. Teacher educators, when working with pre-service teachers in university settings, utilize children's literature for literary, critical, and cultural pedagogical purposes. However, teacher educators rarely interrogate their text selections to explore patterns of representation, identity, and power. This paper describes and discusses a self-study into five children's picture books selected for modeling aspects of early literacy teaching in a pre-service teacher education unit. Critical content analysis was used to explore representation, identity, and power in the texts. The analysis showed some connections with trends found in research into early years and school teachers' selective traditions in the use of an older text and two texts without human characters. Other findings differed; agentive female characters, together with some variation of social, cultural, and ethnic groups and lives, were depicted in the three texts with human characters, likely because of the author's own bias towards expanding representation in texts. This article reports on an example of one teacher educator's selective literary tradition and shows how the texts used in education settings represent windows to specific worlds rather than standing in for "diversity." It makes suggestions for other educators interested in interrogating their text selections and invites dialog with other educators about representation, identity, and power in the texts they teach with.

This critical content analysis used critical literacy and critical race theory to examine eight children's picturebooks to reveal patterns in the depictions of Black-white biracial characters. Analysis attended to protagonists' skin tone, hair texture, and facial features. Findings identify a pattern in the text of the protagonists' skin tone and hair texture being referenced as part of the storyline. However, the text of the picturebooks did not discuss the protagonists' Afrocentric or Eurocentric facial features even though the illustrations depicted them. Three other trends were identified: (1) comparing Black-white biracial characters' skin and hair to food; (2) presenting only two self-concepts for the Black-white biracial protagonists--either being "just right" or "mixed up;" and (3) portraying interracial families as either contentious or idyllic. The findings highlight how power differentials and racial socialization are embedded in the picturebooks and that opportunities for Black-white biracial counterstories must be pursued.

Employing best practices for teaching mathematics like math manipulatives, children's literature picture books, and GeoGebra can all be connected and better help to prepare students for a STEM world to develop confident young individuals in doing mathematics in a world of AI, distance learning, and online with emerging technologies. This paper will highlight all the above best practices and share how they can be connected and taught to make math meaningful and help learners be confident with technology and mathematics in a way that helps them see math in a hands-on, visual, and abstract way. Students can digitally engage with GeoGebra, Virtual and actual math manipulatives, and children's math literature/picture books. This paper will give a synopsis of the theory of these best practices, discuss manipulatives, the use of GeoGebra software in learning mathematics, and show the connections between picture books and everyday life math skills. Using such best practices in mathematics aims to develop confident young learners for a STEM and AI world where so much of the technology now focuses on AI and emerging technologies to stimulate learners, creating blazing new pathways for digital engagement in mathematics learning.

Purpose: Both fictional oral narrative and expository oral discourse skills are critical language competencies that support children's academic success. Few studies, however, have examined African American children's microstructure performance across these genres. To address this gap in the literature, the study compared African American children's microstructure productivity and complexity across three discourse contexts: fictional narratives, informational discourse, and procedural discourse. The study also examined whether there were age-related differences in microstructure performance by discourse type. Method: Participants were 130 typically developing African American children, aged 59-95 months old, enrolled in kindergarten through second grades in a Midwestern U.S. public school district. Wordless children's books were used to elicit fictional narratives, informational, and procedural discourse. Indicators of microstructure performance included measures of productivity (i.e., number of total words and number of different words) and complexity (i.e., mean length of communication unit and complex syntax rate). The effects of genre and age on microstructure performance were assessed using linear mixed-effects regression models. Results: Children produced longer discourse and used a greater diversity of words for their fictional stories compared to their informational or procedural discourse. Grammatical complexity was greater for fictional narratives and procedural discourse than informational discourse. Results showed greater productivity and complexity among older children compared to younger children, particularly for fictional and informational discourse. Conclusions: African American children exhibit variation in their microstructure performance by discourse context and age. Understanding this variation is key to providing African American children with support to maximize their oral language competencies.

The Diverse BookFinder (DBF) and its Collection Analysis Tool (CAT) were co-founded by Dr. Krista Aronson at Bates College, with support from an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant. It was recognized in 2021 by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) as one of the Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning. Through its detailed data collection process and its nine thematic categories, the DBF allows users to see who is being represented in children's picture books as well as the messages those books portray (Aronson, Callahan, and O'Brien 2017). This is important because when students do not learn about different cultures or communities, they may make assumptions or believe stereotypes that can lead to isolation and may even foster prejudice. It is therefore crucial that learners read all kinds of stories to learn about the diverse experiences of people. This is where the DBF's unique data, collections, analysis tool, and other resources can come into play. Sharing the DBF with classroom teachers, administrators, and parents, conducting diversity audits using the CAT, utilizing the DBF's book database for acquisitions, and engaging with publishers and booksellers to communicate collection needs are all essential elements in achieving a well-rounded school library collection. These steps will allow librarians and educators to provide the varied and balanced school library collections that our learners both need and deserve.

Using Border Pedagogy (Giroux, H. 2005. "Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education." New York, NY: Routledge.) as a guiding lens, this study examines the third-grade Korean American students' responses to multicultural children's literature that illustrates different kinds of borders (i.e. racial, religious, linguistic, and physical). 14 different multicultural children's picture books (Asian, Hispanic, European, and African) are introduced to the Korean students from transnational families in a Korean heritage language school in the U.S. throughout the semester. The findings present that the students' responses during book discussions showed that using multicultural children's literature supported the value of facilitating their border crossing. The findings provide implications for educators that using multicultural children's picture books can be an influential pedagogical instrument to provide experiences of crossing borders between cultures of themselves and others. This border crossing perspective can potentially help the students construct their own cultures, experiences, and histories to better understand those of others.

This qualitative case study explored how pre-service teachers responded to social justice-themed picture book read-alouds in an undergraduate literacy course. Data were collected from personal observations, semi-structured focus group interviews, and student work, and were analyzed using inductive analysis. Findings indicate how reading multicultural literature aloud plays an important role in post-secondary students' content understanding and preparation for a career in teaching. This case study may inspire teacher educators to incorporate multicultural read-alouds into higher education coursework.

This critical content analysis examines representations of rural life in a sample of 52 picture books by Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors and illustrators. While the United States and Canadian governments use quantitative measures to designate rurality, in this study rurality is conceptualized more broadly as an interaction between geographical, cultural, and social characteristics. Three sets of findings about the representation of rural people in Indigenous and non-Indigenous picture books are offered: the representation of human-to-human relationships, the relationships between people and the natural world, and the problems and challenges faced by rural people in the books. While there is increasing attention within children's literature scholarship about the importance of culturally relevant picture books and representations of diversity, less is understood about representations of rurality in children's literature and still less is known about textual representations that engage the intersection of rurality and minoritized groups such as Indigenous peoples.

The aim of this research is to create a scale to assess classroom teachers' attitudes towards illustrated children's books and to reveal the psychometric aspects of the scale. Between September 13th and December 22nd, 2021, data for the study were collected from classroom teachers in various provinces of Turkey via social networks. Data were collected from a total of 819 people, 517 of whom were included in the exploratory factor analysis in the first stage, while 302 of whom were included in the second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the second stage. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) done with the first sample group yielded a three-component construct with 20 items, ensuring the construct validity of the scale. A second-order CFA was conducted using the second sample group to give evidence for the construct. The convergent validity of the scale was examined with the average variance extracted (AVE) and combined reliability (CR) values, while the divergent validity of the scale was examined by comparing the [square root] AVE values with the correlation coefficients among the factors. Cronbach's alpha coefficient (Cr [alpha]) and combined reliability (CR) values were used to assess the scale's reliability. The scale was found to be valid and reliable in measuring classroom teachers' attitudes regarding illustrated children's books as a result of these examinations.

Multicultural education curriculum often seems to get lost in the implicit biases of formal education. As K-12 classrooms continue to increase in linguistic, cultural, racial, gender, socioeconomic, and ability diversity, the call for educators to develop mind frames of equity becomes more urgent. This study asks teacher candidates to explore children's literature for overt and covert messages of oppression, silencing, and indoctrination. Each theme is discussed within the context of picture books and their corresponding analysis. A suggested chart for selecting critically intelligent books is provided as a consolidated extension of the study's findings.

"Best behaviour" picturebooks, also known as "making good habits" or "teaching good manners" picturebooks, have explicit educational intentions that imply a culturally hegemonic voice. Despite this problematic characteristic, these picturebooks are welcomed by both parents and the market in China. Using extant picturebook theory of picture-text relationships, narratological, paratextual analyses and translation theory, this article seeks a better understanding of how this hegemonic voice is formed, resolved or consolidated via a critical reading of three best-selling "best behaviour" picturebook series available in the Chinese market. One is the original Chinese-language WaiWaiTu-ZiKongLi series (Little Bunny series). The second series is the translated United States series, Hands Are Not For Hitting, now a Chinese best behaviour publication. The third series is a translated rendition of Pete the Cat series, which did not serve any evident educational purpose in its original English-market form but has been identified to cultivate good character on the Chinese covers. These publications commonly present straightforward picture-text relationships of two-dimensional stories and characters. Most importantly, adults hold power in these best behaviour children's books. We argue that both the construction and disruption of hegemonic thinking co-exist in these picturebooks, reflecting the nature of adult power plays. At the same time, these best behaviour picturebooks serve as a good example of how hegemonic notions work within specific cultural and pedagogical contexts.