Vivian Gussin Paley is a teacher, writer, lecturer, and advocate for the importance of play for young children. Author of a dozen books about children learning through play, she has received numerous honors and awards including an Erickson Institute Award for Service to Children, a MacArthur Foundation Fellows award, and a John Dewey Society's…

In this article David Lewis talks to Posy Simmonds about her career in illustration, cartooning and the writing and illustration of picturebooks. Together they discuss her early experience of working as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines; her first attempt at creating a weekly adult cartoon strip and her subsequent career as a regular…

This paper takes up the question of the way in which "the problem with educational research" is represented. It takes as its point of departure two recent views on "the problem"--one expressed by an educational journalist and one presented by the Australian Council of Deans of Education. It locates these within a larger frame…

While video gaming has grown immensely as an industry over the last decade, with growing numbers of gamers around the globe, including women, gaming continues to be a very gendered practice. The apparent gender divide in video gaming has caught the attention of both the gaming industry and educators, generating considerable discussion and…

Relates author's experiences as a story teller from early childhood to the present, describing the art of storytelling and citing excerpts from fairy tales and folktales. (EJS)

In July 2000, a Harry Potter camp was held at the University of Windsor Faculty of Education to reenact and celebrate J. K. Rowling's novel Harry Potter. As a result of this camp, a new sport was invented--Quidditch--which soon took hold in Ontario, Canada. Quidditch has since been played by teams at Chatham Kent Secondary School, Chatham…

Advocates encouraging children to write about what they know best--the rich fantasy worlds they create in play. (Author)

Examines the complex nature of pretense as portrayed in a popular UK children's television puppet show. Argues that animality of puppets is rendered opaque as their identities as children are linguistically accomplished, leading to a piece of representational art structured by moral and behavioral dictates typical of conventional adult-child…

A brief history of science fiction and an analysis of its functions precedes a description of a university level course taught at Trinity University on science fiction, technology, and values. Science fiction writing is briefly traced from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" through the golden age of science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s to its…

Describes how two fifth-grade boys developed and sustained a love of fantasy books. Describes how these two discriminating readers have developed taste and a social context for their reading experience. Shows how their experience demonstrates important principles about reading and about reading curriculum. (SR)

This exploration of the two leading varieties of nonsense literature defines strict nonsense as that in which the laws of nature are suspended and replaced by new laws which the author decrees, and loose nonsense as usually comic writing about a singular unlikely event. Examples of these two types of verse in children's literature are cited. (22…

Maps have been used as an illustrative device in children's books for a long time; however, they are an area of illustration that has been largely ignored by critics. Maps are most commonly used as frontispiece illustrations in adventure and fantasy books. They have also generally been aimed at the male reader when children's books were marketed…

This report contains discussion papers presented at a workshop held in 1981 by the Multiculturalism Directorate of the Canadian Department of the Secretary of State to consider the effects of television on public attitudes and to develop approaches for educating viewers to analyze critically what they see. The papers include (1) an overview of the…

Noting that the perception of increased real violence in the country has created an inhospitable setting for pretend violent play, this book recounts the experiences of children in a kindergarten and first-grade classroom over the course of one year, focusing on the role of violent fantasy play. The book illustrates how the teacher, with 8 years…