This study investigates how Chinese American children construct their identities in self-created multimodal discourses. Drawing from multimodal discourse and critical visual literacy, the research analyzes multimodal discourses created by eight Chinese American children, including the illustrations, texts, and oral explanations. The findings…

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 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…

Oliver Jeffers' best-selling picturebook "How to Catch a Star" (2004) has been the subject of several recent theatre adaptations for children. This paper provides a detailed case study of the 2017 stage adaptation created by the Irish-language theatre-company, Branar Téatar do Pháistí; an adaptation that has been highly praised for the…

Maori and Pacific learners in Aotearoa New Zealand have been identified as 'priority learners' by the Ministry of Education. The 'Pacific picturebook project' is ongoing research focussed on picturebooks selected to support the languages, cultures, and identities of Pacific learners in keeping with our government, Teaching Council and Ministry of…

I present a sampling of picture books with a focus on three peritextual features in particular: dust jackets, case covers that are different from the dust jackets, and endpapers. First, I briefly highlight scholarship related to peritextual features, followed by a description of four picture books with these three peritextual features, and…

This article adds picturebooks to the rich landscape of middle grades readings. It begins with a vignette that inspired this article, followed by an introduction to the changing definitions picturebooks. Next, it provides a brief overview of the different relationships between text and illustrations. Then, it discusses the value of picturebooks…

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…

This naturalistic basic interpretive inquiry study investigated what individual and social meanings students constructed while engaging with paired picture books presented in two different languages: One in English and the other in Arabic. The research aimed to uncover how middle grade male students interpreted and comprehended the narratives and…

Wordless picture book reading is one of the common literacy practices for young children that happen at schools and homes. This dissertation of three studies explores the reader-text transactions between young children and wordless picture books in three ways: a content analysis of wordless books potentially featuring characters of color, a…

Disasters, natural and human-made, occur within children's lives and often have traumatic effects on their well-being. Early childhood educators must be prepared to support children's social-emotional learning related to disasters. When teachers use quality picturebooks for interactive read-alouds, they can promote opportunities for children to…

Research framed by evolving sociocultural theories have been fundamental in advancing the study of early childhood literacies. More recently the field has been enriched by posthumanist theories that have shifted the analytic gaze from children's participation in literacy practices and events, to the fluid relationality of literacies. Concurrently,…

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…

The underrepresentation of women and girls in children's picture books and the use of gender stereotypes persists, as seen in a sample of 335 books published between 2010 and 2020. Previous research showed a significant lack of female representation in children's picture books and stereotyped presentation. A pilot study was conducted to establish…

As literacy researchers continue to investigate how young students make sense of texts, specifically picture books, attention has expanded beyond the role that written language plays in reading comprehension to the various ways that visual images, typography, design elements, and digital devices support and challenge young readers during the act…