Barnboken – Journal of Children's Literature Research
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Girlhood in Verses: The Role of Poetry in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon and Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X
No full textFew creative protagonists in girls’ coming-of-age fiction, especially those authored by women, have escaped the lure of poetry writing. And yet from introspective diarists to fervent letter-writers to passionate storytellers, what seems less visible in current scholarly conversation on girls’ literature are discussions surrounding girls as aspiring poets. My article considers representations of poetry writing in two landmark texts by women, Emily of New Moon (1923) by Lucy Maud Montgomery and The Poet X (2018) by Elizabeth Acevedo, paying special attention to how poetry writing serves particular purposes for the characters as they search for means of self-representation and self-expression to resist practices that undermine their voice. Despite being published in significantly different time periods, Montgomery’s and Acevedo’s works cross paths in terms of how they represent the power of poetry writing for adolescent girl protagonists: poetry operates as a means of negotiating conflicted identities or subjectivities, reconstructing their own notions of time, and performing their bodies. Whilst this article attempts to sketch a tentative case for the usefulness of poetry in girls’ texts then and now, it concludes with suggestions for future research that might shed more light on the continual appeal of poetry in narratives of girlhood
Not Speaking or Acting as Anti-Social Feminism and Unbecoming Woman: A Queer Reading of Silence in Agnes von Krusenstjerna’s Tony Trilogy
No full textThe aim of this article is to explore the queer possibilities of the silence in the depiction of the protagonist’s love life in Agnes von Krusenstjerna’s Tony trilogy (1922–1926). The silence in the trilogy is manifested through absence: the theme of “ingenting” (nothing), the protagonist not speaking or acting, and the aesthetic that is created by interruptions in the protagonist’s dialogue, inner monologue, and narration. The analysis focuses on three passages: a depiction of an encounter between Tony and one of her suitors, her relative Frank Maclean, in Tonys läroår (Tony’s Apprenticeship, 1924); the ending of the trilogy in Tonys sista läroår (Tony’s Last Apprenticeship, 1926); and an epilogue to the trilogy, which was never included in it but later published in the second, expanded edition of En dagdriverskas anteckningar (The Notes of a Flâneuse, 1934). They are contextualised with references to the trilogy as a whole and compared to Krusenstjerna’s previous novels Ninas dagbok (The Diary of Nina, 1917) and Helenas första kärlek (Helena’s First Love, 1918). The method is a close reading with instead of against the grain, focusing on queer aspects of depictions of heterosexuality. It draws on theory belonging to the anti-social turn of queer studies and queer temporality studies. My conclusion is that Tony not speaking or acting can be read as anti-social feminism, with Tony as an anti-social feminist subject. Her queer life schedule can be interpreted as unbecoming woman. The “nothing,” and implicitly the creativity, that her passivity leads to accomplishes the opposite of patriarchal and chrononormative structures. The narrative and its ending are queer in the sense that they refuse to cohere and to fulfil demands for a happy, emancipatory ending
Interpretation, Negotiation, Play: A Multiple Case Study of Playful Reader Engagement with an Augmented Reality Picturebook
No full textAugmented reality (AR) picturebooks combine printed children's literature with augmented reality. This study examines the shared reading of the Finnish AR picturebook Mur, eli karhu (2016) by Kaisa Happonen and Anne Vasko. The main aim of the study is to explore the playful reading experience of three Finnish families with children between the ages of 4 and 6. Three main categories of engagement with the book are discussed in the article: interpretation, negotiation, and play. The findings of the study suggest that children are skilled users of mobile digital media but may not understand the content of AR without parental mediation. In addition, parents and educators are required to have substantial pedagogical and aesthetic knowledge to successfully support children’s engagement with hybrid and multimodal literary works. This knowledge involves understanding both children’s literature and the digital medium
Ulrika Gustafsson och Hanna Kurtén (red.), Zacharias Topelius Läsning för barn
No full textReview/Recensio
B. J. Epstein & Elizabeth L. Chapman (red.), International LGBTQ+ Literature for Children and Young Adults
No full textReview/Recensio
Utrymme för det obestämbara: Den komplexa bilderboken i litteraturundervisningen
No full textAllowing Space for Undecidability: Complex Picturebooks in Literary Education
Previous research on children’s literature calls attention to picturebooks as a challenging art form, containing complex themes and sophisticated literary qualities. However, previous research shows that picturebooks in educational settings are still mainly explored with emergent readers. In this study, we elaborate on the relation between aesthetics and pedagogy by discussing how the complexity and undecidability of picturebooks can contribute to literary education by applying the concept of undecidability (Johansen, “Kunst”; Litteratur). Applying a thinking with theory approach (Jackson and Mazzei), we use the theoretical concept of undecidability, in relation to the picturebook Skuggorna (The Shadows, 2018) by Maija Hurme and Anssi Hurme as well as in relation to pedagogical considerations for literary education. The analysis of Skuggorna shows how it contains undecidabilities on several levels and how these undecidabilities cause the meaning of the narrative to shift. The study offers implications for literature teaching with this type of picturebook and, consequently, elaborates on what these undecidabilities can provide literary education. Moreover, the study shows how the challenging picturebook can provide spaces for upholding undecidabilities and negotiations in the literature classroom
Laura Leden, Adaption av flickskap: Normbekräftande och normbrytande i flickböcker översatta från engelska till svenska och finska 1945–1965
No full textReview/Recensio
Gjøre hva og hvordan? : Ny svensk faglitteratur for barn og unge om miljø- og klimaspørsmål i lys av FNs barnekonvensjon
No full textDoing What and How? New Swedish Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults on Environmental and Climate Issues in Light of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
The aim of this article is to examine a selection of new Swedish nonfiction for children and young adults focusing on how environmental and climate issues are presented and in what ways the books encourage children and young adults to actively engage in dealing with the issues that are thematized. The material for the survey is based on the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books’ Book Tasting reports on books published in the years 2015–2020 and the titles mentioned there with relevance to the topic. The theoretical and methodological framework for the study is based on recent and relevant research on nonfiction for children and young adults, and on what is referred to as a child-centered and critical approach to children's literature based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. An examination of the material in question against the background of the Convention on the Rights of the Child should be considered highly relevant because issues related to the environment and climate are affected by Article 24, which states that children have the right to the best possible health care, clean drinking water, healthy food, and a clean and safe environment to live in