Barnboken – Journal of Children's Literature Research
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Bakom den leende masken: Sårbart modrande i samtida bilderböcker om surrogatmödraskap och sjukdom
No full textTheme: Motherhood and Mothering. Ill. ©Stina Wirsén
Behind the Pretty Mask: Vulnerable Mothering in Contemporary Picturebooks about Surrogacy and Illness
Children and adults, the dual audience of picturebooks, are joined in the act of reading aloud. For many parents, reading to their child constitutes one of the basic, intimate care practices of mothering (Rich; Holm). In this study, we examine picturebooks about surrogacy and about mothering parents who are mentally or physically ill, published in Sweden in the period between 2010 and 2022. Both types of books depict a vulnerability in relation to parenthood, motherhood and mothering and are often autobiographical and niche- or self-published. With an analytical approach grounded in critical theories of adult agency in children’s literature (Rose; Nodelman; Beauvais), we find that both picturebooks about surrogacy and illness communicate straightforward and often sentimental messages to the child reader, whereas more complex and possibly problematic adult desires and needs can be detected on the level of the adult address. Through the projected child perspective (Rhedin), our material offers the vulnerable adult reader representation and recognition in relation to a motherhood/mothering that is not unequivocally considered sufficient or legitimate. The traditional aesthetics and pedagogical use-value of the picturebook as well as the positive maternal associations to reading aloud, are essential in this legitimization process. Meanwhile, the implied child reader functions as a projection surface for adult wishes of normalcy and happy endings. Although hidden behind adult projections, it is this “mighty” child (Beauvais) who ultimately has the power to acknowledge and justify the parents in an impending future which reaches beyond the control of both adult writer and implied adult reader
På vei mot et flerspråklig skolebibliotek
No full text Theme: Multilingualism and Children's Literature. Ill. Henry Lyman Saÿen - Child Reading (1915–1918). Smithsonian American Art Museum, object number 1968.19.11.
Towards a Multilingual School Library
The new curriculum for primary schools in Norway underlines that knowledge of several languages is a resource both in school and society, and that the pupils should experience this through their education. In this article we investigate the school library as a multilingual arena, based on a study with a linguistically and culturally diverse pupil group. The material contains observation data from library activities, such as book talks and reading aloud, a semi-structured interview with the school librarian, and photo documentation of the school library room. We base the analysis on an overall perspective on the school library as a schoolscape (Brown). Hence we are interested in the linguistic-visual interior of the school library, as well as the literary and pedagogical activities that take place there. The article investigates how language diversity emerges both in the school library’s semiotic landscape and in various reading activities. Overall, the analysis shows that linguistic diversity appears to be valued on a general level, but that the specific languages of the pupil and teacher groups are represented to a lesser degree in the schoolscape. The analysis also identifies a number of framework factors, including at system levels, such as access to multilingual literature, which clearly hinder the school librarian’s work in developing the library’s multilingual collection
Kristina Hermansson och Anna Nordenstam (red.), Rum för läsning: Att arbeta med litteratur i förskolan
No full textReview/Recensio
Introduktion: ”Moderskap och modrande”
No full textTheme: Motherhood and Mothering. Ill. ©Stina Wirsén
Introduktion: "Moderskap och modrande
Lonely Landscapes: Desire and Direction in the Writing of Anna-Liisa Haakana
No full textAnna-Liisa Haakana is a Finnish novelist best known for her realistic stories set in Sápmi (better known in English by its colonial name “Lapland”) during the 1980s. Haakana’s teenage protagonists, Ykä in Ykä Yksinäinen (Ykä the Lonely, 1980) and Anitra in Ykköstyttö (Number One Girl, 1981), feel lonely and isolated despite being surrounded by their families. Loneliness, as Fay Alberti reminds us, is a social and cultural phenomenon which has its own history. In Haakana’s pre-internet novels, loneliness is mapped onto the northern landscape such that the protagonists’ perceptions of their homes are tinged with feelings of isolation. In this article, I investigate the links between the feelings of loneliness and landscape by drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work on queer orientations to examine the geo-spatial dimensions of loneliness. Although neither of the novels by Haakana examined here are romances per se, desire acts as a form of way-finding for both Ykä and Anitra. For both teens, feelings of love combined with the desire to care for someone vulnerable orient them towards their homes. To do so, they must move: stillness leads to feelings of loneliness and topophobia, but movement leads to feelings of purpose and topophilia
Call Me By My Name: Naming Practices as Multilingual Devices in Italian Postcolonial Children’s Literature
No full textTheme: Multilingualism and Children's Literature. Ill. Henry Lyman Saÿen - Child Reading (1915–1918). Smithsonian American Art Museum, object number 1968.19.11.
This article investigates naming practices in Italian postcolonial children’s literature. I define naming practices as a series of verbal figures that display affirmation of one’s own name. While multilingualism in children’s fiction has recently gained attention, names and naming practices are understudied, especially in contexts of migration. The aim of the article is twofold. First, it investigates how characters defy the mispronunciation of their names. Secondly, it discusses naming strategies in connection to categories of difference such as race, gender, and class in contemporary Italy. Finally, the article demonstrates that naming practices in Italian children’s literature disrupt the monolingual paradigm by representing a multilingual social texture; by doing this, I argue, they contribute to questioning racism and other forms of social oppression in contemporary Italy. This study sets the basis for future research on narrative strategies in multilingual literature in order to educate children in equality
Introduktion: ”Moderskap och modrande”
No full textTheme: Motherhood and Mothering. Ill. ©Stina Wirsén
Introduktion: "Moderskap och modrande
