In her influential work "Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction," Waugh (1984) loosely categorizes literary metafiction on a sliding scale of four metafictional Acts. Through repeated readings of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (Carroll & Tenniel, 1866) and study of all of "Wonderland"…

Homelessness is a prevalent issue in the United States, and students facing homelessness face unique and complex issues. Children's literature, however, can provide a powerful platform for enabling students to more deeply understand diverse living situations. In this paper, we explore how children's literature can be used in classrooms using the…

Activism is a term used frequently within and beyond educational settings, but the term is not always clearly defined. Using content analysis of over 150 picturebooks depicting activism, we strive to provide specificity to what activism is and make it tangible for readers and teachers. Through content analysis, we investigate key themes,…

Framed within the fields of applied linguistics and language play, the writing of three attainment groups of 9-11-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an imaginative narrative. The scripts were from a larger repeat-design study of writing development that addressed a range of…

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…

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…

A teacher educator shares how a school community engaged family in parent-child interactive reading experiences around big ideas found in diverse literature to deepen inclusion beyond the classroom.

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…

Against a backdrop of legislation aimed at classroom book bannings and efforts to whitewash curriculum, this article draws from interviews with the winners of the 2022 International Literacy Association's Social Justice Literature Award winners to offer hope and inspiration for literacy teachers, researchers, and most importantly, young readers.…

Children are crucial to the future of climate change leadership, and even as youth, they have the ability to make a difference in achieving climate equity. Explorations of children's climate change literature is limited, despite the push from experts to involve children in climate change education and action. A thematic analysis of picturebooks…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Children's literature is a powerful pedagogical tool within culturally sustaining literacy classrooms. Drawing from generative metanarrative theory of human displacement, culturally sustaining pedagogies, and critical refugee studies, this research investigates how representations of home(lands) in 30 acclaimed picturebooks about children who…