The new non-fiction picturebook for children is conceived not just as an informational book, but first and foremost as a beautiful object, characterized by a largely visual and proudly creative ...approach to knowledge. By blending information and artistic illustration/design, transmission of data and sophisticated aesthetic experimentation, this medium seems to bring successfully together the rational/explicit and the aesthetic/intuitive way of attending to the world, with promising consequences for the development of an integrated learning experience. Applying the findings of cognitive sciences to the analysis of non-fiction picturebooks can be enlightening to understand the full potential of such books in sharing knowledge with children. Their intrinsic multimodality and ability to stimulate different parts of the reader’s brain makes them valuable in any educational context revolving around the paradigm of complexity and having connection (as opposed to disjunction) of different levels of experience as its aim.
Very, very little is known about the children’s book publishing industry of India. This paper looks at book production aimed at a predominantly young readership base and attempts to identify the ...success areas and the gaps. The absence of statistics within the industry is particularly telling: it indicates the existence of a non-traditional book business and also points to alarming levels of piracy. At the same time, the growth of the traditional publishing industry has been seen as spectacular and unlikely, and growth patterns are proving to be unpredictable. This paper attempts to map trends with the limited resources available. The scope of the study, given the geographical and demographic nature of India, is broad. The focus is on both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the industry.
This essay explores the concept of transnationalism, defining this term in relation both to the lived experience of transnational subjects, and to transnational texts for children. It argues that ...rhetorics of globalization have over-emphasized the impact and significance of global cultural and economic flows, although the production of children's books is to some extent shaped by the internationalization of publishing houses and markets. The concept of transnationalism provides a way of thinking about how children's texts address and are informed by diverse, complex influences, sometimes from a variety of cultures and languages. Transnationalism is not a new phenomenon but is visible in colonial texts which are shaped both by the particular, local ideologies of colonial nations, and also by the common concerns and interests of such nations. The essay draws on two contemporary texts to illustrate the workings of transnationalism: the film Howl's Moving Castle, and Shaun Tan's picture book The Arrival. It concludes by considering the concept of transnational literacy as a way of approaching scholarship and teaching in children's literature.
This essay explores the concept of transnationalism, defining this term in relation both to the lived experience of transnational subjects, and to transnational texts for children. It argues that ...rhetorics of globalization have over-emphasized the impact and significance of global cultural and economic flows, although the production of children’s books is to some extent shaped by the internationalization of publishing houses and markets. The concept of transnationalism provides a way of thinking about how children’s texts address and are informed by diverse, complex influences, sometimes from a variety of cultures and languages. Transnationalism is not a new phenomenon but is visible in colonial texts which are shaped both by the particular, local ideologies of colonial nations, and also by the common concerns and interests of such nations. The essay draws on two contemporary texts to illustrate the workings of transnationalism: the film Howl’s Moving Castle, and Shaun Tan’s picture book The Arrival. It concludes by considering the concept of transnational literacy as a way of approaching scholarship and teaching in children’s literature.
According to Simone Carpentari-Messina, “the brief does not allow itself to be locked into a genre or a form. It is the question of transgenericity that arises to approach a trilogy of collections of ...haiku published in this early twenty-first century that resume tales, fables and myths. The postmodernist approach that leads to revisit the great stories of humanity to convert them into small playful forms allows us to observe the literature for young people in its most demanding dimension. It is a question here of accessing the secular texts through one of the most rigorously coded short forms. Ambitious and full of pitfalls, the undertaking deserves attention: indeed, how to initiate to this cultural fund a real young readership - whose cultural competences are necessarily limited - by using poetic forms all the most sibylline that they take the party of a drastic concision?
Specific to our modern world is the dualism between scientific research and the humanities, between the knowledge derived from the natural sciences, with their positive experimental approach, and the ...indemonstrable yet profound intuitions and insights revealed to us by literature, poetry, art, philosophy and physical and emotional engagement with the world. Official Western culture has tended to create an unbridgeable divide between these two aspects of knowing that seem mutually exclusive (Snow 1977). Today, however, a new genre of book for children, the artistic non-fiction picturebook, is bringing these two worlds together in a surprisingly refreshing way. This paper investigates how vital the blending of these two perspectives is, and why the creative, beautifully crafted, powerfully illustrated non-fiction picturebook allows an innovative and culturally crucial approach to knowledge.
There has been little examination of Philippine children’s literature for any period of its history, and even fewer accounts are available for the publishing sector that brings this literature to ...market. This article addresses this gap by an analysis of a series of in-depth interviews conducted with representatives of three of the major publishing firms in the country. There are three main findings that will be discussed. The first is that publishers experience challenges in dealing with various gatekeepers before reaching their targeted readers, that is, children. Secondly, the local economic context coupled with cultural developments and government policies are major concerns to the industry in the Philippines. Lastly, while for most publishers, slower pace of sales is considered a bane of the industry, it is celebrated in the Philippines.
This article focuses on the editors and editorial pieceworkers (translators, adaptors, illustrators, correctors, and members of the reading committees) behind the production of two of France’s most ...famous series for children, the Bibliothèque Rose and the Bibliothèque Verte. Hachette’s cheap and luridly coloured cardboard-covered books for children that flooded the French market in the long sixties formed an important and yet overlooked component of what Sirinelli calls the ‘rejuvenation’ of French mass culture, when the young became an important new market. Using the extensive archives of Hachette’s children’s department, this essay analyses how the editors responded to the unprecedented growth and important structural changes that historians concur were taking place in the children’s publishing industry across the West in the post-war period. This novel approach, which draws upon the methodologies of the sociology of publishing and book history, asks what can the editors’ perspective teach us about this key period in children’s publishing history? What was their role in these processes of change?
PDF
