The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature
This is the first place to look for information about the authors, illustrators, printers, publishers, educationalists, and others who have influenced the development of children’s literature, as well as the stories and characters at its centre. Written both to entertain and to instruct, it is a reference work that no one interested in the world of children’s books should be without.
Developing Children's Critical Thinking Through Picturebooks by
This accessible text will show students and class teachers how they can enable their pupils to become critical thinkers through the medium of picturebooks. By introducing children to the notion of making-meaning together through thinking and discussion, Roche focuses on carefully chosen picturebooks as a stimulus for discussion, and shows how they can constitute an accessible, multimodal resource for adding to literacy skills, while at the same time developing in pupils a far wider range of literary understanding.
You, Me and Diversity: picture books for teaching development and intercultural education by
This book shows how appropriate picture books can bring the world into the primary classroom and promote development education and children's intercultural understanding. It responds to the research by the United Kingdom Literacy Agency in 2007 which revealed that many teachers are unaware of such books, feel unable to select contemporary literature for children and tend to rely on the books they enjoyed as children. You, Me and Diversityis based on research funded by the Development Education Unit of Irish Aid designed to offer teachers approaches for teaching development and intercultural education in primary schools through the use of picture books. It critiques a selection of the books identified and advises on how to use them in the classroom. It provides a directory of picture books published since 2000 which feature development and intercultural themes such as culture, climate change, migration and gender. The framework used for categorizing the picture books gives teachers a planning tool to ensure they offer children a full range of development and intercultural perspectives while also adhering to literacy guidelines. Every primary school teacher needs to read this book so they can widen their pupils' horizons while developing their literacy.
Teaching Children's Literature by
Inviting multiple ways of critically engaging with literature, this text offers a fresh perspective on how to integrate children's literature into and across the curriculum in effective, purposeful ways. Structured around three "mantras" that build on each other--Enjoy; Dig deeply; Take action--the book is rich with real examples of teachers implementing critical pedagogy. The materials and practical strategies focus on issues that impact children's lives, building from students' personal experiences and cultural knowledge to using language to question the everyday world, analyze popular culture and media, understand how power relationships are socially constructed, and consider actions that can be taken to promote social justice. Written for teachers and teacher educators, each chapter opens with three elements that are closely linked: classroom vignettes showcasing the use of literature and inviting conversation; three key principles elaborating the main theme of the chapter and connecting theory with practice; and related research on the topics and their importance for curriculum.
Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts by
This book describes the fascinating results of a two year study of children's responses to contemporary picturebooks. Children of primary school age, from a range of backgrounds, read and discussed books by the award-winning artists, Anthony Browne and Satoshi Kitamura. They then made their own drawings in response to the books. The authors found that children are sophisticated readers of visual texts, and are able to make sense of complex images on literal, visual and metaphorical levels. They are able to understand different viewpoints, analyse moods, messages and emotions, and articulate personal responses to picturebooks - even when they struggle with the written word. With colour illustrations, and interviews with the two authors whose books were included in the study, this book demonstrates how important visual literacy is to children's understanding and development. Primary and Early Years teachers, literacy co-ordinators and all those interested in children's literature will find this a captivating read.