This book addresses the inherent ambiguities in ‘childhood’, a widely familiar term. The main problem lies in the definition, duration and diverse socio-cultural implications of ‘childhood’, which is a part of everyone’s life. To explore the literary, artistic and cultural representation of this constantly evolving term, this book provides insights into a number of relevant issues relating to childhood. Explicitly rejecting the idea of childhood as an unambiguous monolith, it offers various critical approaches to the treatment of childhood with all its complexities in art and literature.

In this volume, experts from around the world investigate childhood in the past, showing why it is important to understand childhood, why different cultures construct different ideas of how to rear children, what part children play in the community, and when and why childhood ends.

A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes. Traditional storytime often offers a passive experience for kids, but the Whole Book approach asks the youngest of readers to ponder all aspects of a picture book and to use their critical thinking skills. Using classic examples, Megan asks kids to think about why the trim size of Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline is so generous, or why the typeset in David Wiesner's Caldecott winner,The Three Pigs, appears to twist around the page, or why books like Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar are printed landscape instead of portrait. The dynamic discussions that result from this shared reading style range from the profound to the hilarious and will inspire adults to make children's responses to text, art, and design an essential part of storytime.

The varied collection of essays presented in this volume bridges the gap between continental and Anglo-American approaches to childrenâ (TM)s literature, and discuss the state of the art of what is topical in childrenâ (TM)s literature studies in Europe and the United States. Varied as the different subject areas under discussion are, considering different subgenres, historical periods, and geographical contexts, two main themes surface in nearly all the essays: ideology and childrenâ (TM)s literature on the one hand, and images of childhood on the other. The contributions illustrate the wide range of subject areas and the increasing level of sophistication with which criticism of ideology and Cultural Studies have enriched childrenâ (TM)s literature criticism. The essays address, among others, the influence of globalisation and mass market culture on the production of childrenâ (TM)s books, as well as the choices governing the production of translations and adaptations of texts for young readers. Representing a broad array of methodological approaches and of representations of childhood, this publication intends to render visible actual manifestations of the tension between pedagogy and aesthetics, inherent to and constitutive of childrenâ (TM)s literature.

A reader on children's culture

This open access book discusses how cultural literacy can be taught and learned through creative practices. It approaches cultural literacy as a dialogic social process based on learning and gaining knowledge through emphatic, tolerant, and inclusive interaction. The book focuses on meaning-making in children and young people's visual and multimodal artefacts created by students aged 5-15 as an outcome of the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme implemented in schools in Cyprus, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, and the UK. The lessons in the program address different social and cultural themes, ranging from one's cultural attachments to being part of a community and engaging more broadly in society. The artefacts are explored through data-driven content analysis and self-reflexive and collaborative interpretation and discussed through multimodality and a sociocultural approach to children's visual expression. This interdisciplinary volume draws on cultural studies, communication studies, art education, and educational sciences. Tuuli Lähdesmäki is an associate professor at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Jūratė Baranova was a professor at the Department of Continental Philosophy and Religious Studies, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Susanne C. Ylönen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Aino-Kaisa Koistinen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Katja Mäkinen is a senior researcher at the Department of Music, Art and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Vaiva Juškiene is a junior researcher at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Vilnius University, Lithuania. Irena Zaleskienė is a senior researcher at the Institute of Educational Sciences, Vilnius University, Lithuania.