Laughing all the way: Humor in children's books

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Davey Zeece
Keyword(s):  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
The Way

How Buckinghamshire’s Early Children’s Book Collection found a place in cyberspace: Florence Nightingale would be amazed

2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 267-272
Author(s):  
Michael Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Project Management ◽  
International Project ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
Florence Nightingale ◽  
Technical Issues ◽  
The Way

This article uses a narrative to describe the way in which one project, centred round the restoration of a collection of historic children’s books, developed into a much wider international project. It looks at the managerial issues and some of the technical issues concerned and draws a number of conclusions about how such projects can be developed. In particular it looks at the role of partnership, project management and the frequently under‐appreciated role of publicity and promotion. It examines the ways in which project partners need to agree criteria and methods of working, as well as the key role played by specialist staff and various supporting organisations.

scholarly journals ABOUT THE WAY AND THE "TWO VOICES" IN THE POETIC WORLD OF IVAN TSANEV

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Plamen Penev
Keyword(s):  
Children's Books ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Creative Development ◽  
The Real ◽  
Lyrical Subject ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Child Characteristic ◽  
The Way

The text is a synthesized literary-historical touch, introducing into the nature of one of the most contributing contemporary Bulgarian poets. Which is a humanism-apology of the human and the complete man, and the poetic language in the books for children and for the “adults” is two sides of the indivisible creative development. With the lyrical subject of the “big world” the real entry into the poetic essence, reached in the children’s books, is prepared. And what cannot be called by the voice of the “big man” is already possible by the voice of the “child/ characteristic of the child.” There the achieved peace was achieved, the existential, tragic loss was overcome. The ideological and aesthetic creative integrity has been achieved simultaneously with the rounded double-headedness of this dualistic lyrical duet.

"For Girls" and "For Boys"

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Desmarais
Keyword(s):  
Target Audience ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Good Question ◽  
Good Book ◽  
Firm Commitment ◽  
The Right ◽  
Dedicated Team ◽  
Gender Specific ◽  
The Way

Dear Readers,Occasionally, I receive books from Canadian publishers that are marketed and labeled as “for girls” and “for boys." Not surprisingly, this practice is considered offensive by many people because it so obviously aims to exclude readers. So how exactly do I handle these gender-specific books when they arrive in my mailbox? Good question! I put them on the reviewer shelves outside my office, making them available to our dedicated team of Deakin reviewers to decide for themselves whether they wish to read and review books that are so obviously gender segregated. In other words, we don’t censor books.You can imagine my surprise when I read a pledge on March 16th by literary editor Katy Guest that the Independent on Sunday will no longer review any book which is aimed exclusively at boys or girls. Guest explained, “What we are doing by pigeon-holing children is badly letting them down. And books, above all things, should be available to any child who is interested in them” (http://www.independent.co.uk). I wholeheartedly agree that children’s books should be available to all children, but the irony here is that Guest has made a firm commitment to not review gender-specific books, making them unavailable to Independent readers. She warns publishers not to send books in “glittery pink covers” because they will “go straight into the recycling pile along with every Great Big Book of Snot for Boys.” Naturally, many journalists and readers were appalled and swiftly denounced Guest’s decision to ignore an entire category of children’s books.Publishers have their reasons for marketing books the way they do, and while we may not agree with their strategies, they have every right to market their books to a target audience with pink covers, sparkles, co-packaged toys, multimedia, etc. They are doing what they believe is necessary to help readers figure out what to buy, just like we reserve the right to review all genres of children’s books to help our readers decide what to read. Rest assured, if we review children’s books that are too narrowly marketed to one gender, we’ll say so and we’ll also be frank with our readers about why it is or is not a good book. So, dear publishers, please continue to send us your gender-labeled books, but be advised that we’ll want to understand and assess why your book does not appeal to all children. Happy reading (to readers of all genders)!Robert DesmaraisManaging Editor

“In-Betweeners”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ainsley Morse
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Period ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
Official Ideology ◽  
The Way

Late Soviet culture abounded in spaces, practices, and even individuals who existed “in-between” with respect to official and unofficial culture(s). Negotiations between official ideology and discourse and the way people lived and made art became increasingly complex and intimate in the years between the Thaw and perestroika. This article interrogates the concept of “in-between” aesthetics—posited as one of eclecticism and ambiguity—through an examination of widespread, yet highly variable manifestations of “in-between” creative activity, including literature, bard music, translation, and children’s books (including illustration). The disparate examples of “in-between” activity given here only constitute a few instances of a tendency that, even while liminal by definition, approached the mainstream in its ubiquity in the late Soviet period.

What to Lea(f) In, What to Lea(f) Out

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten E. Kumpf Baele
Keyword(s):  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Chestnut Tree ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

Anne Frank’s chestnut tree can be found on the pages of children’s books, in the frame of a video, as a digital leaf on a cyber-trunk or as a seedling shared throughout the world. The image can never represent Anne Frank’s entire story, but, as this chapter demonstrates, as a subsequent icon it does serve as a reminder for overcoming ignorance, respecting humanity and, most importantly, combatting prejudice. The chapter explores the complexity of the chestnut tree as a ‘pedagogical icon’ by studying the way it applies to and influences the educational sector both on literary and digital platforms. It follows insights from Cohen-Janca, Gottesfeld, Kohuth and Eisenberg Sasso, who state that it is the interplay between the remembrance of the Shoah and the sustainability of trees and the environment that inspires a fruitful compositional narrative for young readers.

scholarly journals Pandemic Publishing: A Selected COVID-19 Bibliography

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Patricia Sarles
Keyword(s):  
Daily Basis ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
The Way

During a global crisis, it seems everything changes on a daily basis, and that includes publishing. With information about COVID-19 being revised just as rapidly, families have been struggling to educate their children on the virus and the pandemic. Scores of authors and publishers are leading the way, promptly publishing digital children’s books; here is a list of some of those titles (compiled as of May 7, 2020). Quality varies, since many are self-published, but all are available free online unless otherwise noted (https://nycdoe.libguides.com/COVID-19ebooks/free).

‘Here in India’: Nineteenth-Century British Women Navigating their Position in the Empire through Children's Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185
Author(s):  
Jesse Aberbach
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Infants And Children ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Maternal Roles ◽  
Female Writers ◽  
And Control ◽  
Botanical Study

This article considers how the children's books written by two nineteenth-century female writers, Eliza Tabor and Mary Martha Sherwood, when they accompanied their husbands to India, enabled them to navigate this new environment and their position as respectable middle-class women while revealing how India was deemed a place where British childhood was impossible. Just as many women took up botanical study to legitimise their ‘otherwise transgressive presence in imperial spaces’ (McEwan 219), writing for children enabled others to engage with the masculine world of travelling and earning money without compromising their femininity. Addressing their work to children also seems to have helped both writers to deal with the absence of their own children: the Indian climate made it impossibly challenging for most British infants and children. In this way their writing gives expression to what might be termed a crisis of imperial motherhood. Underlying the texts is an anxiety relating to British settlement and an attempt to comprehend and control a place that threatened their maternal roles.

The Adult as Foe or Friend?: Childism in Guus Kuijer's Criticism and Fiction

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Joosen
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Memorial Award ◽  
Adult Reader ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

Compared to the attention that children's literature scholars have paid to the construction of childhood in children's literature and the role of adults as authors, mediators and readers of children's books, few researchers have made a systematic study of adults as characters in children's books. This article analyses the construction of adulthood in a selection of texts by the Dutch author and Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winner Guus Kuijer and connects them with Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's recent concept of ‘childism’ – a form of prejudice targeted against children. Whereas Kuijer published a severe critique of adulthood in Het geminachte kind [The despised child] (1980), in his literary works he explores a variety of positions that adults can take towards children, with varying degrees of childist features. Such a systematic and comparative analysis of the way grown-ups are characterised in children's texts helps to shed light on a didactic potential that materialises in different adult subject positions. After all, not only literary and artistic aspects of children's literature may be aimed at the adult reader (as well as the child), but also the didactic aspect of children's books can cross over between different age groups.

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