In Search of a Cultural Code

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Olga Velikanova
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
Cultural Code

Abstract From the plethora of big and small achievements that the author celebrates in the book, my essay addresses such subjects as the continuity of cultural creativity in the 19th and 20th centuries, children’s literature, the sociology of reading, and the place of goodness in literature and life under Stalinism – all within the span of the 20th century. Sharing with the author my admiration of accomplishments of Russian and Soviet culture, I try here to historicize the themes and expand slightly on some of them, like perceptions of the cultural products.

Asian American Children’s Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Park Dahlen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Children's Book ◽  
Asian Diaspora

Asian American children’s literature includes books of many different genres that depict some aspect of the Asian diaspora. In total, the books should depict the breadth and depth of Asian diasporic experiences. Children’s books published in the early 20th century include mostly folktales, while books published after the 1965 Immigration Act tend to include contemporary fiction, poetry, and biographies. They address topics such as immigration and acculturation as well as capture landmark moments and experiences in Asian American history, such as the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and the transnational, transracial adoption of Asian children to the United States. Books published at the turn of the 20th century have broached newer topics, such as mixed-race identities, and are written in a variety of genres including fantasy. As noted by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, the number of books by and/or about Asian Americans published is disproportionate to the total number of books published each year and to the population of Asians in the Americas. Also some Asian American writers continue to publish on topics unrelated to their identities. Academic researchers, practitioners, and writers have addressed various aspects of how this body of literature represents Asian Americans, mostly noting distortions and erasure and offering suggestions for improvement, emerging topics, and engagement with young people.

scholarly journals Materiality in Bruno Munari’s book objects

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-379
Author(s):  
Marnie Campagnaro
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Construction Paper ◽  
Educational Potential ◽  
Do So

This paper reviews the primacy of materiality in Bruno Munari’s work based on the case study of two of his picturebooks. Bruno Munari was one of 20th-century Italy’s most eclectic figures. Over the course of his lengthy career as an artist and designer, Munari explored the field of materiality in children’s books with exceedingly favourable results. His picturebooks set a precedent in the field of children’s literature, and they are highly valued even today. Children are fascinated by the opportunity to organise the experience of reading more freely thanks to innovative graphic and typographic mechanisms that fully exploit the editorial potential of materials such as paper, construction paper, and cardboard, but also transparent or semi-transparent sheets of acetate film, wood, plastic, sponge, and so on. In this paper, I describe the exclusive relationship that Munari developed over the years with the book as an object in all its various components (text and paratext). To do so, I discuss two of Munari’s significant editorial projects, the picturebook entitled Nella notte buia [In the Dark of the Night] (1956) and I Prelibri [Prebooks] (1980). I analyse the ways in which the Milanese artist succeeded in exploiting all the communicative, aesthetic and educational potential of these books’ material dimension.

scholarly journals From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood: Children’s Literature and the Construction of Canadian Identity by Elizabeth A. Galway

2018 ◽  
pp. 83-84
Author(s):  
Jon D. Lee
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Canadian Identity ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
The Many ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

Focusing on children’s literature from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, From Nursery Rhymes to Nationhood provides scholars of folklore, literature and history with a much-needed text that examines the role children’s literature played in forming Canadian national identity. As a whole, the book is well-written and free of academic jargon, and Galway, using 115 primary sources (i.e. 19th and 20th century children’s literature) and at least twice as many secondary sources (largely contemporary academic texts from various disciplines, including history and English), details well the many themes and ideals that permeated children’s literature in this formative era.

Considering Discourse with Children through Animations

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Seran Demiral
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Philosophy For Children ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
Art Activities

Children’s literature and art activities are not only useful for creativity but also quite functional for education through new understanding in the contemporary perspectives about learning. For instance, philosophy for children is a wide-spread methodology to reveal children’s potentials by building a “community of inquiry” at classrooms. Children’s books and animations can provide a magnificent starting point for those philosophical discussions. However, in many societies, children and young people are still underestimated that the usual point of view about children’s literature used to include ‘softer’ topics, which is likewise to be ‘censored’ compared to literature in general. All products for children have usually function to cultivate new generations according to traditional discourse underlying in society. The essential purpose of this paper is to reveal possibilities to shape traditional discourse into an expanded perspective with children utilizing discussion and critical thinking. It is supposed to analyze the artworks for children in variable ways, by embodying discourse within. In between education and entertainment, cultural products also expected to be age-appropriate. Besides the relation between adult-children distinction and all cultural products, specifically produced ‘for’ children, how children see themselves is directly related to how they interpret cultural products. In this paper, two short animations, Alike, and Ian which were watched together with a group of children in a private secondary school in Istanbul, Turkey, will be analyzed through children’s perspectives, with their expressions.

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