This qualitative study examined the written responses of 58 undergraduate, preservice teachers in three online children's literature courses to the graphic novel, When stars are scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. Findings from a summative content analysis of participants' written responses showed five response themes: Connections…

The aim of this research is to examine the impact of reading storybooks and the presence of different characters such as humans, animals, and fantasy characters in storybooks on children's costly sharing behaviour. A total of 235 children participated in the study. The children were presented with 20 stickers and were asked to choose their 10…

In this paper, we draw upon Rosenblatt's transactional theory of reading to frame six readings of a picture book. The picture book, "There's a Ghost in This House" by Oliver Jeffers, was selected for a children's literature reading group which brought together literacy researchers and teacher educators to share their encounters with the…

This paper explores the importance of students responding to children's books for diversity and disabilities. The main claim of the paper is that we need to explore new ways of engaging children to respond to diversity beyond the traditional model of Reader's Response Theory. Even though Reader's Response Theory is a very important framework to…

This paper examines literacy as a sociocultural, personal and human practice dependent on and derived through relationships between people, settings and culture. Drawing on a recent empirical research study that combines learner, teacher and author perspectives [Curtin (2023) "Reading and Writing Pathways Through Children's and Young Adult…

Literacy is now an essential part of teaching for Indonesian teachers. This qualitative case study reports on three Indonesian teachers as they integrate the use of children's literature into their literacy instruction. For 4 months, the teachers' efforts to use children's literature were documented through multiple sources such as focus group…

The paper deals with the work of the Czech children's author Jaroslav Foglar from a gender perspective, reflecting on two themes in particular: the absence of heroines; and his understanding of boys' reciprocity and friendship with the adoration of physicality. The impetus for this analysis was data from a questionnaire survey, the aim of which…

This article presents a small case study of two childhood readers of Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, who meet in a research project devoted to a different but related topic. One is Indian by birth and background, the other, Canadian. Their experience of this series is separated by distance (many thousands of miles), time of reading (nearly fifty…

This article draws on Philip Barnard's model of the interactions between theory and practice, between basic and applied research, to investigate the paradox of reading as an experience both private and public. It uses internal reader experience as a starting point for exploration, evoking the concept of a readerly sense of presence as a selection…

Fiction, more than expository text, nurtures intimate connections between text and the reader's life experiences. This dimension of reader response is underexplored in relation to children. Adapting methods from Empirical Literary Studies to educational research objectives, the authors employed the concept of 'remindings', i.e. reminiscing…

What can the affective turn mean for literacy educators who believe their work can lay the foundation for a life filled with meaningful reading pursuits, for students who "become" readers and "do" reading? Because reading occurs across and within an elaborate composite of time, space, relationships, histories, discourses, and…

This article reflects on insights gained from a larger study that explored how a class of ten- and eleven-year-olds read and responded to David Almond's hybrid novel, "My Name is Mina." Through focusing on the children's performances of the poems contained within the text, the discussion examines embodied aspects of the children's…

Recently, an awareness of the value of representation has demanded an expanded canon of texts that includes those concerning children with illnesses. Research shows that reading such texts to children with illnesses or disabilities has proven validating, comforting, and helpful in the development of a positive self-image (Goddard, 2011). This…

All children are placemakers (Chawla, 1992). While we know that a child's sense of place is linked to a sense of belonging (Brillante & Mankiw, 2015), the implications of placemaking in the lived experiences of child readers, specifically, has not been widely explored. The primary purpose of this literature review is to aid reader response…

This study is situated within a male-dominated Palestinian-Israeli reality rife with issues of gender privilege. With a purpose to disrupt the status quo in my language classroom and positively affect students' beliefs towards gender injustices, I, as a teacher researcher, designed a unit on gender issues including a book set that would challenge…