Children's Literature as Communication: The ChiLPA project(2 Studies in Narrative)

In this book, members of the ChiLPA Project explore the children’s literature of several different cultures, ranging from ancient India, nineteenth century Russia, and the Soviet Union, to twentieth century Britain, America, Australia, Sweden, and Finland. The research covers not only the form and content of books for children, but also their potential social functions, especially within education. These two perspectives are brought together within a theory of children’s literature as one among other forms of communication, an approach that sees the role of literary scholars, critics and teachers as one of mediation. Part I deals with the way children’s writers and picturebook-makers draw on a culture’s available resources of orality, literacy, intertextuality, and image. Part II examines their negotiation of major issues such as the child adult distinction, gender, politics, and the Holocaust. Part III discusses children’s books as used within language education programmes, with particular attention to young readers’ pragmatic processing of differences between the context of writing and their own context of reading.

Table of Contents:
1. Members of the ChiLPA Project, Abo Akademi University; 2. Introduction: Children's literature as communication (by Sell, Roger D.); 3. Part I. Initiating: Resources at hand; 4. 1. Literacy and orality: The wise artistry of The Pancatantra (by Bengtsson, Niklas); 5. 2. Orality and literacy, continued: Playful magic in Pushkin's Tale of Tsar Saltan (by Orlov, Janina); 6. 3. Intertextualities: Subtexts in Jukka Parkkinen's Suvi Kinos novels (by Rattya, Kaisu); 7. 4. Intertextualities, continued: The connotations of proper names in Tove Jansson (by Bertills, Yvonne); 8. 5. The verbal and the visual: The picturebook as a medium (by Nikolajeva, Maria); 9. Part II. Negotiating: Issues examined; 10. 6. Growing up: The dilemma of children's literature (by Nikolajeva, Maria); 11. 7. Childhood: A narrative chronotope (by Johnston, Rosemary Ross); 12. Child-power?: Adventures into the animal kingdom - The Animorphs series (by Lassen-Seger, Maria); 13. Gender and beyond: Ulf Stark's conservative rebellion (by Osterlund, Mia); 14. Politics: Gubarev's Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (by Salminen, Jenniliisa); 15. The unspeakable: Children's fiction and the Holocaust (by Kokkola, Lydia); 16. Part III. Responding: Pragmatic variables; 17. Early immersion reading: The narrative mode and meaning-making (by Kokkola, Lydia); 18. Reader-learners: Children's novels and participatory pedagogy (by Sell, Roger D.); 19. Primary-level EFL: Planning a multicultural fiction project (by Sell, Charlotta); 20. Secondary-level EFL: Melina Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi (by Ronnqvist, Lilian); 21. Bilingualism, stories, new technology: The Fabula Project (by Edwards, Viv K.); 22. Index

Review :
This book can be read on several levels. For a beginner to the field, chapters were written clearly, assumed unfamiliar terms clarified, and practical examples given. For those a bit more knowledgeable in the field, there was content and depth of it for more ideas to be found and for the reader to appreciate and learn from the details. One of the most impressive features of this book was its cohesiveness. The chapters are well linked together, and not just a collection of somewhat related publications. The many obvious and underlying threads are well interwoven from chapter to chapter. And although most chapters were thought provoking and well written, the excellent introduction really sparks curiosity about the following chapters. As children are not often the critics of the books written towards them, adults have taken on this role, and have done a good job in this publication. [...] in-dept studies and much insight into varying aspects of children's literature. [...] the excellent introduction really sparks curiosity about the following chapters.