When mostly white, middle class, female undergraduate preservice students enter social studies, reading, and language arts methods courses, they usually have not yet been asked to think critically about the curriculum they will be responsible for teaching. One of the primary conduits for sending messages to students about themselves and the world…

One prevalent practice of multicultural education is enlisting multiple perspectives for teaching. Oftentimes, these perspectives enter classrooms via digital texts, simulations/scenarios, primary documents, and debates. Children's and young adult literature play a critical role in these comparisons. However, these multiple perspectives are…

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, a former English teacher and school counselor, is an award-winning author, best known for her children's books about the Rosebud Sioux life and culture, which combines history and legend to create culturally rich and authentic Native American stories. In this article, the authors share their conversations with Virginia…

This article describes results from an examination of common characteristics in the award-winning United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY) Outstanding International Books for Grades K-2 from 2006 to 2012. Books nominated for the USBBY Outstanding International Books List must be currently available in the United States market. The…

This study illustrates the presence of Mock Spanish in some English-based picture books and the ways this usage misrepresents Latino people, language, and culture. The author conducted a critical content analysis of five Skippyjon Jones books. Her guiding question was, How is language used, particularly Spanish, in these English texts, and what…

In this article, the authors situate their discussion of diverse narrative structures in the context of oral storytelling practices and postmodern picturebooks. They focus on three contemporary picturebooks: "Don't Read This Book!" (Lewis, 2009), "Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall Thin Tale" (Hopkins, 2008), and "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other…

In mainstream American culture, death is not usually talked about openly. It is discussed privately among adults because death is often regarded as a final ending. Nevertheless, many elementary school teachers discuss el Dia de los Muertos with their students. The celebration of el Dia de los Muertos, in contrast to dominant ideology, commemorates…

Young children notice and make use of illustrations in picture books as they read independently as evidenced by statements such as this one from Sarah's retelling of "The Wolf's Chicken Stew": "He couldn't catch him; so he did like this (child folds arms across chest) against the tree". Scholars in the field of children's literature have long…

Learning through drama and other art forms enriches children's learning by expanding the possibilities for how children create and express meaning (Adomat, 2009; Berghoff, Egawa, & Harste, 2000). The arts are rarely suggested as a way of opening up broader understandings for young readers; yet drama has been shown to be beneficial in myriad ways…

The 2011 Children's Literature Assembly Workshop investigated cultural contexts and relevant issues in children's literature. Award-winning authors, illustrators, and an educator shared their thoughts about writing, illustrating, and teaching multiethnic literature. The panel included author Nikki Grimes, author and illustrator Eric Velasquez,…

"Poetic Voices: Writing, Reading, and Responding to Poetry" was the title of the 2011 Master Class in Children's Literature. Woven into this session were the insights of poets Joyce Sidman and Pat Mora who shared their creative processes and the voices that inspire their poetry. In addition, Barbara Kiefer provided advice regarding how to connect…

No matter how long teachers have been out of school, or how many children's literature classes they have taught, when summer comes, most of them long to "go back to class." It is because of the intriguing, exciting, reinvigorating institutes and conferences their colleagues offer in summer. In this interview, two veteran planners of summer…

As a doctoral student at Wayne State University in Detroit, the author taught, along with a few other doctoral students, some of the undergraduate courses in children's literature. One year in the early 1970s, they graduate student-instructors were recruited as helpers at a book fair. Among the books to be displayed was a set of children's books,…

Children's literature remains a primary vehicle for intellectual and imaginative maturation, and it is thus important to ask whether younger students have the opportunity to transact with books that represent and raise questions about shared experiences and cooperation across social, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. The authors examine three…

Almost two decades ago, Gay (1995) described the state of multicultural education as both "exciting and troubling" (p. 4). This holds true today and has complex pedagogical and curricular implications. While dialogue within such a multidimensional field is essential, Gay noted that the complexity may serve to intimidate or overwhelm teachers who…