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,…

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…

Research that centers on literature discussion is growing, particularly within the context of elementary classrooms. Recently, researchers have explored an array of features of engaging and productive discussions, including the importance of the learning community within which discussions occur; the kinds of responses children offer as they talk…

Considers the resistance of preservice teachers to address sociopolitical dimensions within the context of children's literature. Presents an account of an incident, a description of the research that the author conducted, theoretical explanations, strategies which she has utilized for countering the resistance, and reasons why research such as…

Discusses how to bring up and discuss the issues of race and class. Explores how to approach, in the classroom, the idea of the white supremacists and the anti-white name-calling in the book "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli. Proposes that educators who are involved with children's literature must rethink how they read children's literature. (SG)

Uses Orbis Pictus Award Committee criteria (accuracy, organization, design, and style) to examine an informational book, "Rice Is Life," by Rita Golden Gelman. Subjects the book to a deeper critical analysis. Suggests that it is important to help students become critical thinkers about everything they read, including informational books. (SG)

Examines images and the written text in the picture book, "The Day of Ahmed's Secret," by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland. Examines the book in greater detail by looking for issues of authenticity as well as social issues within the book's pictures and written texts. (SG)

Considers how the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"'s achievement of the status of a modern classic provides evidence that children's collective voices can sometimes cause the walls erected by the field's adult gatekeepers to come tumbling down. Discusses reasons for the popularity and controversy surrounding the book. (SC)

Presents a literary answer to the question of how literary theory informs educational practice. Suggests how professors in education, English, foreign language and library sciences might learn to listen to one another and combine their scholarly experiences to better inform the literary practices in all classrooms. Explores the topic of literary…

Presents two scenarios representing two very different critical perspectives: a text-focused and a reader-focused approach. Argues that using literary theory to look at a literary text anew results in a richer engagement with that text and helps students to want to engage with the work. (SC)

Relates the author's own experience of reading "Morning Girl," by Michael Dorris, as an example of practicing literary criticism. Provides an in-depth analysis of "Morning Girl" and how it could be interpreted and discussed through Langer's model of envisionment building. Illuminates Langer's theory so that it may be applied to any text read in…

Presents 10 children's books that are particularly rich for analytical classroom discussions. Considers how studying literary theory is a way of becoming more aware of how people read and interpret what they read. Concludes that these books are good reading and good vehicles for introducing critical theories. (SC)

Clarifies the "efferent" and "aesthetic" stance on Louise Rosenblatt's theoretical continuum by relating her model to the plot, characters, and scenes in Lois Lowry's "The Giver." Shows that Rosenblatt's view applies to the ways readers read texts and to the way characters in the texts read their text-worlds. Presents implications for aesthetic…

Suggests that helping children to discover that literary works are related to one another by conventions and recurring elements not only gives shape to their individual literary experiences, it also brings a sense of literature as a body of interrelated works. Discusses 10 works of children's literature that aid in children's growth toward…