Abstract This article provides an overview of the importance of and the steps to undertaking a classroom library diversity audit. It begins by situating the importance of the classroom library in children's development because literature can reflect and expand worldviews. Next, statistics of U.S. children's literature publishing and U.S. classroom…

This article explores depictions of religion and religious topics in children's biographies included on the National Science Teacher's Association's Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 lists from 2011 through 2017. While disagreements and controversies about the role of religion in U.S. public schools are not new, these debates have…

Stories are one way that experiences, ideas and culture are shared with children in educational settings. Commercially published books are the standard means in schools for sharing stories. Qualitative content analysis was carried out on 30 personal narrative-based children's picture books. While the range of stories told in books is vast, our…

This pilot project analyzed 185 children's picture books, published 2018--2020, that feature members of the LGBTQIA + community as primary, secondary, or background characters. In developing a framework that builds upon classifications from Diverse BookFinder, the Cooperative Children's Book Center, and the Rainbow Book List, the purpose of the…

Children's natural curiosity by everything around them is a premise for discovery. Natural phenomena such as the alternation between day and night, elements of nature such as the tree's leaves and their shapes and colors, daily routines as sorting waste, raise many questions in children, stimulating them towards scientific literacy trough what is…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate how narrative is constructed to create connections with fat readers, how books function to envision spaces of fat liberation for young readers and to highlight the incredible importance of providing bigger mirrors (Bishop, 1990) for fat representation in children's literature. Design/methodology/approach:…

This article offers an update on key developments in research related visual literacy, children's reading and children's literature. Beginning with an overview of the field, we chart several distinctive 'turns' or research trajectories: the aesthetic, the intercultural or empathic, and the ethical. We then consider how questions of power,…

Because literacy is a twenty-first century education skill (OECD, 21st-century readers: developing literacy skills in a digital world, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a83d84cb-en, 2021), educational stakeholders across the United States have consistently advocated for initiatives to increase literacy among the general…

Providing students encounters with diverse books is an important endeavor, and Langston Hughes themed picture books can serve as one avenue for successfully incorporating diverse literature into elementary literacy instruction. Using the methods of qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2014) this study investigates the ways in which Langston…

We investigated adult-child shared book reading of olfactory books that stimulate the sense of smell through scratch-and-sniff surfaces. We observed ten adult-child dyads reading olfactory books at home and documented the characteristics and quality markers of their olfactory engagement. Drawing on the principles of learning sciences and…

High-quality children's literature, including picturebooks, are important resources in the classroom for students to engage with complex and sometimes concerning contemporary issues. One strategy to involve students in learning about such issues is through the use of metafictive devices, which are literary stratagems that draw readers into knowing…

Offering insights from a research-practice partnership, we examine how five pre-K-6 teachers discussed using LGBTQ+-inclusive children's literature as backup to counter curricular censorship and community pushback.

Israeli bilingual children's literature provides evidence of a multicultural process. Despite the small number of these books, it is important to examine the phenomenon, as such books provide a representation of the numerous cultures and minority groups that comprise the population of Israel. The role and contribution of Israeli children's…

As they are usually chosen by adults, children's picture books offer important insights into contemporary attitudes and values. They subsequently drive the social and academic development of young children, thereby playing a key role in their ethical socialisation and education. This article will explore the role of children's literature in this…

This unit activity describes a series of lessons designed to enhance STEM students' technical communication abilities. The lessons culminate in two separate yet interconnected projects: (1) the development of a children's book explaining a complex topic and (2) presentations of those books to members of the local community. Students learn the…