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  • Editorial
  • Lydia Kokkola (bio) and Roxanne Harde (bio)

Dear Bookbird Readers,

As the incoming editors of Bookbird, want first to thank everyone who has made our transition into this work much easier than it might have been. Outgoing editors Sylvia Vardell and Catherine Kurkjian have been unfailingly available and gracious as they have guided us into our new tasks. Valerie Coghlan, former editor and now President of Bookbird, Inc., has been both informative and patient as she has ushered us into our roles. The rest of the Bookbird, Inc. Board has been equally welcoming and supportive, offering guidance and assistance, as has the IBBY Board along with its executive director, Liz Page, and her assistant, Luzmaria Stauffenegger.

As instructors and researchers who work with children's literature, we are deeply committed to and passionate about about our work as editors of Bookbird. In turn, we recognize that we are one part of IBBY's international mission and Jella Lepman's lasting legacy of providing children, especially those in developing countries, with access to books. Our primary concern is those members of IBBY—the teachers and scholars, publishers and booksellers, authors and librarians, parents and caregivers—worldwide, who read this journal. We will follow the fine editorial teams who precede us in maintaining Bookbird as a forum for new and provocative scholarly [End Page iii] work on international texts for children. Like Sylvia and Cathy, and Valerie and Siobhán before them, we will combine the features of a journal with the highest academic standards with those of a magazine appealing to the entire community of readers who care about international children's literature.

One of the main attractions of Bookbird is its diversity, and not just in readership. This is a journal where everyone interested in good quality literature for children can contribute and hear what others have to say. We are interested in receiving papers from people from a variety of different backgrounds, and therefore have made a few adjustments to Bookbird's various sections. The "Feature Articles" section now has an expanded word limit in order to give contributors the space for fuller discussions. "Children and Their Books" is a new section that provides a forum where those working with children and their literature can write about their experiences. Teachers, librarians, publishers, authors and parents are invited to contribute entries describing how you work with children and their literatures, or have watched children respond to literature. So much valuable work that people do is not recorded and shared, and we wanted to provide a space where people could share their experiences.

We were sorry to learn that the International Youth Library (IYL) in Munich no longer has the resources to produce the "Books on Books" column. However, we have introduced a more traditional Reviews section, and we are delighted that Christiane Raabe and IYL will still be able to contribute to this section and that Hasmig Chahinian and her team at the National Center for Children's Literature, Bibliothèque Nationale de France have also agreed to contribute. We warmly invite our readers for their contributions to this section as well. In addition to the reviews of critical works and the postcards on recently published individual works of children's literature, we have also introduced "Letters." These are slightly longer reviews which introduce the work of a particular author or illustrator, or consider a particular theme. We offer fuller details on these sections in our submission guidelines at the end of the journal.

Because we are both committed to endorsing literature for children and adolescents, and have taught and published extensively in this area, we are aware of its potential for healing and for helping young readers to cope with matters they find difficult. We learned that we had become the editors of Bookbird 2012-2014 not long after the earthquakes that shook New Zealand and Japan. Many children were still suffering from earlier natural disasters in Pacific Asia and Haiti, and many other children have been traumatized by the effects of human disasters such as war. Even in countries which are not suffering from such obvious problems, children may be traumatized by varying events and incidents. These...

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