Editorial
- Editorial
Dear Bookbird Readers,
Living as I do in a country with two official languages, a country that defines itself as a cultural mosaic-where new cultural, racial, and ethnic groups join the already existing multicultural population, all maintaining their various identities even as they become part of Canadian society-I was intrigued when Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Lydia Kokkola proposed the idea of a special multilingual issue of Bookbird. In Canada, we champion the idea of multiculturalism over the "melting-pot" or assimilation model of other countries that are and have been the destination of massive migrations over the past few centuries. I remember my Grade 4 teacher explaining that the many-colored triangles that comprised the stylized maple leaf logo for Canada's 1967 centennial celebrations represented the many peoples whose cultures and languages added to our country's richly diverse society. However, if Canadians value our cultural mosaic, then we have been as slow as most other countries in developing and promoting a vibrant multilingualism, so I find it heartening that the work presented in this issue demonstrates why and how multilingual books for children matter, and that it traces the development of this field in the publishing industry. I regularly research and teach Indigenous Literature, and I've been tracing the number of Canadian books published in English and First Nations languages. The cover of one of my favorites, Nokum Is My Teacher, written by David Bouchard and illustrated by Allen Sapp, appears above and is discussed below in an article on Indigenous bilingual children's books by Nancy Hadaway and Terrell Young. Later on, I offer a postcard review of Gabriela Rubio's terrible terrible, a picturebook [End Page iii] my granddaughter loves both for its marvelous illustrations—as you will have noticed on the cover— and the pleasure she takes in the sounds of the dual narrative in Spanish and English. Overall, the articles and columns in this issue, as described below in Bettina's Introduction, offer both survey and analyses of multilingual books for children and young adults around the world. I hope they serve to stimulate conversations about this important and burgeoning field, and I thank Bettina for her fine work in it and on this special issue. I hope you will enjoy it as well.
Roxanne Harde is an Associate Professor of English and a McCalla University Professor at the University of Alberta, Augustana Faculty. She studies and teaches American literature and culture. She has recently published Reading the Boss: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Works of Bruce Springsteen, and her essays have appeared in several journals, including International Research in Children's Literature, The Lion and the Unicorn, Christianity and Literature, Legacy, Jeunesse, Critique, Feminist Theology, and Mosaic, and several edited collections, including Enterprising Youth and To See the Wizard.
