- Slowing Down, Reading, and Asking Provocative Questions
As Kęstutis Kasparavičius writes in his message for the 2019 International Children's Book Day celebration, "Someone who enjoys reading—be it a child or adult—is much more interesting than someone who doesn't care for books, who is always racing against the clock, who never has time to sit down, who fails to notice much of what surrounds us." Slowing down, noticing, reading, inevitably lead to questioning: questioning the text, questioning ourselves, questioning others, questioning the world. The authors we host in issue 57.2 are interesting people—people who slow down, read, and question—so they inevitably ask interesting questions. And more often than not, difficult and provocative questions are the most interesting ones.
Kathy Short asks about the dangers of reading globally. She sees great value in reading globally, of course, but she also asks us to think about our social responsibilities as bookmakers, readers, and educators, and about what happens during the interaction of young readers with global literature when these responsibilities are taken lightly.
In "Fish Is People," Perry Nodelman asks whether picturebooks that feature anthropomorphic animals encourage children might children's thinking about animal characters also be shaping how children think about to ignore the "otherness" or difference of other species. And different kinds of people? In a playful analysis of numerous picturebooks with a focus on fish, Nodelman asks: "Do we respect others because we think of them as being like ourselves, or because of our awareness and acceptance of their differences from us?"
Ann Alston asks even more difficult questions about the portrayal of female genital mutilation (FGM) in children's literature, and Vassiliki Vassiloudi asks provocative questions in relation to refugee narratives produced, endorsed, and promoted by international refugee relief organizations. In an interview with Rob Bittner, author Elana K. Arnold asks us to consider what it currently means to write about sexual assault, rape culture, and violence against women and girls from a feminist standpoint. Asahi award winner Philippe Claudet poses provocative questions about how blind children read the world and how tactile illustrated books (TiBs) have been adjusting to their different ways of reading. And finally, Saori Katagiri asks us to think how one makes and performs Kamishibai in Arabic for Muslims in Japan, when certain Kamishibai images are bound to shock and alienate this audience.
This is an open-theme issue, but it so happened that there is a vibrant, strong theme running across every single text in it: Slow down, read, and ask provocative questions. [End Page v]