Project MUSE®: Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 46 (2008) through current issueLatest Articles: Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's LiteratureTWOProject MUSE®Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature1918-69830006-7377Latest articles in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Crime in Children's Literature: Playing, Breaking, and Restoring the Rules
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986647
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Preparing this special issue of Bookbird has been an exercise in nostalgia as much as scholarship. While going through all the analyses and studies about crimes in children's literature, our minds were transported down memory lane. We were reminded of familiar titles such as Robert Arthur's The Three Investigators series, Djokolelono's Astrid series, and Tais Teng's Voorbij de Zerken. These crime (and detective) stories have accompanied our childhoods and quietly shaped how we learned to think about rules, transgression, and justice.Crime is undeniably a constant presence within children's literature. Many children's stories are filled with stolen objects, broken rules, eavesdropping, secret wrongdoings, and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallCrime in Children's Literature: Playing, Breaking, and Restoring the Rules2026-03-31text/htmlen-USCrime in Children's Literature: Playing, Breaking, and Restoring the Rules2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®74592026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31The Idea of (Dis)Order in the Keys: White-Collar Crime in Mid-Twentieth-Century Florida Children's Literature
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986648
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Florida children's literature, especially adventure and crime narratives, has earned the reputation of being the "blazing conscience of the Sunshine State" (Meisner 7). Across these works, Florida operates less as an atmospheric backdrop than as a pressure point where questions of order and authority surface. Rather than locating criminality in spectacular violence, such narratives frequently situate wrongdoing in disputes over property and access, drawing attention to forms of white-collar crime. This way, large systems of power are refracted through localized encounters that unfold on Floridian terrain, usually represented as dangerous swamps and scenic beaches. A notable early strain of Florida crime fiction
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallThe Idea of (Dis)Order in the Keys: White-Collar Crime in Mid-Twentieth-Century Florida Children's Literature2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThe Idea of (Dis)Order in the Keys: White-Collar Crime in Mid-Twentieth-Century Florida Children's Literature2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®463642026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31A Crime Not Committed: The Motif of Slander in Some Folktale Adaptations of Armenian Children's Literature
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986649
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Slander as a false accusation or unjust defamation is not only a moral-psychological, social, and legal issue, but also a powerful artistic driving force often employed in literature to expose the tragedy of an individual's lost dignity, the drama of the search for truth, and the false justice of society (Ghazaryan and Zeynalyan 46). The theme of slander is reflected in the folklore traditions of nearly every culture and is also one of the central themes of global literature. It is a well-known fact that fairy tales are the best way to educate, to instill moral values in children, which can change the world, making it more honest and just (Zipes). This article explores portrayals of slander, as a criminal act, in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallA Crime Not Committed: The Motif of Slander in Some Folktale Adaptations of Armenian Children's Literature2026-03-31text/htmlen-USA Crime Not Committed: The Motif of Slander in Some Folktale Adaptations of Armenian Children's Literature2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®530732026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31The Problem with Reading Clues: Identifying the Dyslexic Detective in Children's and Young Adult Mysteries
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986651
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The neurodivergent detective has quickly become a staple in children's mysteries. From Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Haddon) to Ted in The London Eye Mystery (Dowd), young neurodivergent sleuths remain popular subjects of scholarly debate (Resene; Mintz; McGee). While neurodivergence encompasses a variety of neurominorities—including autism, ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, PTSD, mood disorders, and more (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al. 2)—autistic detectives, such as those featured in Haddon's and Dowd's novels, remain one of the most popular neurominorities discussed. Despite up to fifteen to twenty percent of the global population exhibiting signs of dyslexia (International Dyslexia
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallThe Problem with Reading Clues: Identifying the Dyslexic Detective in Children's and Young Adult Mysteries2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThe Problem with Reading Clues: Identifying the Dyslexic Detective in Children's and Young Adult Mysteries2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®727602026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Child Detectives and Ghosts: Unearthing Difficult Realities in Children's Occult Crime Fiction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986652
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Ghosts occupy a significant place in children's crime fiction as "today's detective stories often have a hint of the paranormal" (Fonseca, "Detective Fiction" 110). While the term detective fiction is sometimes used interchangeably with crime fiction (Fonseca, "Detective Fiction" 110), this article distinguishes it as a subgenre within the broader category of crime literature (Veldhuizen, "Curious Case" 164). This analysis begins with an exploration of the occult detective subgenre through two picturebooks: Helen Friel's Midnight Monsters (2018) and Oliver Jeffers's There's a Ghost in This House (2021). These books, through their paratextual elements, actively position the child reader as the detective, creating a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallChild Detectives and Ghosts: Unearthing Difficult Realities in Children's Occult Crime Fiction2026-03-31text/htmlen-USChild Detectives and Ghosts: Unearthing Difficult Realities in Children's Occult Crime Fiction2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®481102026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Resilient and Fearless: Picturebook Biographies about Chinese American Women
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986653
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It is hard to come up with Asian women's names that children learn at school, despite the long history of Asian immigration to the United States. While Asian women's stories can show resilience and perseverance to child readers—coming from their unique experiences and challenges that mainstream heroines might not have—there is no single well-known Asian woman in U.S. history. We, in a larger study, analyzed picturebooks about Chinese and Chinese Americans in three local libraries and found that they are represented in folktales more than any other genre in picturebooks published from 1959 to 2020 (Meacham et al. 94). We wonder, from the picturebooks we analyzed, how many Chinese American women are represented and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallResilient and Fearless: Picturebook Biographies about Chinese American Women2026-03-31text/htmlen-USResilient and Fearless: Picturebook Biographies about Chinese American Women2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®727262026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Children of the Stone City: An Interview with Beverley Naidoo
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986654
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Since the publication of your book Children of the Stone City in 2022, its subject matter has become ever more relevant after the crisis of October 7, 2023, when the situation in the Middle East intensified beyond belief. Could you introduce the book to readers, with a very short synopsis of the story?Children of the Stone City is a novel about justice, privilege, and young people striving for change. Siblings Adam and Leila, and their friend Zak, live as "Nons" under the "Permitted" ruling class. When Adam and Leila's father dies unexpectedly, their mother's permit to live in the Stone City with her children may be withdrawn. She can be deported across the Wall built by the Permitteds to the town where she was
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallChildren of the Stone City: An Interview with Beverley Naidoo2026-03-31text/htmlen-USChildren of the Stone City: An Interview with Beverley Naidoo2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®128012026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31A Letter from the Banned Books Network Münster
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986655
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Dear educators, librarians, students, readers—Perhaps you've seen the headlines or the footage on social media. A classroom setup, recorded on a smartphone: "I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching. … According to our president, there's only two genders" (Harrison). In September 2025, a student taking a children's literature class at Texas A&M University objected to course content that complicated—entirely appropriately—the concept of binary gender. The instructor, Melissa McCoul, was fired (though a faculty panel has now unanimously ruled against this). The dean of the college of arts and science and the head of the department both defended McCoul and were also removed from their posts (Patel and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallA Letter from the Banned Books Network Münster2026-03-31text/htmlen-USA Letter from the Banned Books Network Münster2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®257912026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Armin Greder's Books and Social Injustices
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986656
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Armin Greder's picturebooks recall the famous scene from Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Greder's work produces a similar tear as his books offer a raw view of the world and address active readers to engage in critical thinking and push back against cultures of silence and disengagement.As multimodal pessimistic critiques of capitalism (Martínez-Carratalá and Miras 3), Greder's books expose social injustices shaped by dehumanization and the erosion of identity—processes involving dealing with otherness (Hernández Heras, 556), refusal to listen to others, and reduction of plurality into singularity (Filograsso, "Sfruttamento" 933-34). In his attempt to resist the danger of a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallArmin Greder's Books and Social Injustices2026-03-31text/htmlen-USArmin Greder's Books and Social Injustices2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®239072026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Focus IBBY
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986657
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Dear Colleagues and IBBY Friends,With this first issue of 2026, the IBBY secretariat sends their best wishes for the New Year, which we hope will be filled with inspiring projects, beautiful books, and wonderful connections. A busy program awaits us in the coming months, with international award announcements, a World Congress, and a new Executive Committee to be elected at the IBBY General Assembly. In the start of this year, we are pleased to welcome new IBBY Sections in Bangladesh and Yemen. Sadly, we must say farewell to our colleagues from Brazil, Cameroon, New Zealand, and South Africa, hoping that IBBY Sections will flourish there again very soon.In the next pages, you will read about the upcoming
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallFocus IBBY2026-03-31text/htmlen-USFocus IBBY2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®237242026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31A Companion to "Jabberwocky" in Translation ed. by Anna Kérchy et al. (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986658
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A Companion to "Jabberwocky" in Translation is the first volume to comprehensively examine how Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem has been translated, adapted, and reimagined across global linguistic and cultural contexts over its 150-year history. As Björn Sundmark contends, the book's contributors had to engage in a process of selection from among the existing translations of "Jabberwocky" when comparing the different strategies, challenges, and solutions (13). These criteria principally focus on the cultural and literary embeddedness within the target languages, the adherence to or abandonment of the phonological and metrical features of the source text, the creative adaptations that preserve the poem's fluid poetic
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallA Companion to "Jabberwocky" in Translation ed. by Anna Kérchy et al. (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USA Companion to "Jabberwocky" in Translation ed. by Anna Kérchy et al. (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®65312026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Censorship and Ideology by Julia Lin Thompson (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986659
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This study, based on the author's doctoral thesis, addresses a highly interesting and relevant issue in light of the current global situation, characterized not only by power politics but also increasingly by conflicts shaped by cultural ideology: literary censorship. Julia Lin Thompson examines this topic through the example of translations of children's and young adult books in Spain during the Franco dictatorship (1939–1975).The choice of children's literature as the subject of investigation is well-founded. Children's and young adult books have always been attributed an educational function, among others. In authoritarian countries and ideologically driven regimes, children's books are invariably a means of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallCensorship and Ideology by Julia Lin Thompson (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USCensorship and Ideology by Julia Lin Thompson (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®72872026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Children's Books ed. by Shailaja Menon and Sandhya Rao (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986660
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I remember the exact moment when I decided for myself that literature was interesting! I was eleven years old, and in the Hindi class we were reading a funny and scary play with the title Papa Kho Gaye. That humor and anxiety could be evoked together was a very new experience for me.Why do some stories stick even twenty years after we last read them? These questions and many more kept me hooked as I read Children's Books: An Indian Story, an anthology comprising essays written by publishers, authors, illustrators, educators, editors, commissioners, booksellers, librarians, and teachers. It is an attempt to explain what goes into producing and caring for books for children.The book takes the reader on a journey
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallChildren's Books ed. by Shailaja Menon and Sandhya Rao (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USChildren's Books ed. by Shailaja Menon and Sandhya Rao (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®75662026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31The History of Swedish Children's and Young Adult Literature. 2 vols ed. by Boel Westin and Åsa Warnqvist (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986661
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It was a colossal project whose completion had been eagerly awaited: in 2024, Den svenska barn- och ungdomslitteraturens historia (The History of Swedish Children's and Young Adult Literature) was finally completed—and it is indeed the first comprehensive history of children's and young adult literature in Sweden. And what a history it is! Spanning 1,600 pages with over six hundred illustrations, it offers an overview of Swedish children's and young adult literature from 1300 to 2020. Thirteen experts collaborated on the work, which represents a partnership between Svenska barnboksinstitutet and Stockholm University.In Den svenska barn- och ungdomslitteraturens historia, the history of children's and young adult
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallThe History of Swedish Children's and Young Adult Literature. 2 vols ed. by Boel Westin and Åsa Warnqvist (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USThe History of Swedish Children's and Young Adult Literature. 2 vols ed. by Boel Westin and Åsa Warnqvist (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®80822026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Fieldwork in Ukrainian Children's Literature ed. by Mateusz Świetlicki and Anastasia Ulanowicz (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986662
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The edited volume Fieldwork in Ukrainian Children's Literature offers a comprehensive analysis of Ukrainian children's and young adult literature from its beginnings in fairy tales and folktales, through the nineteenth century and the Soviet era, to the present day. Edited by Mateusz Świetlicki and Anastasia Ulanowicz, Fieldwork takes an interdisciplinary approach to examining the development of Ukrainian children's literature within historical, political, and cultural contexts. Particular attention is paid to the ideological and historical contextualization of Ukrainian children's literature, often against the backdrop of Soviet and Russian hegemony.Fieldwork is divided into three main parts. Part I, "The Sources
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallFieldwork in Ukrainian Children's Literature ed. by Mateusz Świetlicki and Anastasia Ulanowicz (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USFieldwork in Ukrainian Children's Literature ed. by Mateusz Świetlicki and Anastasia Ulanowicz (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®56832026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Navigating Children's Literature Through Controversy ed. by Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska et al. (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986663
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The timing of this collection could hardly be more appropriate. Against the backdrop of pandemic disruption, democratic backsliding, and armed conflict in Europe, Navigating Children's Literature through Controversy interrogates how literature for young readers both reflects and shapes our fractured cultural moment. The editors' central premise—that controversy functions as a productive analytical lens rather than a mere obstacle—proves compelling throughout this diverse collection of essays.The volume engages critically with the multifaceted nature of controversy in literature for young readers, exploring how contested themes are shaped by, and in turn shape, global and local narratives, aesthetic strategies
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallNavigating Children's Literature Through Controversy ed. by Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska et al. (review)2026-03-31text/htmlen-USNavigating Children's Literature Through Controversy ed. by Elżbieta Jamróz-Stolarska et al. (review)2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®68482026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31Postcards
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986664
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It is April 1880, and Stockholm is bustling with anticipation of the arrival of the SS Vega, the first ship to circumnavigate Eurasia through the Bering Strait, as well as the royal reception honoring the expedition's leader, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. Against the backdrop of this momentous occasion, twelve-year-old Mika of the public children's home and Constable Valdemar Hoff join forces to root out criminal activity.Mika and three other orphans are drawn into a maze of wrongdoing due to their association with a knife-throwing, duplicitous performance artist and are ultimately involved in a plot to steal an ancestral coat of arms. Promise of a better life lures the despairing orphans, but all is not as it seems.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallPostcards2026-03-31text/htmlen-USPostcards2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®270332026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31When Morality Masks Law: Exploring Crime and Justice in Malayalam Children's Literature through Mayavi Comics
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/986665
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Crime stories, historically and across cultures, have been used as a mechanism for exploring morality and societal order. In children's literature, however, the engagement is rarely about crime in its legal sense. It instead operates through moral binaries—right versus wrong, good versus bad—offering clarity for young readers' emotional and cognitive development. The genre has also long served as a space where adults experiment with shaping children's worldview. Beyond simply teaching moral codes, it often reinforces traditional notions of power and authority. As Hamilton observes, much contemporary children's fiction normalizes obedience to authority without offering any justification for hierarchy, laws, or
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/409/image/coversmallWhen Morality Masks Law: Exploring Crime and Justice in Malayalam Children's Literature through Mayavi Comics2026-03-31text/htmlen-USWhen Morality Masks Law: Exploring Crime and Justice in Malayalam Children's Literature through Mayavi Comics2026-03-312026TWOProject MUSE®496742026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-31