Political Dimensions of Nostalgia in Picturebooks

Reading is a fundamental cognitive-linguistic process that involves the dynamic interaction of multiple interrelated cognitive and perceptual mechanisms. Existing reading models are often limited in fully capturing the intricate relationships between reading attributes across different age groups. This review aims to compare the cognitive attributes utilized in reading assessments for young and adult readers. Using a scoping review methodology, the study analyzed 47 empirical studies selected through a systematic search of reputable academic databases, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, from an initial pool of 331 publications. The selection followed a screening process based on three inclusion and exclusion criteria: types of publications, language, and skills assessed. A distinctive pattern emerges in the assessment of cognitive reading skills across age groups, with adult readers evaluated on a wider array of attributes that encompass both fundamental skills and higher order cognitive abilities. In contrast, young readers' assessments tend to center on a narrower spectrum of subskills, primarily emphasizing literal and interpretive comprehension. This developmental pattern calls for the refinement of existing assessment models to better capture the progressive nature of cognitive reading development. Tailoring assessment tools and instructional strategies to align with learners' cognitive demands is imperative for internal stakeholders, while external stakeholders are urged to develop age-appropriate assessments. Future research could address the study's limitations by exploring advanced technologies, such as eye tracking, conducting rigorous reviews, performing cross-linguistic comparative studies, and evaluating diverse assessment methods to enhance the accuracy, effectiveness, and generalizability of reading assessments across various contexts.

Although first-person and singularly focalized third-person narration remain the most common narrative forms in young adult literature, novels featuring multivoiced narration have long played an important role in the genre. These novels--in which narrative responsibility is shared at least two narrators or focalizers--enact Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of polyphony explicitly demonstrating the mutual influence and interplay of multiple voices. Because one of the most common and important goals of polyphony is to portray the development of characters' identity and subjectivity, multivoiced narration is in many ways particularly applicable to young adult literature, a genre defined its protagonists' maturation, increasing awareness of their subjectivity, and expanding worldview. Multivoiced narration also highlights questions of power constructing complex networks of character relationships that demonstrate the challenges that adolescents face while navigating various institutional and social hierarchies. Although adolescent narrators are given narrative authority, it is immediately and frequently challenged the other voices that compete for influence and control; this distribution of narrative authority suggests, in turn, that the best way for adolescents to gain access to any degree of power is to understand and accept their roles in a system that represses them. Rob Thomas's 1997 novel Slave Day, which features eight first-person narrators and an explicit concern with the power structures at play in a small-town Texas high school, is a particularly useful example of the ways in which multivoiced narration can provide insight into adolescents' experiences of and access to power. As many critics (e.g. Schuhmann 314) have noted familiar, relatable first-person narration has become something of a hallmark of contemporary adolescent literature; while third-person narration occurs somewhat less frequently than first-person narration in adolescent literature, it remains a prevalent narrative form in this genre. Typically, third-person narratives employ one focalizer through whose eyes the events are presented and perceived. In both of these conventional narrative forms, the focus on a single consciousness allows for a comprehensive development of one character's growth and subjectivity. However, while narratives that feature only one perspective present a clear focus on identity, one of the most common criticisms of first-person narration or third-person narration focalized through the eyes of an adolescent is that the narration is overly simplistic or limited. Mike Cadden asserts that by employing an all-too-reliable young adult's consciousness, the YA novelist often intentionally communicates to the immature reader a single and limited awareness of the world that the novelist knows to be incomplete and insufficient (146). Cadden provides helpful insight into the particular effects of the most common type of narrative in young adult literature examining questions of power available to or possessed the author, the narrator, and the reader. Borrowing a term from Bakhtin, Cadden argues that young adult fiction is inherently double-voiced, as the perspectives or beliefs of both the adult author and the adolescent narrator may find expression in a given work: When an adult writer speaks through a young adult's consciousness to a young adult audience, he or she is involved in a top-down (or vertical) power relationship. It becomes important, then, that there be equal (or horizontal) power relationships between the major characters within the text so that the young adult reader has the power to see the at play. (146) While singly-voiced novels can of course portray the horizontal power relationships to which Cadden refers, multivoiced narration allows for a more thorough investigation of opposing ideologies and demonstrates the ways in which the various points of view influence and are influenced each other. …

Recent evidence suggested that parafoveal preprocessing develops early during reading acquisition, that is, young readers profit from valid parafoveal information and exhibit a resultant preview benefit. For young readers, however, it is unknown whether the processing demands of the currently fixated word modulate the extent to which the upcoming word is parafoveally preprocessed – as it has been postulated (for adult readers) by the foveal load hypothesis. The present study used the novel incremental boundary technique to assess whether 4th and 6th Graders exhibit an effect of foveal load. Furthermore, we attempted to distinguish the foveal load effect from the spillover effect. These effects are hard to differentiate with respect to the expected pattern of results, but are conceptually different. The foveal load effect is supposed to reflect modulations of the extent of parafoveal preprocessing, whereas the spillover effect reflects the ongoing processing of the previous word whilst the reader’s fixation is already on the next word. The findings revealed that the young readers did not exhibit an effect of foveal load, but a substantial spillover effect. The implications for previous studies with adult readers and for models of eye movement control in reading are discussed.

This essay offers a psychoanalytic reading of Kazumi Yumoto's novel The Spring Tone in order to explore the issue of femininity in young adult literature. Even though Yumoto's story is not a product of a western consciousness (she is a Japanese author), her work has found a large audience in the West, particularly in America and Europe. Thus, there appears to be a strong universal appeal to her writing that transcends cultural difference, especially where the representation of femininity and the development of the young female subject are concerned. Yumoto's novel also explores the contemporary issue of the broken home, since the father has left the family and is living in a separate apartment. The main character is quite upset about his absence and this, too, may have something to do with the novel's broad appeal since the dissolution of the modern nuclear family is a cultural formation that most young readers would recognize and perhaps even identify with. The central character and narrator of the story, a pre-adolescent girl named Tomomi, is an unusual protagonist, however; for she is presented in the novel as suffering from a profound emotional disturbance. In the story, Tomomi exhibits a severe identity crisis that at times seems as though she is on the verge of losing her mind. While her emotional issues might be blamed on the terrors of adolescence or even a bout with clinical depression, her complaints come across as much more serious than that. Tomomi is not just a troubled pre-teen; her problems appear to extend far beyond depression as she reports to her reader that, in addition to debilitating headaches, she often experiences a strong sense of unreality, she hallucinates, and she has lost all sense of direction and happiness in her life. In many ways, Tomomi is presented as if she were slipping into a state of psychosis. She is, as Jacques Lacan would say, cut loose from the signifier, and she seems to be losing her connection to the symbolic world. Given both Tomomi's psychic turmoil, which makes her an unlikely heroine, and the adolescent's general horror of anything that stands out from the norm, it would seem a miracle that this story managed to find a publisher in the young adult book market, much less international critical acclaim and a series of translations. What is it then about Tomomi's apparent struggles with the symbolic order that appeals to a young female reader? Why would a quasi-psychotic pre-teen make an engaging heroine for her audience? How does this particular protagonist, with all of her psychological baggage, come to have so much appeal for the young adult reader, especially given the novel's cultural specificity? While Yumoto's novel was originally written in Japanese for a Japanese audience and therefore would presumably have a fairly specific audience, it is clear that her protagonist's dilemma evokes a more universal response in the adolescent female reader precisely to the extent that it offers a representation of the emotional turmoil of developing femininity that transcends cultural and geographic difference. With her characterization of Tomomi as a young girl who struggles with the collapse of what Lacan calls the paternal function, Yumoto also shows the elemental role that paternity plays in Tomomi's (and, presumably, any girl's) psychic life as she grows into a young woman. Thus, I explore the significance of Tomomi's relation to paternity as I consider how her apparent struggles with psychosis and the failure of the signifier are part of her feminine development. Pursuing my analysis of both psychosis and femininity, I further consider how Yumoto's novel appeals to the young female reader as she, too, grapples with the instability of the signifier in her evolving subjective structure. In the story, Tomomi's father has left the family due to unending arguments with his wife concerning his inability to secure the family property and maintain the legal boundaries of the family's backyard. …

Nonfiction for young adults is enjoying a rebirth of interest among publishers, librarians, and teachers with the emergence of an approach that uses facts as information to be shared with children trying to make sense of their world. Reading interest studies disclose patterns in young readers' preferences in nonfiction. Suggestions are offered to encourage the reading of nonfiction, to help teachers use these books effectively in classroom discussion, and to help select nonfiction for reading aloud.

ABSTRACTA previous study reported that, similar to young and adult skilled readers, Italian developmental dyslexics read pseudowords made up of a root and a derivational suffix faster and more accurately than simple pseudowords. Unlike skilled readers, only dyslexic and reading-matched younger children benefited from morphological structure in reading words aloud. In this study, we show that word frequency affects the probability of morpheme-based reading, interacting with reading ability. Young skilled readers named low- but not high-frequency morphologically complex words faster than simple words. By contrast, the advantage for morphologically complex words was present in poor readers irrespective of word frequency. Adult readers showed no facilitating effect of morphological structure. These results indicate that young readers use reading units (morphemes) that are larger than the single-grapheme grain size. It is argued that morpheme-based reading is important for obtaining reading fluency (rather than accuracy) in transparent orthographies and is useful particularly in children with limited reading ability who do not fully master whole-word processing.

Political and cultural aspects of digital public undertakings in developing countries are often neglected as more emphasis is placed on the technological components. The mutual impact between political or cultural issues and emerging trends such as cloud computing and social networks exacerbate the problem. This chapter analyzes political and cultural issues which have a significant impact on digital public administration and e-government initiatives in developing countries, also taking into consideration the emerging tendencies and technologies. It combines theory and practice, including studies that demonstrate different political or cultural issues involved in the digital undertakings in these countries, examples from different contexts and nations, and a case study from Turkey. The chapter starts with examples of different political issues, analyzing and summarizing some of the most relevant of these issues, including existing literature related to each subject. It continues with cultural issues. The subsequent section contains a discussion of how political and cultural issues relate to the tendencies of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector, and why this context is important for digital initiatives in developing countries, as an initial guide to existing and future challenges. The chapter ends with the case of Turkey, which demonstrates political and cultural issues faced on both national and regional levels, in the context of digital public administration and emerging trends in ICTs.

E. Nesbit, the Bastables, and The Red House:A Response Julia Briggs (bio) It is at once a pleasure and a responsibility to respond to two papers that address E. Nesbit's cross-writing, as demonstrated in Nesbit's description of the Bastables' visit to the Red House in the novel of that name. It is a pleasure to find Nesbit's work being treated with the seriousness it deserves, and a responsibility because any response risks narrowing, rather than opening up, the field. Mavis Reimer and Erika Rothwell contribute valuably to ongoing theoretical discussions concerning the construction of the child at the end of the last century; they set the figure of the child in the perspectives of empire and of earlier writing for children, and they explore the question of persuasion or even coercion implicit in the adult writer's address to the child reader. These are key issues, and their very centrality permits a response more closely focused upon the initial circumstances of publication of The Story of the Treasure Seekers as a text generated by and within a context of cross-writing. I am conscious of pursuing a rather different line of argument, but my approach through intertextuality and publishing history, which is intended to complement rather than to counter the arguments Reimer and Rothwell establish, is made possible by their more fundamental concern to define the relationship between adult and child as figured in Nesbit's The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Red House, and The New Treasure Seekers. Yes, these stories are good. They are written on a rather original idea, on a line off the common run. Here we have the life of a family of children told by themselves in a candid, ingenuous and very amusing style. Of course, no child would write as E. Nesbit writes, but the result is that we have drawn for us a very charming picture of English family life . . . the stories are individual—they will please every grown up who reads them. Edward Garnett, Reader's Report to Fisher Unwin on Seven Stories from the Pall Mall Magazine, 1898 [End Page 71] Garnett, a famous talent-spotter, seizes at once on the point made by Erika Rothwell at the outset of her essay: the stories that became The Story of the Treasure Seekers were addressed to children and adults simultaneously, with the expectation that they would be read in different ways, like a pantomime that includes different types of jokes for different age groups. Unfortunately Nesbit left no record of the process by which she transformed her writing for children from the flat, simplistic narratives of her early work for Raphael Tuck and Ernest Nister to the complex and self-conscious rhetoric of Oswald Bastable, whose literary sense apparently directs him to relate his own story as a third-person narrative. She was, however, an ardent admirer of Henry James, whose work in the 1890s, particularly What Maisie Knew (1897) and The Turn of the Screw (1898) exploits the possibilities of literary misreadings created by unreliable narrators and the conflicting interpretations of events by children and adults. Put to comic purpose, these devices dominate the narrative practice of The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), creating a cross-writing that simultaneously addresses adult and child readers by conferring on Oswald (and through him on his siblings) the full subjecthood implicit in a first-person narrative, a narrative that invites the child-reader to identify with Oswald or his siblings. (When he is referred to in the third person or as a child among children confronting the adult world, however, Oswald is seen from an adult perspective as comically smaller and less significant than he supposes, as an amusing little boy, as "Other"; as Rothwell puts it, "the joke is often between the adult reader and the author at Oswald's expense.") Nesbit's introduction of the Bastables into her sentimental novel The Red House (1902) could thus be considered the logical outcome of a narrative strategy that had originated with their invention. Chloe's exclamation, "Aren't they perfect dears? . . . I don't like the Morrison boy—but the others are lovely" (175) is thus...

Dual Focalization in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels Xuan Gong (bio) Traditionally, first-person travel accounts offer the promise of visual 'truth' with a metaphorical equation of the 'I' and the 'eye,' which makes seeing a functional technique serving a moral purpose. A parody of eighteenth-century first-person travel fiction, Gulliver's Travels not only uses the vulnerability of Gulliver's eyes as a guiding metaphor of his intellectual and moral failure, but also emphasizes the framework of travel writing within which Swift grounds his thinking on seeing and its moral implications.1 Central to first-person travel accounts is the traveler's claim that 'I' saw this, and 'I' am telling you the truth. Such a claim suggests the temporal distance between the experiencing self and the narrating self, making the distinction between who saw and who is telling the starting point for this essay. Drawing on Gérard Genette's theory of focalization and William F. Edmiston's refinement of Genette's terms, the first part of the essay contends that Gulliver's Travels deviates from the norms of focalization in eighteenth-century first-person travel fiction by overplaying the experiencing self's role of an eyewitness and downplaying the narrating self's role of a governing consciousness. Our analysis of Swift's manipulation of the dual focalization in the second part of the essay displays that Gulliver's Travels features a gullible Gulliver-character whose viewpoint is always merging with or is even drowned out by other characters' views and a Houyhnhnm-like Gulliver-narrator who observes his experiencing [End Page 1] self indifferently, identifying reality with the ensemble of empirical facts. Parallel to Gulliver-narrator's observation of Gulliver-character runs the English traveler's observation of the Irish Other. As Eugene Hammond points out, Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels while he was dean at St. Patrick's in Dublin and as he "gradually adjusted his geographical perspective," becoming "less and less interested in internal English political issues and more and more interested in internal English–Irish relations" (164). Based on the affinity between Gulliver's Travels and the dean's sermons and tracts which directly address Ireland's colonial predicament, the third part of the essay reveals how the whole novel works as a parody of English colonial travel accounts of Ireland.2 Anticipating the modern doppelgänger, Gulliver-character and Gulliver-narrator convey Swift's warnings, respectively, to the Irish people and to the English ruler. For the former, the warning is that intellectual blindness will deprive them of liberty; for the latter, the warning is that the English government's willful neglect of the Irish people is indeed a great sin in the sight of God. Swift's Parody of Eyewitnessing To distinguish between who sees and who speaks, Genette coins the term focalization and distinguishes three types of focalization: zero, internal, and external. He further suggests that this triadic typology is applicable to first-person narration, with focalization through the narrator as the norm: The only focalization that [the first-person narrator] has to respect is defined in connection with his present information as narrator and not in connection with his past information as hero. He can, if he wants, choose this second form of focalization (focalization through the hero), but he is not all required. (198–99) Seymour Chatman challenges Genette's view by arguing that first-person narrators can only recount rather than see, for they are outside the constructed story world (194). Most narrative theorists, however, take focalization as a function of discourse,3 agreeing that first-person narrators, with their limited perceptual powers, can look back on the past. For Edmiston, a more interesting question is whether Genette's criterion of external/internal [End Page 2] focalization can be applied to first-person narration. As we know, Genette defines the three types of focalization in terms of the narrator's access to the minds of characters, making the knowledge of the narrator the only parameter of focalization. In the case of first-person narration, this criterion causes some confusion: first-person narrators always know more than their experiencing selves, whereas external focalization in Genette's term...

It Is Not Enough to Speak:Toward a Coalitional Consciousness in the Young Adult Rape Novel Angela E. Hubler (bio) “Let me tell you about it” (198). This line, in which Melinda, the protagonist of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak (1999), responds to the observation of her aptly named art teacher, Mr. Freeman, that she has “been through a lot,” concludes the novel and its narrative trajectory, tracing Melinda’s recovery from the trauma of rape as a movement from passive silence to active speech (198). In breaking her silence about the rape, Melinda, and thus the novel, utilizes what Linda Alcoff and Laura Gray identify as “the principal tactic adopted by the survivors’ movement” (261). This enormously popular novel must then be credited with propagating a feminist perspective on rape that young readers might not otherwise access. However, Alcoff and Gray’s warning that “survivor discourse has paradoxically appeared to have empowering effects even while it has in some cases unwittingly facilitated the recuperation of dominant discourses” applies not only to Speak but also to the majority of young adult rape novels (263).1 Survivor speech, Alcoff and Gray argue, is liable to be “co-opted” (261) when it employs a confessional mode that focuses on the “survivor’s ‘inner’ self and feelings … rather than … a discussion of links to the ‘exterior’ and ways to transform it” (280).2 It is clear that Anderson and the authors of other young adult rape novels are motivated by the feminist insistence that women tell the truth about their lives by making public tabooed issues like sexual assault. However, the feminist effort to politicize what has historically been understood as private can be undermined by formal features of the novels. While Mikhail Bakhtin argues that the novel is particularly effective in representing competing perspectives on social reality, the first-person narration utilized by Speak and by many other young adult rape novels frequently results in a univocal, individual, and psychological focus that aligns, ironically, with postfeminist rejections of feminism in favor of neoliberal individualism (263). Tanya Serisier traces the “epistemological primacy” of personal stories of rape in feminist discourse to Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will, which Serisier says is commonly understood as the “founding text of feminist anti-rape theory” (89, 88). Serisier identifies a problem with this theory that is [End Page 114] also pertinent to the YA rape novel: the feminist storytelling that has emerged “has been complicit in erasing crucial differences around race, class, and sexuality, and has acted to prevent other stories from being told” (89). This essay seeks out those other stories, which have—at least to some extent—been told, but accorded lesser critical attention. A number of young adult rape novels depict sexual violence in more adequate and complex ways, including representations of the significance of difference, and avoid the co-option that Alcoff and Gray identify. In Sandra Scoppetone’s Happy Endings Are All Alike (1978), Alice Childress’s Those Other People (1989), and Erika Tamar’s Fair Game (1993), multiple firstperson narrators offer a more complete perspective on social reality than, for example, Melinda does. Narrators who are black, poor, gay, or intellectually disabled articulate the experiences and insights of disadvantaged social groups and offer a privileged epistemological perspective on social reality, representing the ways in which gender interacts with other social institutions to structure violence. Other narrators articulate the hegemonic perspectives on gender, race, class, disability, and sexuality that normalize violence. As Sarah Day argues, “multivoiced narration … highlights questions of power by constructing complex networks of character relationships that demonstrate the challenges that adolescents face while navigating various institutional and social hierarchies” (66). In doing so, these novels both represent competing understanding of rape and offer a systemic analysis of the social conditions that underlie gender-based oppression, including rape. In addition to mapping the structural conditions leading to rape, Those Other People and Jacqueline Woodson’s I Hadn’t Meant to Tell you This (1994), two of the few novels that highlight the significance of race, suggest the kind of interracial coalitions that must be formed to end violence against women and girls. Speak Elaine O’Quinn’s analysis of...

Reviewed by: Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the “Twilight” Series ed. by Anne Morey Susan Tan (bio) Anne Morey , ed. Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the “Twilight” Series. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the “Twilight” Series rises to the challenge of Stephanie Meyer’s often-derided saga, providing a compelling consideration of Twilight’s appeal. The introduction by editor Anne Morey makes a strong case for studying the series, arguing that “[w]hat should excite us about Meyer’s series is that its very popularity has highlighted anew the stakes behind the production and consumption of popular culture” (1). This emphasis is provocative, and points to issues that critics of YA texts often face as problematic works, and works of dubious literary quality, emerge as culturally central. Perhaps no text quite embodies this tension as well as “Twilight.” Accused of presenting young readers with negative visions of female sexuality, “Twilight” has faced much negative criticism. And yet, as Morey points out, the series’ profound popularity disrupts critical attempts to simply dismiss it. This notion becomes particularly powerful as the franchise comes to a close, with its final film installment released in 2012. Even as we move away from “Twilight,” its influence remains, marking the creation of the YA “dark romance” genre, and inspiring adult texts such as E. L. James’s 2011 bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey. Like it or not, “Twilight” has shaken the literary landscape, and it is this cultural resonance that Morey seizes upon to ground her collection. Like the fictive series itself, this anthology is provocative and often problematic. But indeed, as Morey argues, to be otherwise would do the texts, and more importantly, the predominantly adolescent, female audiences of “Twilight” a disservice. She and the essayists frame their analyses with a compelling discussion of traditional dismissals of “feminine texts,” which Morey associates with the Frankfurt School’s rejection of popular, so-called “feminized” culture (6). This critical vision of “Twilight” as feminine text—through author, subject, and following—is shared by most of the essays, and many chapters cite the historical devaluation of genres such as romance and the gothic because of their association with female audiences and domestic contexts. To follow suit and overlook “Twilight,” the anthology suggests, would be to continue a deeply rooted cultural silencing. Morey organizes the essays into sections on genre, fan culture, and adaptation. Dialogue between the chapters builds cohesion, developing central ideas around feminism and readership. Morey opens the volume with her own essay, proposing Jane Eyre as an intertextual reference point for “Twilight” and reading Bella as Jane—a figure of emotional mastery, and a bridge between sexual and social gender disparity. Jackie Horne’s essay on fantasy continues this line of inquiry, exploring “Twilight”’s “erotics of abstinence” (17), and arguing that the series’ treatment of sexuality provides a safe space, mediated [End Page 203] through the supernatural, for young readers to explore their own desires. Sarah Day’s essay on “narrative intimacy” acts as an excellent capstone to this section, exploring the use of first-person narratives in the construction of female desire (65). Day argues that first-person narration becomes a vehicle for Bella’s yearnings, with Bella articulating her feelings to the reader rather than to potential love interests Edward or Jacob; Day believes this approach allows readers a connection to a narrative of desire that is at once titillating and safely distanced. This notion is particularly compelling in the current literary landscape, where YA novels are dominated by first-person perspectives, and cogently opens up discussion on the ways in which point of view can both privilege and protect young readerships. Catherine Driscoll’s account of “Twilight” and “girl culture” (95) gives a thoughtful introduction to issues of reception, exploring Bella’s development from adolescent love-object to mother. This raises an issue suggested by Day and returned to at several points throughout the collection: that Bella’s initiation into sexual experience and motherhood ultimately alienate her readership. Rachel Dubois’s piece on narrative finality in “Twilight” takes this further, drawing on Freud’s death drive to argue for a disruption in readers’ ability to identify with Bella...

Cotler, Steve. Cheesie Mack Is Not a Genius or Anything. Illus. Adam McCauley. New York: Random House, 2011. Print. The protagonist of this story is Ronald “Cheesie” Mack, an energetic boy who, at ten years and ten months of age, has just finished Grade 5. In his own words, his story is about “a mysterious old coin, an evil sister…a dead sister…runaway rodents, a super-best friend, a fifth-grade graduation disaster, some really unusual words (including a few that I made up), and The Haunted Toad”. The plot is equal parts mystery novel, elementary school pranks, and sibling rivalry, with a running commentary on friendship woven through the book. The strength of this novel is the first-person narration, which stays lively from Chapter 0 (“This Story is Over!”) to the very last page (“This is not a Chapter. Visit CheesieMack.com if…”). Cheesie Mack is a self-aware narrator who makes frequent asides to the reader, in order to provide foreshadowing, define words, explain character motives, and encourage readers to visit his website. Readers who enjoy plot-driven books may find Cheesie’s interludes annoying, since they act as frequent distractions from a plot that seems meandering at times. The book weaves multiple plot threads together, but takes its time doing so. Readers may feel as though the author will never return to earlier plot threads to resolve them (although he does successfully tie these pieces together at the end). However, young readers who appreciate a light-hearted character-driven story will definitely enjoy this book. Readers of a similar age will be able to relate to Cheesie’s sentiments towards his best friend and to his ongoing battles with his sister. His comical interjections and mock dialogue with his readers ensure that the book remains playful and engaging, even when the plot may not be. For those who don’t want the story to end, there is always the CheesieMack.com website. Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Dale StorieDale Storie is Public Services Librarian at the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library at the University of Alberta. He has a BA in English, and has also worked in a public library as a children's programming coordinator, where he was involved with story times, puppet shows, and book talks.

The present article analyzes the use of proverbs in The Inheritance Games (2020), the first book of the novel trilogy of the same name, currently enjoying great popularity and commercial success among young readers. In the first half of the book, proverbs are a central theme in the development of the action, continuing to be used frequently by various characters throughout the rest of the book, especially by Avery Grambs, the protagonist and first-person narrator. This use of proverbs in a novel targeted at young adults is remarkable inasmuch as they are a discourse device most commonly associated with older generations and traditions. Furthermore, proverbs contribute to the portrayal of various characters, illustrating their paremiological competence and the different ways in which they may be employed as established by proverb scholarship. As a result, the relevance of proverbs for the plot and their frequency of appearance challenges the widespread belief that they are old-fashioned uses of languages most frequently employed by older adults, potentially promoting an interest in them among teenagers and young adults reading the series.

A commonly shared assumption in the field of visual-word recognition is that retinotopic representations are rapidly converted into abstract representations. Here we examine the role of visual form vs. abstract representations during the early stages of word processing - as measured by masked priming - in young children (3rd and 6th Graders) and adult readers. To maximize the chances of detecting an effect of visual form, we employed a language with a very intricate orthography, Arabic. If visual form plays a role in the early stages of processing, greater benefit would be expected from related primes that have the same visual form (in terms of the ligation pattern between a word's letters) as the target word (e.g.- [ktz b-ktA b] - note that the three initial letters are connected in prime and target) than for those that do not (- [ktxb-ktA b]). Results showed that the magnitude of priming effect relative to an unrelated condition (e.g. -) was remarkably similar for both types of prime. Thus, despite the visual complexity of Arabic orthography, there is fast access to the abstract letter representations not only in adult readers by also in developing readers.

The discussion regarding the legalization of marijuana, cannabis, for medical usage has again entered into a debate situation both in the public and health care arena. The debate on the legalization of marijuana has proponents emphasizing the benefits of the usage of medical marijuana for the treatment of several conditions in a safe manner, such as chronic pain control, nausea/vomiting, loss of appetite, and seizure control, to mention a few. On the opposite side are the opponents, who are voicing concern for the addictive nature of marijuana, unknown pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, lack of data on correct dosage, and lack of safety and efficacy data with long-term usage. As in the past, there are public and medical community members on both sides of the debate, supporting and opposing the legalization of medical marijuana. The legalization of medical marijuana is again being considered on the health care policy agenda. The extent to which it will move from a broad agenda item to the point of being an actionable policy agenda item will be dependent on the political maneuvering of this issue among the various policy stakeholders and policymakers. This debate can end up in either the perfect storm of controversy or a rich evidence-based discussion with a resultant evidence-based decision. The legalization of marijuana is definitely a political and policy issue. The political and policy issue regarding medical marijuana usage represents an issue that has emotional, psychological, social, economic, and political issues surrounding this debate. Not to mention the science that will provide evidence regarding the safety and efficacy of marijuana usage. Regardless of your individual position regarding this political and policy issue, it is critical to ensure that we present, discuss, and consider all the scientific, emotional, psychological, social, economic, and political aspects of this debate. The alignment of the problem (legalization of medical marijuana), political aspects, and proposed policy can create the perfect “window of opportunity” for policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation regarding the medical legalization of marijuana. As health care providers with an emphasis on men’s health, it is our responsibility that we ensure as this “window of opportunity” for policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation occurs, we are active in this dialogue and debate to ensure that men’s emotional, psychological, social, economic, and political issues are presented. As health care providers, we are responsible to ensure that the dialogue and debate includes evidence of men’s utilization of marijuana that incorporates the emotional, psychological, social, economic, and political aspects that uniquely affect men. This will inform policy in relation to men’s health. 504104 JMHXXX10.1177/1557988313504104American Journal of Men’s HealthPorche research-article2013