Book Characters Research Articles

Holy Childhoods, Batman!: Configurations of Youth and Possibilities in Teacher Education as Seen through Robin Comics

ABSTRACTThis paper explores a historical analysis of the comic book character Robin to illuminate how different understandings of youth at different historical points intersect with notions of pedagogy to make certain forms of childhood intelligible to educators and researchers. We analyze different configurations of Robin’s identity, taking up questions of the pedagogical relationships present between Batman and each of the Robins. In doing so, we articulate different youth subjectivities and the education these identities demand. Using the different iterations of the Robin character, we analyze four youth subjectivities and possibilities for teachers to wrestle with prefigured subjectivities. The paper concludes with a consideration of an unthinkable Robin character as one with no Batman, suggesting possibilities for teachers to think through more radical forms of student autonomy.

Tuning into ‘fleshy’ frequencies: A posthuman mapping of affect, sound and de/colonized literacies with/in a primary classroom

Within this article, I attend to the slippages among sound, silence, noise, voice and ir/rationality to map out the ways white supremacist forces subtly moved with/in a primary classroom (NYC) through a host of bodies and sounds to reinforce processes of affective assimilation – or demands for first graders to ‘ feel white’. Specifically, I explore how particular sounds as well as the insistence on silence – that is, sound directed in a certain way – circulated within Readers Workshop to discipline students into ‘white’ affective rhythms. In effect, students – mainly boys of colour – who did not consume/produce the sounds of whiteness were initially labelled as ‘struggling readers’. I then show how students resisted the norm through their affective attachments to the book character Messy Bessey and my name/physical body. Ultimately, the students’ love for Bessey/me enabled new affective entanglements between humans and nonhumans that ran ‘pedagogical interference’ into the school’s mandated literacy curriculum and racialized identity scripts, thereby opening up opportunities for ‘struggling readers’ to become ‘successful’. I conclude by inviting literacy educators to consider what it might mean to say no to those space-times that make social and cultural discriminations possible and, in turn, say yes to other ‘fleshy’ worlds where more response-able ways of listening, sounding, knowing, being and doing exist.

Preventing Child Sexual Abuse Using Picture Books: The Effect of Book Character and Message Framing

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to investigate whether and how a picture book preventing child sexual abuse can improve children’s self-protection skills. The study was conducted in China with Chinese children. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects design, character in the book (human versus animal) and message framing (gain versus loss) were manipulated. Compared to a baseline group who were not exposed to the prevention book, children in the experimental groups significantly enhanced their ability to recognize a potential abuse situation and refuse an inappropriate touch request. Results suggest that the prevention picture books are more effective when using a human character and a gain-framed message. The explanation for this was that human characters simulated children’s perceived norm and gain-framed messages increased children’s message recall, perceived self-efficacy and positive attitude toward the message, all of which in turn positively affected children’s self-protection skills.

Extraction of Semantic Content and Styles in Comic Books

Digitisation of comic books would play a crucial role in identifying new areas in which digital comics can be used. Currently, existing systems in this domain lack the capacity to achieve complete digitisation. Digitisation requires a thorough analysis of the semantic content within comic books. This can be further sub-categorised as detection and identification of comic book characters, extraction and analysis of panels as well as texts, derivation of associations between characters and speech balloons, and analysis of different styles of reading. This paper provides an overview of using several object-detection models to detect semantic content in comics. This analysis showed that, under the constraint of limited computational capacity, YOLOv3 was the best-suited model out of the models evaluated. A study of text extraction and recognition using Optical Character Recognition, a method for determining associable speech balloons, as well as a distance-based approach for associations between characters and speech balloons are also presented here. This association method provides an increased accuracy compared to the Euclidean distance-based approach. Finally, a study on comic style is provided along with a learning model with an accuracy of 0.89 to analyse the reading order of comics.

Improvement of Ancient Shui Character Recognition Model Based on Convolutional Neural Network

This study uses deep learning theory into the character recognition technology for Shui characters in ancient books, with the objectives of overcoming the instability of the high-pixel ancient Shui characters generative model and the need for large scale handwritten text data annotation among other issues. By constructing a multilayer adversarial neural network with a Laplacian structure, a clear generative model is established for original image data of Shui characters and a stable adversarial network model with multiple mapping relationships from coarse to fine is formed. Based on the analysis of the feature distance of Shui character image samples, the minimum inter-class spacing value and the optimal number of clusters are calculated. Combined with feedback from the classifier model, the optimal number of clusters in the clustering model is adjusted, an evaluation function with information entropy adjustment and clustering threshold convergence is constructed for the unsupervised labelling of Shui character image samples. In this paper, the feedback from the convolutional neural network is used to determine the algorithmic model of the hyperparameters for clustering annotation, and this structure is also designed to improve the recognition rate of handwritten Shui characters in ancient books.

Islam in Pakistan: A History by Muhammad Qasim Zaman

Reviewed by: Islam in Pakistan: A History by Muhammad Qasim Zaman Uğur Z. Peçe Islam in Pakistan: A History. By muhammad qasim zaman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. 432 pp. ISBN 9780691149226. $39.50 (hardcover); $27.95 (paper). What if we organized our personal libraries by the character of books? If the shelves were populated by books with comparable disposition, Muhammad Qasim Zaman's Islam in Pakistan: A History would take its place not too distant from the late Shahab Ahmed's What is Islam? The [End Page 811] Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). The latter explored "the historical and human phenomenon that is Islam in its plenitude and complexity of meaning" to present a complex story of islams, as opposed to a singular and uniform Islam (p. 5). Rather than purporting to provide an easy answer to the question "What is Islam?" Ahmed approached Islam as a complex constellation of beliefs, philosophies, traditions, and practices. Islam in Pakistan's affinity to Ahmed's tour de force lies not only in its impressive scope but its investigation of the meanings and importance of being Islamic over the course of Pakistan's checkered history without presuming "any sharp distinction between belief and practice, between normative and lived Islam" (p. 2). Zaman's examination of multiple dimensions of Islam in South Asia over the period of almost two centuries within the frame of a single book is an ambitious undertaking, the likes of which only the most competent of scholars perform compellingly. Covering a wide array of topics from Islamic law to education to non-Muslim minorities and to interpretations of jihad, Zaman discusses the modernists, 'ulama, Sufis, and Islamists as the key actors who have shaped state and society in colonial India and Pakistan. Organized thematically, Islam in Pakistan opens with an introduction into Islamic identities in pre-partition South Asia. During the mid-nineteenth century, the deepening penetration of British colonialism in South Asia recast the region, which was home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Perhaps the most formative transformation occurred with Britain's crashing of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, spelling the end of centuries-long Muslim political dominance in India. This proved extremely dislocating for South Asian Muslims as they lost the privileged status of professing the same religion as their rulers whose very existence was widely believed to be indispensable to the implementation of Islamic law. Zaman, however, does not recount a story of Islamic decline in post-Mughal India but a narrative of dynamic adaptability instead. Dislocation brought by the passing of the Mughal rule soon sparked an intellectual vitality among Muslims, both traditionalists and modernists, as they navigated the radically transformed political landscape. And changes in the physical landscape such as the extension of the railway network, helped create a more closely-knit community out of the millions of Muslims scattered across a vast area. From the 1860s through 1940s the length of railroads increased from 1,587 to 40,524 miles, which translated into a sixty-fold surge in the annual number of passengers. In no way did such a dramatic rise in the volume of communications compensate the loss of state power for Indian Muslims, yet it certainly connected them more [End Page 812] firmly as disciples visited, with more ease, their Sufi masters and religious scholars. Following a historical survey of Islam under British colonialism, the book is organized thematically with each chapter examining a major component of Islamic imprint in Pakistan. Chapter 2 investigates the mixed fortunes of Islamic modernism throughout Pakistan's history. Zaman's discussion of the primacy of Islamic modernist ideas in the project for an independent Pakistan as a Muslim state shines light on its founders' objective to prove Islam's compatibility with modernity. The birth of Pakistan, on the other hand, provided the 'ulama with an opportunity to claim leading roles under an Islamic republic, which constitutes one of the main topics in Chapter 3, others being constitution-writing, Islamic legislation, and madrasa reform. The Objectives Resolution, the founding document of Pakistan accepted in 1949, envisioned the new state to be governed in accordance with the idea...

The House by the Lake: The True Story of a House, Its History, and the Four Families Who Made It Home by Thomas Harding

Reviewed by: The House by the Lake: The True Story of a House, Its History, and the Four Families Who Made It Home by Thomas Harding Natalie Berglind Harding, Thomas The House by the Lake: The True Story of a House, Its History, and the Four Families Who Made It Home; illus. by Britta Teckentrup. Candlewick, 2020 [48p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536212747 $17.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 7-10 yrs In this picture book rendition of Harding's 2015 adult memoir, a house near Berlin, built in the twentieth century, becomes home to four families over the years. Its residents include a "kind doctor and his cheery wife" and their four kids, who are all forced to leave, a musical family with two blond boys who love marching tunes and flee when their father is conscripted, a couple escaping bombing in the city only to leave when fighting approaches, and a "man with a fluffy hat" who after the war fixes up the house for his family and spies on his neighbors. Eventually a young man (the author) comes to the house, fixes it up, and researches its history. Smudgy mixed-media art has a delicate collage feel, handling figures by providing only impressions of features that lend anonymity to the book's characters—they could stand in for anyone who farms or sings. Faded colors give the pages a subdued vintage flavor that easily lets viewers slide into the past. The book's sophisticated approach leaves it to viewers to pick up the history here, ranging from the persecution of the Jewish family to the erection of the Berlin Wall and the patriarch's post-war spying for the secret police; the book will therefore work best with some adult context that doesn't wait until the concluding notes to explain that the first family was evicted for being Jewish, the second family had kids in the Hitler Youth, the third couple were Jews fleeing war, and the last home to headed by a Stasi spy. Nonetheless, the house setting that brings them together is an interesting and useful lens for learning more about the day-to-day lives of people from this historical era, and this title could be an interesting partner to Karas' As an Oak Tree Grows (12/14). Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Sacrilegious character of «The cross on Saturn» in the self-titled novel of Oles Ulianenko

Oles Ulianenko, one of the most talented and controversial Ukrainian writers of these days, has been dead for ten years. His literary works did not receive any appropriate professional evaluation though because literary scholars and critics applied either the wrong or unproductive research methodology due to some objective and subjective reasons. The aim of the article is to suggest an alternative, in comparison to traditional variants, theoretical literary analysis which is grounded on the principles of the corporal-mimetic method to interpret fiction done on the extremely controversial novel “The Cross on Saturn” by O. Ulianenko. Having analyzed the idea and artistic content of the novel “The Cross on Saturn”, the conclusion is made that, first, the book characters seem to function as simulacra of their shallowness because they lack the depth of inner world. But despite this fact, despite parody, superficial dialogues and surrogate actions, the main characters of the novel and the peripeteia, they find themselves in, do not lose aesthetic appeal because these characters do not need deep inner world since their function is not determined by what these trivial characters reflect in the text mirror but by what the text mirror reflects in them. Second, the shallowness is filled with the content conditioned by the incest precedent which provides the basis of Oles Ulianenko’s novel to the degree to what the writer creates the tragedy in its exact, namely ancient Geek, meaning of the notion according to which tragedy is, on the one hand, a story determined by an utterly artificial form and content and, on the other hand, it is a story which does not simply end by death, it is a story which cannot end by anything else but death. It seems as if nothing but tragedy could make it impossible for a man to have their animal essence to supersede their human part.

Captains of Illustration ed. by Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna

Reviewed by: Captains of Illustration ed. by Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna Katja Wiebe Translated by Nikola von Merveldt CAPTAINS OF ILLUSTRATION. 100 Years of Children's Books from Poland. Edited by Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna. Translated by Agnes Monod-Gayraud. Adam Mickiewicz Institute / Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry, 2019, 498 pages. ISBN: 978-83-60263-57-02 CAPTAINS OF ILLUSTRATION. 100 Years of Children's Books from Poland. Edited by Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna. Translated by Agnes Monod-Gayraud. Adam Mickiewicz Institute / Wydawnictwo Dwie Siostry, 2019, 498 pages. ISBN: 978-83-60263-57-02 With almost five hundred pages, the volume Captains of Illustration offers a comprehensive tour of Polish children's book illustration between 1918 and 2018, with short articles in English and nine hundred illustrations. Eleven contributors give brief insights into aspects, trends, and characteristics of Polish illustration art, following one hundred keywords. In addition to editor and art historian Anita Wincencjusz-Patyna, colleagues, illustrators, designers, book historians, and many others contribute their knowledge. The extremely heterogeneous perspectives on the topic highlight the diversity and complexity of the Polish art of illustration and make for a highly readable volume. Some of the contributions, which are each only one or two pages long, are written in a conversational, at times casual tone, while others are more descriptive and analytical. The playfully phrased keywords, which organize the many, well-chosen sample illustrations by 230 Polish artists, cover a wide range of topics. Thus, "Alice in Wonderland", "Elephants on Parade," and "Shopping Trip" are to be found among them, as are "Naked Truths," "Typographic Tricks," and "Pop Art Power." This free mix of themes, motifs, artistic techniques, and stylistic tendencies, as well as art historical epochs and illustrations of children's book classics, creates a broad panorama of illustrated children's literature in Poland. Since illustrations from almost all decades are shown for each keyword, artistic and stylistic lines of development can be traced and comparisons made. Many artists are represented with examples under several keywords, enabling readers to discover the peculiarities and characteristic traits of a particular illustration style. While the motifs from the everyday world of children's experience and life, such as the family, the telephone, the post office, or animals (cat, bird, fish, etc.) are commonplace in children's literature, other chapters focus on specifically Polish motifs, such as the significance and representation of the Polish cities of Gdansk, Cracow, and Warsaw in Polish children's book illustration; the national colors, red and white; and important personalities such as Janusz Korczak, or artists such as Bohdan Butenko and Franciszka Themerson, as well as well-known Polish children's book characters. Furthermore, the chapters "Polish School of Illustration," "Socialist Realism for Kids," "Occupied Poland," and "Watch Out! Bulldozers" take a look at landmarks, special periods, or events in Polish illustration history. "Read to Me, Mummy!" and the "Squirrel Series" present the two most important book series that have been and continue to be published in Poland over several decades. The literary and art historical periods are visualized at the end of the volume in a timeline. [End Page 118] There, Captains of Illustration offers an alphabetical overview of all illustrators presented in the volume, with brief biographical notes, including "classic" artists such as Bohdan Butenko, Adam Kilian, Zbigniew Rychlicki, Janusz Stanny, Jan Marcin Szancer, Franciszka Themerson, and Józef Wilkoń in addition to younger representatives such as Edgar Bąk, Jan Bajtlik, Monika Hanulak, Marta Ignerska, Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński, Marianna Oklejak, and Paweł Pawlak. The eleven authors of the keyword contributions are also presented. Katja Wiebe International Youth Library Copyright © 2020 Bookbird, Inc.

Контекстний аналіз комунікативних ситуацій волевиявлення (на матеріалі роману «Монолог перед обличчям сина» Михайла Івасюка)

A nonfiction narrative is an image of a certain reality through the prism of the author’s vision. In the story the author can use not only descriptions or reflections, but also situations of communication, which contain features of communicative behaviour of certain social groups during the timeline described in the text. The novel “A Monologue in My Son’s Face” written by Mykhailo Ivasyuk can be considered as an example of such a work. Not only the described events correspond to the spirit of that time, but also do so the communicative models, in particular the situations of motivation. The purpose of our study is to describe the situations of will expression in the work, to find out how it complements the features of the characters and records the peculiarities of communicative behaviour of the inhabitants of Soviet Ukraine at the time mentioned in the novel. The study will analyse the communicative situations of motivation, identify the linguistic means of motivation, describe the book characters through their methods of volitional influence presented by the author. The study aims to find out how the writer's creative idea is comprehended through individual situations (in this case through motivation). It also investigates, how the description of book characters can be complemented by contextual analysis. The study will draw conclusions about the communicative behaviour of certain segments of the Ukrainian society for the period described in the work. The object of the study were motivational constructions from the period of adult life of Volodymyr Ivasyuk, as there are many examples of communication with representatives of different segments of the Ukrainian population. The main characters almost do not use verbs in the imperative mood, motivating interlocutors through indirect means, for example, with the word want, would like, questions, emphasis on the benefits of the proposed action and so on. The author makes more decisive demands as a statement of fact or conveys through the predicate word “need”. Interestingly, the prepositional word “must”, which can be interpreted as addressed form of the word “need”, was used only twice, and even so, in situations involving public service guidelines. Another feature that allows us to characterize Volodymyr Ivasyuk as a rather self-demanding personality is the use of word “need” in situations of self-motivation. Verbs in the form of the imperative mood are found in situations of unappealable expression of will by officials, which were accompanied by using the word “thou” and the Russian language. This way of managing a much older person, because it is addressed to the father of Volodymyr Ivasyuk, who was looking for his missing son, complements the negative impression of these characters. In the end, such communicative behaviour is fully consistent with the realities of that time, although it might depended on the personality of the speaker.

The Soviet Meltdown

I met Natalia Baranovska, a Ukrainian historian who is one of the characters in Kate Brown's book, last summer. I also read her work on the Chernobyl (in Ukrainian, Chornobyl) nuclear disaster, but I did not know her personal and academic story until I read the Manual for Survival. Baranovska began to study the Chernobyl catastrophe before any of her fellow historians in Kyiv considered it a legitimate topic for historical research. She made dozens, if not hundreds, of visits to the Chernobyl exclusion zone and saved hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pages of documents on the disaster that she brought from the area. Natalia Baranovska is also a cancer survivor.

Cross-Border Bodies: How to Fit When Your Body Does Not

Cross-Border Bodies: How to Fit When Your Body Does Not Leonor Ruiz-Guerrero (bio) Brun-Cosme, Nadine. Daddy Long Legs. Illustrated by Aurélie Guillerey, Kids, 2017. 26 pp. $16.95 hc. ISBN 9781771383622. Cali, Davide. The Tiny Tale of Little Pea. Illustrated by Sébastien Mourrain, Kids, 2017. 36 pp. $18.99 hc. ISBN 9781771388436. Leng, Qin. I Am Small. Kids, 2018. 40 pp. $18.99 hc. ISBN 9781525301155. Renaud, Anne. The True Tale of a Giantess: The Story of Anna Swan. Illustrated by Marie Lafrance, Kids, 2018. 32 pp. $18.99 hc. ISBN 9781771383769. The societal and literary understanding of the non-normative body has evolved throughout history, from monstrous abnormality to corporeal diversity. The material turn adopted in recent years in several research scopes has contributed [End Page 184] powerfully to the shift (Nikolajeva 132–33). The emergence of new cross-border bodies in children’s literature results from this change of paradigm. Bodily borders depend on the pre-existence of a normal body. Power structures configure it through medical discourse, literature, and identity narratives, among others. A range of interrelated bodily markers, such as weight, height, skin tone, sex, or form, is used to judge the bodies. Sameness is the pattern. Therefore, any deviation is noted as abnormal. Normalization processes deny the humanity of different bodies, tagging them as pathological, monstrous, or other. In contrast, cross-border bodies challenge this denial by declaring their humanity without renouncing their non-normative features. This review considers four picture books that address the issue of embodiment and extraordinary bodies. The four texts put into question the borders of what a human being ought to be. For a long time, deviant bodies suffered from isolation, rejection, and ridicule in spaces such as freak shows. The True Tale of a Giantess exemplifies these circumstances but with significant nuance. The protagonist participates in a Gallery of Wonders, not a freak show, where she is respected and not treated like a monster. As Nikolajeva asserts, “Physical deviation has traditionally been viewed as abnormality, be it anatomy, skin or hair colour, or disfigurement” (140). However, this perspective began to change during the second half of the twentieth century, as advances in medicine led to the understanding that these bodies were as human as any other. In Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature by Rosemarie Garland Thomson, published in 1997 and reprinted in 2017, the term “normate” is coined to address the concern of the normativity-non-normativity binary. Garland defines normate as the privileged stance of a socio-cultural figure whose boundaries are drawn by deviant bodies (8). The characters in the picture books taken up in this review might be considered non-normate but with some objections, as all of them are white, thin, without disabilities, and living in middle-class contexts in Western countries. The term normate is conditioned by both bodily configurations and cultural capital (Garland-Thomson 8). Thus, these bodies are partially normate. The picture books in this review fall into two groupings: those that focus on small bodies—I Am Small; The Tiny Tale of Little Pea—and those that focus on large bodies—Daddy Long Legs; The True Tale of a Giantess. All stress the physicality of the body and how it takes up space in the world. [End Page 185] One might be tempted to argue that there is no real disruption of the norm in these books, since a size far from the standard is the only deviation rendered. There is no alteration of visible form that can lead to thinking about the dismantling of the characters’ humanity. If these bodies were considered apart from the context of the stories, they would not differ from any normative body. The intent to challenge norms becomes blurred when the diversity appears as a single instance rather than a representation of human difference. Bodily diversity has increasing visibility in children’s literature, but with limitations: while more texts promote positive non-hegemonic bodies, other divergent bodies, such as fat bodies, are omitted.1 In her study about the shame associated with body image in children’s literature, Joy Mauldin highlights a tie between negative...

A Comic Book Analysis as a Vehicle of Colonial Discourse and Myth’s Treasure: Tintin in the Congo

The Adventures of Tintin was first published in 1929. Tintin is a well-known and beloved comic book character worldwide. He is smart, intelligent, courageous and also a very honest journalist. Despite all these positive features, it can be observed that Tintin has prejudices that lead to racism. In this article, the adventure named “Tintin in the Congo” has been examined with the method of “myth analysis” in the light of Mythologies, the work of the French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician Roland Barthes. According to Barthes, contemporary myths appear as “the tools of cultural construction”. These myths create a discourse and are used for propaganda purposes by highlighting the difference between “the Other” and “the Self”. In addition, the ideas and views of postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri C. Spivak, and Homi Bhabha have also been used. 1929 yılında yayın hayatına başlayan Tenten dünya çapında oldukça sevilen ve bilinen bir çizgi roman karakteridir. Tenten akıllı, zeki, cesur ve çok dürüst bir gazeteci gençtir. Tüm bu pozitif özelliklerine karşın Tenten karakterinin ırkçılığa varan önyargılara sahip olduğu göze çarpmaktadır. Bu makalede Fransız denemeci, eleştirmen ve göstergebilimci Roland Barthes’ın Mythologies isimli eseri ışığında, “mit analizi” yöntemi ile Tenten Kongo’da isimli macera incelenmiştir. Barthes’a göre çağdaş mitler karşımıza “kültürel inşa araçları” olarak çıkmaktadır. Yaratılan bu mitler, “öteki” ile “benlik” arasındaki farkı ustalıkla hissettirerek bir söylem oluşturmakta ve propaganda amaçlı kullanılmaktadır. Ayrıca Edward Said, Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri C. Spivak, Homi Bhabha gibi post-kolonyal teorisyenlerin de görüşlerinden faydalanılmıştır.

Piękna paranoja i Freud, czyli afera plagiatowa wokół teorii dwupłciowości Wilhelma Fließa

The article presents the dispute between Freud and Fließ concerning the bisexual theory of the latter. According to Fließ, Freud inadvertently conveyed the main ideas of this theory to his patient, Hermann Swoboda, who included them in his article, which he published. Not enough of this. The latter conveyed them to Otto Weininger, who also drew on them in his famous book Sex and Character. The result was public accusation of plagiarism made by Fließ against Swoboda and Weininger and the breaking of friendship with Freud. In the article, I argue that in this case the issue of alleged plagiarism is problematic and at least ambiguous, not allowing the formulation of categorical opinions.

Talking Children Into Literacy: Once More, With Feeling

Children’s literate development is mediated by classroom talk. That same talk also mediates children’s emotional, relational, self-regulatory, and moral development. Consequently, the discourse of some literacy teaching practices may be important for shaping the course of human development, and those dimensions of human development can play reciprocal roles in children’s literate development. For example, conversations about the inner life of book characters (and authors) expand children’s social imaginations, which improve their self-regulation, social relationships, and moral development. Coincidentally, literacy learning requires cognitive self-regulation (e.g., working memory, attention, focus), social self-regulation in interactions with peers and teachers, and emotional self-regulation (e.g., frustration and anxiety). Children who develop self-regulation earlier, and to higher levels, develop decoding and reading comprehension earlier. Similarly, when children’s conversations explore the pragmatics of their linguistic interactions, such as how to disagree productively, they become more able to comprehend texts and argue persuasively but also more able to learn from and with each other. Children need to acquire “the codes,” but the ecology of acquisition matters a great deal not only for the ease of acquisition but also for the nature of the literacy that is acquired and for the trajectory of human development. Children’s social and emotional development lies squarely in the bailiwick of the language arts and the literate talk within which they are immersed. But the accompanying human development, in turn, supports literate development.

A Study on the Analysis of Creativity Content in Wordless Picture Books: Focusing on Characters

본 연구에서는 글 없는 그림책에 나타난 창의성을 분석하기 위해 종합 창의성 모델 (ACCM)에 근거하여 연구를 진행하였다. 분석 대상 그림책은 국내에서 제작 및 번역되어 출판되고 있는 글 없는 그림책 중 등장인물의 창의적 행동이 나타나며 사실과 환상 세계의 배경을 함께 담고 있는 환상 그림책 총 38권을 선정하였다. 분석을 위해서는 우선, 글 없는 그림책에 나타난 등장인물을 살펴보았으며, 등장인물이 표현하는 창의성의 유형과 영역은 어떠한지를 살펴보았다. 연구 결과, 먼저 글 없는 그림책에 나타난 등장인물로는 ‘사람’이 가장 많이 등장하였으며 그 다음으로 ‘사물’, ‘의인화된 동물’, ‘의인화되지 않은 동물’, ‘가상 인물’ 순으로 나타났다. 둘째, 글 없는 그림책에 나타난 등장인물의 창의성 구성 요인으로는 ‘민감성’, ‘상상력’이 가장 많이 나타났으며, 그 다음으로 ‘융통성’, ‘독창성’, ‘유창성’, ‘정교 성’ 순으로 나타났다. 셋째, 글 없는 그림책에 나타난 등장인물의 창의성 영역으로는 ‘동작 창의성’이 가장 많이 나타났으며 그 다음으로 ‘조작 창의성’, ‘도형 창의성’, ‘소리 창의성’, ‘언어 창의성’ 순으로 나타났다. 이상의 연구 결과를 바탕으로 본 연구에서는 추후 글 없는 그림책을 활용한 문학적․교육적 접근 방향을 제시하였다.This study would analyze focusing on the characters in order to examine the creativity shown in the wordless picture books. In this study, 38 wordless picture books that were produced, translated and published in Korea were selected for analysis. For the analysis, I first looked at the characters that appeared in the wordless picture books, and then looked into the types and areas of creativity expressed by the characters. As a result, first, ‘person’ appeared in the picture book without text, followed by ‘thing’, ‘animated animal’, ‘unpersonified animal’, and ‘virtual character’. Second, the most common types of characters appeared in wordless picture books were ‘sensitivity’ and ‘imagination’, followed by ‘flexibility’, ‘originality’, ‘flexibility’, and ‘elaboration’. Third, ‘behavioral creativity’was the most common in the creativity of characters in wordless picture books, followed by ‘anipulative creativity’ ‘igural creativity’ ‘sound creativity’, and ‘linguistic creativity’. Based on the above findings, this study suggests a literary and educational approach that uses wordless picture books.

Transforming the Imaging Experience While Decreasing Sedation Rates

ObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of the MRI-am-a-Hero program on sedation utilization for outpatient pediatric MRI studies. MethodsThe MRI-am-a-Hero program, which utilizes multimedia educational material and popular comic book characters to educate and support pediatric patients during MRI scan, was implemented at the radiology facility of a single tertiary care, academic medical center. The effect of the MRI-am-a-Hero program on sedation utilization for pediatric MRI was retrospectively evaluated using multivariate regressions yielding odds ratio of sedation before and after program implementation. The institutional review board approved the study with HIPAA compliancy. Effectiveness of the program was evaluated while controlling for age, neurological MRI examination, number of examinations in the case, and use of intravenous contrast. Further analysis was performed in subgroups categorized by age, neurological MRI versus nonneurological MRI, and the use of contrast. ResultsThe percent of MRI cases with sedation decreased from 22.9% to 17.3% after the MRI-am-a-Hero program was implemented. When controlling for other variables, including patient age, neurological MRI, number of examinations in a case, and use of intravenous contrast, the odds of a study being performed with sedation after program implementation are 40% less than the odds before program implementation (odds ratio [OR] 0.60, P < .001). The effect of the program was greatest for patients aged 4 to 7 (OR 0.56, P < .001), followed by patients aged 8 to 11 (OR 0.64, P = .019). It was not statistically significant for patients aged 12 to 15 (OR 0.97, P = .919). ConclusionMRI-am-a-Hero is a generalizable and inexpensive program for reducing sedation utilization for outpatient pediatric MRI studies, especially for patients aged 4 to 11.

Boogie, un mercenario de película

ABSTRACTBoogie, el aceitoso is a comic book character created by Roberto Fontanarrosa that first appeared in the magazine Hortensia in 1972. From its first release until 1995, twelve volumes of the comic were published. The Argentinian film Boogie, el aceitoso premiered in cinemas in 2009. This article proposes an exercise of semiotic transposition and intertextuality1 between the book Todo Boogie2 and the film Boogie, el aceitoso (película).3 Semiotic transposition is here understood as the social operations through which a piece of work or a genre changes its reference framework or sign system,4 and intertextuality as a dialogue between texts that are linked by a chain of signification.

Solve maths problems using creative powers

Invite children to solve problems to do with shape, space and measure by weaving them into exciting narratives featuring favourite superheros and popular picture book characters.

Textual functions of metonymies in Anthony Browne’s picture books: A multimodal approach

AbstractThe main aim of this article is to study the communicative functions of visual metonymies in a sample of picture books written and illustrated by Anthony Browne, an internationally acclaimed author and illustrator of children’s books. The three tales selected for analysis are Voices in the Park, Gorilla and Piggybook, all of which have been highly praised by critics and become universally accepted as classics. Within the frameworks of visual social semiotics and cognitive linguistics, the strategies available to the illustrator to represent characters in picture books have been identified and analysed in the contexts where they were produced. The results of the analysis show that visual metonymies are used in Browne’s picture books essentially to highlight or minimize a character’s status over another fictional actor, to ascribe negative qualities or attitudes to the main characters and, in turn, to foreshadow what is yet to come in the story.