Wordless Picture Book Research Articles

The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks ed. by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

Reviewed by: The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks ed. by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer Jan Susina (bio) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks, edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer. Routledge, 2018. As Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer writes in the introduction to this massive 500+ page volume, The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks is intended to provide "a critical survey of what is going on and what has already been done in international picturebook research" (5). This collection is divided into five broad and overlapping sections: Concepts and topics; Picturebook categories; Interfaces; Domains; and Adaptations and remediation. The volume includes forty-eight essays on various facets of picturebooks from a range of contributors, including children's literature scholars, psychologists, art historians, linguists, educationalists, film scholars, and media scholars from Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. In recent years, Kümmerling-Meibauer has established herself as a prolific editor, or coeditor, of collections of essays dealing with children's literature including Maps and Mapping in Children's Literature (2017), coedited with Nina Goga; Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children's Literature (2017), coedited with Anja Müller; Children's Literature and the Avant-Garde (2015), coedited with Elina Druker; Learning from Picturebooks (2015), coedited with Jörg Meibauer, et al.; Picturebooks: Representations and Narration (2014); Manga's Cultural Crossroads (2013), coedited with Jaqueline Berndt; New Directions in Picturebook Research (2012), coedited with Teresa Colomer and Cecilia Silva-Díaz; and Beyond Pippi Longstocking (2011), coedited with Astrid Surmatz. Some of the topics and issues addressed in these previous collections of essays are revisited in The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. As noted in the introduction, a picturebook may appear to be a simple text on the initial reading but with reflection can be quite complex. Even the definition and spelling of the term are open to debate. Kümmerling-Meibauer notes in the introduction that while English dictionaries recommend the spelling is two words, "picture book," scholars in the field use the term "picturebook" to show the inseparable unit of pictures and text. Nevertheless, a number of scholars separate the term into two words, "picture book," including Perry Nodelman in the groundbreaking study Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of [End Page 251] Children's Picture Books (1988), Ellen Handler Spitz in Inside Picture Books (1999), Jane Doonan's entry of "The Modern Picture Book" in Peter Hunt's International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature (1996), Maria Nikolajeva's entry on "Picture Books" and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer's own entry on "Illustration" in Jack Zipes's The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature (2006), as well as William Moebius's entry on "Picture Books" in Philip Nel and Lissa Paul's Keywords for Children's Literature (2011). Kümmerling-Meibauer suggests the common agreement of the characteristics of a picturebook are the medium (a book) and the content (pictures) (3). But from there, this concept becomes a bit more ambiguous, since not all picturebooks include a text—Emma Bosch provides the entry on "Wordless picturebooks"—and there is a generally accepted distinction between illustrated books and picturebooks—Elizabeth Bird and Junko Yokota provide the entry on "Picturebooks and illustrated books." Bird and Yokota consider an illustrated book to be any book that contains at least one illustration, and if one were to remove the illustrations, the writing would stand alone. Given the importance of the illustrations to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), or E. B. White's Charlotte's Web (1952), all of which are illustrated books, this doesn't always seem to be true. Helma van Lierop-Debrauwer argues in her entry on "Hybridity in picturebooks" that "[s]cholars involved in picturebook research unanimously agree that picturebooks are a unique art form" and that the result of the "synergy between verbal and visual language makes picturebooks a hybrid [form]" (81). While picturebooks may be a unique art form, the most compelling section of this collection is "Interfaces," where contributors examine picturebooks in light of other closely aligned forms, such as Johanna Drucker's entry on "Artists' books and picturebooks," Lara Saguisag's "Picturebooks and comics," and Jane Wattenberg's "Picturebooks...

Bulletin Blue Ribbons 2020

Bulletin Blue Ribbons 2020 Deborah Stevenson, Editor Deciding the Blue Ribbons was a whole new experience in 2020; we revamped the procedure to share titles digitally and, of course, worked amid the chaos of a pandemic-disrupted world. It was gratifying to find our enthusiasm undiminished, and in fact we've consciously chosen to go with a generous list this year. Whether for Zoom sharing or private escapism, books matter intensely right now, and it's stirring to see how many stellar titles appeared this year despite the obstacles. PICTURE BOOKS Barnes, Derrick. I Am Every Good Thing; illus. by Gordon C. James. Paulsen/Penguin. 5-7 yrs This first-person self-affirmation celebrates the multiple wonders of young Black boys in rollicking, readaloud-friendly text and rich painterly portraiture. (October) Gay, Marie-Louise. The Three Brothers; written and illus. by Marie-Louise Gay. House of Anansi/Groundwood. 4-7 yrs Gay offers a gentle introduction to climate change as three young brothers trek through a wintry forest; dappled textures and delicate lines imbue solemnity but pops of color and the youngest brother's joyful gamboling suggest hopefulness. (September) Lam, Thao. The Paper Boat: A Refugee Story; written and illus. by Thao Lam. Owlkids. 5-10 yrs This wordless picture book creatively tells parallel stories as it follows a Vietnamese family forced to flee from their home when Communist forces swarm southward after the 1975 fall of Saigon. (July/August) Medina, Meg. Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away; illus. by Sonia Sánchez. Candlewick. 5-8 yrs Young Daniela tells of the joy of friendship and the genuine, important grief at parting when her "mejor amiga, my numero uno best friend" moves out of the neighborhood. (September) Novesky, Amy. Girl on a Motorcycle; illus. by Julie Morstad. Viking. Gr. 3-8 Based on the experience of a French journalist in the 1970s, this story follows an intrepid young woman as she travels alone across the world on her motorcycle, experiencing a multitude of countries, people, and possibilities. (September) Sullivan, Mary. Up on Bob; written and illus. by Mary Sullivan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Gr. K-2 The queen of few-word narratives returns here with a hilarious story of a sausagey dog preparing his bed for naptime and the cat who seeks to make Bob a cushion himself. (January) [End Page 241] Tate, Nikki. Home Base: A Mother-Daughter Story; illus. by Katie Kath. Holiday House. 4-8 yrs Parallel storylines unfold as mother and daughter tackle their respective challenges: Mom scoring a job building a patio and kiddo earning a spot on the baseball team; spare narration and energetic watercolors complement the book's warm, can-do spirit. (March) Underwood, Deborah. Ducks!; illus. by T. L. McBeth. Godwin/Holt. 3-6 yrs When a duck becomes separated from its ducky family, a heated search ensues involving playful visual red herrings and text restricted to a comically histrionic seesaw between "Ducks?" and "No ducks!" (February) Underwood, Deborah. Outside In; illus. by Cindy Derby. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 4-8 yrs The ever-versatile Underwood takes on a very different tone in this evocative, childfriendly contemplation of outside and inside, aided by Cindy Derby's stunning, luminous watercolors. (April) Weatherford, Carole Boston. Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom; illustrated by Michele Wood. Candlewick. Gr. 4-8 A compelling combination of poetry and paintings provides a unique retelling of the story of Henry "Box" Brown, tracking the specifics of Brown's tale of escape from bondage while examining the larger horrors and scars of slavery through visual motifs. (May) FICTION Anderson, Sophie. The Girl Who Speaks Bear. Scholastic. Gr. 4-7 This fantastical story is a loving tribute to Russian folklore as it follows a (mostly) human girl and the animals she encounters as she seeks the truth about her family. (February) Brown, Echo. Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable True Story of a Teenage Wizard. Ottaviano/Holt. Gr. 9-12 Told with brutal authenticity and tender compassion, this fantastical story dramatically shifts between the past and the present of young Echo as she negotiates her family's intergenerational trauma. (February) Chee, Traci. We Are Not Free; illus. by Julia Kuo. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt...

Focus IBBY

Focus IBBY Liz Page (bio) 2020 will be remembered as the year when our world turned upside down. Across the globe, friends and colleagues are working from home, practicing self-isolation, and learning how to use the latest technology as we try to keep in touch and fulfill our mission of bringing books and children together. It is a challenge! But one that IBBY members have risen to meet. Sadly, the 2020 Bologna Children’s Book Fair had to be canceled because of the corona-virus pandemic, so the biggest test for IBBY International this year was how to announce the winners of our 2020 awards: the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award, and the IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award. IBBY will make a digital announcement to present the awards on Monday, May 4, 2020. Because these have to be prerecorded, we will be able to share the announcements for months, if not years, to come. Digital meetings will be held, video conferences will be set up, and the Internet will be used in many different ways; we are experimenting and finding ways to stay in to contact. When this emergency is over, we will have much to do and we will need all of your support and dedication to give the children back this time when they have been without school, without their friends, and without easy access to reading and books. The Child’s Right to Become a Reader—The IBBY Yamada Program In 2005, IBBY launched a campaign to draw attention to the right of every child to become a reader. With the generous funding of the Yamada Bee Farm, the IBBY-Yamada Fund was established to provide funds for IBBY projects that help develop a book culture for children in all regions of the world. Each year, projects are developed by IBBY members and presented to the executive committee. The projects selected thus far have included reading promotion programs, establishing libraries in schools and community centers, training teachers and parents in maintaining libraries and storytelling, and workshops for writers, illustrators, and editors of children's books. For the 2020 projects, the sponsor, the Yamada Bee Farm, has generously increased the funding to US$7,500 for each project. We are very grateful to the sponsor for this amazing support that IBBY has received since 2006. Because of restrictions imposed by banks and the 2020 pandemic, some [End Page 86] of these projects will be postponed until 2021. Others are going ahead. The projects supported in 2020 and 2021 are as follows: Argentina: Workshop on the use of books in hospitals, including a writers’ workshop, the creation of a small library, and training in bibliotherapy. Armenia: Reading promotion activities and workshops in rural areas. Bolivia: The challenge of reading where there are no books: using books in schools and creating a library. Costa Rica: Los libros violetas: Promoting gender equity in thirty Costa Rican public schools through children’s literature. El Salvador: Reading Is Marvelous: the objective is to help children develop reading habits, to encourage them to develop as independent thinkers, and to support them in writing down their own experiences. Indonesia: Workshop on trauma healing for activists in community libraries in the Ring of Fire region. Lebanon: Promoting reading among children with special needs. Nepal: Developing wordless picturebooks for Nepalese children. Peru: Vengan los niños y niñas a pescar historias en el mar de Chorillos: a project aimed at preschool children from age three to five; children engage in workshops where they will “fish up” their experiences in the creation of stories. South Africa: Pan-African content creation workshop, with Book Dash, that will provide approximately thirty-five creators from across the African continent with the opportunity to collaborate on new African children’s books. Sri Lanka: Kathandara Kadalla—Story Nest: incorporates activities and training to revive the art of storytelling in preschools. We will be posting the reports from the projects on the IBBY website as they come in. The IBBY-Yamada program is one of the most exciting projects in IBBY’s vast array of activities. This grass-roots activity reaches many children and helps...

Visualizing the Voiceless and Seeing the Unspeakable: Understanding International Wordless Picturebooks about Refugees

This article investigates the formal and ethical implications of the wordless picturebook about refugees, a recent and international phenomenon. Picturebooks in this small and expanding sub-genre, we argue, are part of the “children’s literature of atrocity” (Baer 382) and use the quintessential features of the wordless form to empower or disempower, humanize or otherize, their child refugee subjects. Some of the examples we engage with problematically rely upon a clumsy refugee/non-refugee binary between safe white child and seemingly perpetually unsafe black “other,” whereas the remaining examples use the wordless form to create more collaborative, dialogical, and less binarized depictions of the relationship between the shores of Europe and the conceptualized Global South. To represent this “unspeakable” reality through wordless picturebooks emphasizes their potency at enabling readers to take risks in their navigation of meaning, transforming non-verbal affective response into speaking the unspeakable aloud

Narrative dialogic reading with wordless picture books: A cluster-randomized intervention study

Shared reading has the potential to promote a wide range of language skills that are important for reading acquisition. Dialogic reading interventions in preschool facilitate the acquisition of vocabulary and narrative production skills, but it is unclear (a) whether dialogic reading can also foster inferential and literal narrative comprehension and (b) whether intervention effects are maintained until the beginning of formal reading instruction. To close these two gaps, we designed and conducted a low-dose narrative dialogic reading intervention with wordless picture books. On the child care center level, 201 German preschoolers (Mage = 5;5 years) were randomly assigned to the dialogic reading group, an alternative treatment group, or a no treatment group. Hierarchical linear models showed positive effects of dialogic reading on inferential and literal narrative comprehension and on vocabulary depth and breadth. The effect on inferential narrative comprehension was maintained five months after posttest. Overall, our findings indicate that even a small amount of narrative dialogic reading has small, albeit mostly short-term effects on narrative comprehension and vocabulary skills. We conclude that narrative dialogic reading is a promising approach for supporting the development of preschoolers’ inferential skills. Long-term intervention studies are needed for the evaluation of long-term effects.

Using Wordless Picture Book as a Contributive Learning Media to Enhance the Student's Writing Ability

This research aims to know enhancement the Student's writing ability by using wordless picture book as a contributive learning media. The benefits of using wordless picture book show that the students enhance their writing ability and create their creative writing and thinking skill. The researcher applied quasi-experimental method, with two groups namely experimental and control class. The experimental class consists of 30 students and control clas consists of 30 students. The subjects of the research were 60 students from two classes taken from students of SMP Negeri 10 Parepare. The research instrument was writing test in which the comparison of pre-test and post-test decided the enhancement of the Student's writing ability. The results of the data analysis showed that the Student's writing ability getting significantly improvement. It was proved by the mean score of pre-test was 46.93 and the post-test was 80.00. It indicates that the use of wordless picture book can enhance the Student's writing ability at SMP Negeri 10 Parepare. Besides, after analyzing the data by using the t-test formula, the result of t-test value in post-test was 6.02 and t-table value was 1.671. It meant that the t-test value was higher than t-table value. It clarified H1 was accepted and H0 was rejected and the students who were taught by using wordless picture book were better than the students who were taught by using wordless picture book.

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.

Understanding EFL Learner Agency in Collaborative Activities : A Case Study in a Taiwanese English Course

Although language learner agency has recently gained attention in the field of applied linguistics, the concept of language learner agency remains predominantly theoretical based; empirical studies in EFL classroom settings centering on this topic are scarce. Furthermore, task-based teaching in language classrooms has gained popularity, yet studies on how tasks are implemented and in which students exert learner agency are understudied. Through audio recordings of group activities, class observations, and interviews with student focus groups, the purposes of this study were 1) to illustrate how a wordless picture book project was designed and implemented in a Taiwanese English course with 31 students, and 2) to explore how the college learners approached and what they did in the collaborative tasks. Situating this work within the conceptualizations of agency as action-oriented endeavors, it revealed that the students exerted learner agency by co-constructing and developing a deeper understanding towards the story content through peer discussions. They self-initiated actions by employing their own resources and self-monitored their Mandarin and English in order to achieve the task objectives. The study also confirmed the learner agency was shaped by the specific communities of practice they engaged in. Based on the results, pedagogical implications will be provided.

글 없는 그림책의 한국 번역판 변형 연구

글 있는 번역 그림책에 대한 분석 연구는 다수 있으나 글 없는 그림책의 번역 양상에 대한 연구는 없다. 이에 본 연구의 목적은 글 없는 그림책 30권의 영어판 원본과 한국 번역판을 비교하여, 주변 텍스트와 본 텍스트에 나타난 변형의 특성을 분석하는 것이다. 그 결과 한국 번역판 글 없는 그림책에는 주변 텍스트인 제목, 겉싸개 및 띠지, 표지, 표제지 및 약표제지, 기타 지면에 매우 많은 변형이 있었고, 판형 및 제본, 면지에도 몇 가지 변형이 본 텍스트의 글과 그림에도 일부 변형이 있었다. 본 연구는 글 없는 그림책의 한국 번역판에 나타난 변형 양상을 처음으로 분석하였고, 글 없는 그림책에 대한 번역도 세심하게 이루어져야 할 필요가 있음을 논의하였다는 데 의의가 있다.

Dismantling the "Visual Ease Assumption:" A Review of Visual Narrative Processing in Clinical Populations.

Visual narratives, such as wordless picture books and picture sequences like comics, have a long history in clinical testing, research, and intervention settings. The widespread "Visual Ease Assumption" rests on the premise that visual narratives, given their non-linguistic nature, may alleviate processing difficulties in populations that struggle with language. In this paper, I review the evidence for and against this Visual Ease Assumption in three clinical populations in which language deficits are common or diagnostic: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), specific language impairment (SLI; now known as Developmental Language Disorder, DLD), and aphasia. I first redefine the Visual Ease Assumption as two testable predictions: (a) that visual narrative processing should be unimpaired for clinical populations compared to neurotypical (NT) populations; and (b) that in clinical populations, visual narrative processing should be less impaired than linguistic narrative processing. Through a review of the limited evidence available to test these predictions in ASD, SLI, and aphasia, I show that the Visual Ease Assumption is largely unsupported in empirical studies. Furthermore, I outline three additional limitations of the Visual Ease Assumption regarding the complexity of narrative processing, visual narrative tasks, and cognitive deficits in different clinical populations. Therefore, visual narratives should not be assumed to be "easier" for clinical populations that struggle with language; instead, a more thorough consideration of the cognitive processes involved in visual narrative processing is needed.

Public libraries and visual narrative: inclusive readings and good practices

Public libraries are traditional safeguards of democracy, where books sustain the empowerment of communities. International scientific literature provides evidence for the fact that in suburban areas and border territories around the world these institutions qualify as open spaces, education laboratories, strong enough to counteract the area’s educational poverty and to favour an intercultural dialogue. This entry’s aim is to promote the role of public libraries in protecting the rights of everyone, especially children, to be an active part of a community, fostering a journey towards a proactive citizenship. The purpose is to locate tools and methodologies that qualify these spaces, strengthening their educational rather than their preservative dimension. In this regard significant educational experiences that give value to visual narrative will be presented. Specifically, this will feature wordless picture books as a starting point for intercultural encounters, defining the role of social educators better by building inclusive routes through these kinds of books.

The (ideal)ized reader and the creative processes of children’s books

Our focus is on picture books and wordless picture books, categories which incorporate concepts both from Literature and Text Genres, recognizing that pictures have an essential role in building meaning. How the children respond to a picture book is something appreciated by those artists who find readers who are willing to read the book disregarding external factors. We aim to indicate, through interviews, the artist’s conceptions concerning their idealized reader. The interviews demonstrate that the artists are not restrained by the “for children” label, and neither by the “childish” stigma, in the erroneous sense that the term may sound, that is to say, a simple or shallow book, fit to an unprepared reader or unfit to aesthetic experience.

Cross-cultural differences in children’s theory of mind in Iran and New Zealand: The role of caregiver mental state talk

We examined the effect of parent–child conversations about the mind on cross-cultural differences in theory-of-mind sequencing and performance. Mothers from Iran (n = 60) and New Zealand (n = 60) described a wordless picture book and completed the ‘describe your child task’, and the children completed the 5-step ToM task battery. New Zealand children conformed to the Anglo-Western sequence and scored higher on their total ToM. There were similarities between the two groups in the extent to which mothers referred to mental states and used mindminded attributes when describing their children. There was specificity however, in the relative use of different types of mental states and the referent of these mental states. Iranian mothers referred more to desires, and to others' mental states, whereas New Zealand mothers referred more to cognitions, and to child-directed mental states. Child-directed mental state talk (and not mindmindedness) explained cultural differences in total ToM performance, and children who passed knowledge access before diverse beliefs tasks had mothers who referred more to their own mental states.

Japanese children’s emotion talk: relations to cultural values and their prosocial and aggressive behaviors

Cultural values influence people’s views and behaviors and are reflected in their language. Interdependent cultures’ emphasis on group harmony and Japanese culture’s focus on social connection may shape how Japanese children interpret and describe emotions, which could contribute to how they interact with others. In this study, 63 Japanese 7-year-olds read a wordless picture book containing various emotional scenes to their parents. Children’s utterances were transcribed, and then emotion words were coded into categories. The parents rated their children’s prosocial and aggressive behaviors on a 24-item questionnaire. The results show that (1) the children talked more about negative emotions than positive emotions presented in the picture book, and (2) in positive emotional scenes, many children described the characters’ harmonious relationship status rather than the characters’ emotions, suggesting that their emotional perceptions may be shaped by interdependent and Japanese cultural values. Also, their emotion word usage predicted their prosocial and aggressive behaviors. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to cultural context and parental socialization.

I Walk With Vanessa: A Story About a Simple Act of Kindness by Kerascoët

Kerascoët. I Walk With Vanessa: A Story About a Simple Act of Kindness. Random House Children’s Books, 2018.
 This is a wordless picture book from French illustrators, Kerascoët. This husband and wife duo, Marie and Sébastien solely illustrate, without the use of text, the ability to combat bullying in modern society. They accomplish this difficult task by placing emphasis on the characters’ emotions through the use of distinct colour throughout the images, clearly depicting the story’s message. Because there are no words, this amazing resource provides students with the ability to interpret the book individually, creating unique perspectives such as an idea, "who else needs help other than Vanessa?"
 This book provides fresh insight into how society can unite together by creating a positive chain reaction when faced with bullying. Throughout the illustrations, this team accomplished this task extremely well, by providing the audience with diverse characters, creating a sense of belonging. This allows the reader to view the characters as if they were looking at their own reflection, seeing into their lives, therefore enabling them to relate to the book. With this, I truly believe that it is essential for children's books to act either as a window or a mirror for children. 
 Overall, I feel that this book is ideal for a target audience of pre-kindergarten to grade two. The drawings are simplistic, with few details, allowing children to predict the storyline easily, leaving a thorough investigation of the book. I cannot wait for students to "read" this book to me. 
 Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Terri Beach

Thematic Pop-Up Book as a Learning Media for Early Childhood Language Development

The challenge for early childhood educators to be able to provide a touch of education that is creative, innovative, smart, and fun to develop children's intelligence optimally. This study aims to develop Thematic Pop-Up Book products as learning media for the development of Early Childhood languages. The research subjects were 15 participants in class B6 of Khaira Ummah Islamic Kindergarten in the City. The research and development used data analysis using descriptive statistical analysis techniques. The results of the validity test and the practicality of the development of Pop-Up Book media at Khaira Ummah Islamic Kindergarten in Padang City were declared valid by media experts with an average score of 95%. Media Thematic Pop-Up Books, about Healthy and Unhealthy Foodstuffs were also declared valid by material experts with an average score of 95%. The results of the trial of thematic Pop-Up book products in Khaira Kindergarten Islamic Ummah were stated as a practical medium for children with a percentage increase in the test reaching 96%. Based on these results indicate that Pop-Up Book media products get a positive response from children and teachers. Media Pop-Up Book for further research can be used as a medium to improve children's cognitive, and interest in reading.
 Key Words: Thematic Pop-up Book, Early Childhood Education, Language Development
 References
 Arsyad, A. (2017). Media Pembelajaran. PT Raja Grafindo Pursada.
 Beceren, B. Ö. (2010). Determining multiple intelligences pre-school children (4-6 age) in learning process. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 2473–2480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.356
 Berman, R. A. (2018). Language Development and Literacy. Encyclopedia of Adolescence, (October), 2093–2103. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33228-4_19
 Chaparro-Moreno, L. J., Reali, F., & Maldonado-Carreño, C. (2017). Wordless picture books boost preschoolers’ language production during shared reading. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 40, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.03.001
 Dato, A., & Radmilovic, V. (2010). Interactive Book With Detachable, Pop-Up Device. Patent Application Publication, 1(19), 20–25. https://doi.org/US 2007/0293118A1
 Helmawati. (2015). Mengenal dan Memahami PAUD. Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya.
 Lin, R. (2012). Creative Thinking for Picture Book Creation. IERI Procedia, 2, 30–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ieri.2012.06.047
 Montag, J. L., Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2015). The Words Children Hear. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1489–1496. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615594361
 Nazaruddin, M. A., & Efendi, M. (2018). The Book of Pop Up Augmented Reality to Increase Focus and Object Recognition Capabilities for Children with Autism. Journal of ICSAR, 2(1), 9–14. https://doi.org/10.17977/um005v2i12018p009
 Obiweluozo, E. P., & Melefa, O. M. (2014). Strategies for Enhancing Language Development as a Necessary Foundation for Early Childhood Education. Journal of Education and Practice, 5(5), 147–155. Retrieved from www.iiste.org
 Ponitz, C. C., McClelland, M. M., Matthews, J. S., & Morrison, F. J. (2009). A Structured Observation of Behavioral Self-Regulation and Its Contribution to Kindergarten Outcomes. Developmental Psychology, 45(3), 605–619. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015365
 Putra, N. (2011). Research & Development. Jakarta: Raja Grafindo Persada.
 Rahmawati, D. I., & Rukiyati, R. (2018). Developing Pop-Up Book Learning Media to Improve Cognitive Ability of Children Aged 4-5 Years. Atlantis Press, 249(Secret), 60–69. https://doi.org/10.2991/secret-18.2018.10
 Ros, R., & Demiris, Y. (2012). Human Behavior Understanding, 7559, 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34014-7
 Safitri, D., & Hartati, T. A. W. (2016). Kelayakan Aspek Media dan Bahasa Dalam Pengembangan Buku Ajar dan Multimedia Interaktif Biologi Sel. Florea, 3(2), 9–14. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?
 Sahlan, Asmaun, Angga, & Prastyo, T. (2016). Desain Pembelajaran Berbasis Pendidi-kan Karaker. Yokyakarta: Ar-Ruzz Media.
 Sari, S. A. (2017). The Development of Pop-up Book on the Role of Buffer in the Living Body. European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research, 10(2), 213. https://doi.org/10.26417/ejser.v10i2.p213-221
 Sudjana, N., & Rivai, A. (2011). Media Pengajaran. Bandung: Sinar Baru Algensindo.
 Walter-Laager, C., Brandenberg, K., Tinguely, L., Schwarz, J., Pfiffner, M. R., & Moschner, B. (2017). Media-assisted language learning for young children: Effects of a word-learning app on the vocabulary acquisition of two-year-olds. British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(4), 1062–1072. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12472
 Wilcox, M.J., M., K.M, Bacon, C. K., & Thomas, S. (2001). Enhancing Children ’ s Language Development in Preschool Classrooms Using Literacy to Target Verbal Language Goals Enhancing Children ’ s Language Development in Preschool Classrooms Encouraging Complex Verbal Reasoning. Arizona. Retrieved from http://icrp.asu.edu
 Wiyani, & Ardy, N. (2016). Konsep Dasar PAUD. Yokyakarta: Gava Media.
 Yu, X. (2009). Levels of meaning and children: An exploratory study of picture books’ illustrations. Library and Information Science Research, 31(4), 240–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2009.07.003

Breaking Down Barriers with Wordless Picturebooks: “The Silent Books Exhibition, from the World to Lampedusa and Back”

In 2012 the Italian branch of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) established a library on Lampedusa Island, Italy for the use of local children but also for the many refugee children arriving there from Africa and the Middle East. The challenge was to find books to appeal to children of different ages and from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds – books that could provide some respite for children traumatised by displacement and conflict. Wordless picturebooks were identified as an ideal genre, given they can be enjoyed by children of all ages without the restriction of language barriers. The Lampedusa Library initiative led to the creation of a collection of wordless picturebooks, comprising more than a hundred titles, donated from over twenty countries. One set of this collection remains in Lampedusa while another has evolved into a travelling exhibition, the “Silent Books Project”. Since 2013 this exhibition has toured many countries with the aim of inviting readers from different cultural backgrounds both to engage with these picturebooks and reflect upon the reasons for the Silent Books Project’s existence in the first place. In this article I will first discuss the origins of the Silent Book project on Lampedusa Island and provide a brief overview of the IBBY organisation and its aims. Wordless picturebooks will then be situated within current academic research on picturebooks. Finally, a selection of titles chosen for the Silent Books project will be examined in more detail and some of the experiences involving the Silent Books Project’s visit to Ireland in spring 2017 will also be outlined. Highlighted in this article will be the silent power of pictures in such wordless narratives to aid child refugees in regaining some agency and to foster empathy in readers who have never been forced to leave their home.

Visualizing the Voiceless and Seeing the Unspeakable: Understanding International Wordless Picturebooks about Refugees

This article investigates the formal and ethical implications of the wordless picturebook about refugees, a recent and international phenomenon. Picturebooks in this small and expanding sub-genre, we argue, are part of the "children's literature of atrocity" (Baer 382) and use the quintessential features of the wordless form to empower or disempower, humanize or otherize, their child refugee subjects. Some of the examples we engage with problematically rely upon a clumsy refugee/non-refugee binary between safe white child and seemingly perpetually unsafe black "other," whereas the remaining examples use the wordless form to create more collaborative, dialogical, and less binarized depictions of the relationship between the shores of Europe and the conceptualized Global South. To represent this "unspeakable" reality through wordless picturebooks emphasizes their potency at enabling readers to take risks in their navigation of meaning, transforming non-verbal affective response into speaking the unspeakable aloud.

Lost and Found by JiWon Beck

Reviewed by: Lost and Found by JiWon Beck Natalie Berglind Beck, JiWon Lost and Found; written and illus. by JiWon Beck; tr. from the Korean. Peter Pauper, 2019 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4413-3186-1 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R 3-6 yrs In this wordless picture book, an Alaskan indigenous girl goes ice fishing and meets a polar bear, with whom she shares her fish and a blanket. The two become friends and traverse the snowy landscape together, huddling close during blizzards and generally snuggling until the girl and the bear return to their prospective families and part ways. Beck utilizes negative space in white bear and white snow to focus on the unlikely pair and create a sense of the icy atmosphere; a muted color palette in predominantly cool pastels conveys the frigid temperature and a sense of serenity. The girl's large, round face with rosy cheeks and small body are cute in proportion, and the polar bear with its textured fur really does look warm enough to cuddle—making the two a great fit for each other. While there's a touch of adorable exoticism to the portrayal, the details of the girl's life have enough contemporary realism to balance the fantasy. The improbable friendship forged through sharing one's limited resources is a classic plot, and it's still a sweet one. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Another by Christian Robinson

Reviewed by: Another by Christian Robinson Deborah Stevenson, Editor Robinson, Christian Another; written and illus. by Christian Robinson. Atheneum, 2019 [50p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-2167-7 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-2168-4 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad 4-6 yrs This wordless picture book follows the adventures of a little girl, who’s awakened from sleep when a portal opens up in her room and reveals a double of her cat, only with a blue collar rather than a red one. When the blue-collared cat grabs her cat’s red toy mouse and retreats into the glowing opening, a pursuit begins. The smiling girl and her cat slide upside down into chambers, scamper across airy, vertiginous stairs, and track through groups of kids at play. Eventually the girl meets up with her parallel world counterpart; they exchange a friendly moment, the red mouse gets tossed back to the correct owner, and back girl and cat go to their own world and bedroom. The logistics are sometimes unclear (where do the playing children come from?) and our girl is peculiarly blasé about her counterpart, but the air of gentle camaraderie adds to the dreamlike flavor of the escapade. The paint and collage art, digitally assembled for the crispest of outlines, contrasts the inky full-bleed bedroom with the airy alternate world, where a surreal adventure playground unfolds austerely against creamy white pages. Our protagonist, a brown-skinned explorer with a headful of bouncy beaded braids (which fetchingly fall up as she first pokes her head through the portal where up is down) is clearly a fan of other worlds (her nightie sports a red image of Saturn in complement to the mirror girl’s blue, and she’s looking into a telescope on the back cover) who’s made for exploring, and her cat’s silent but determined progress provides an entertaining visual thread. The youngest viewers may enjoy decoding the girl’s journey with some adult assistance, while more book-savvy kids will get a kick out of “reading” the story all on their own. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois