This edited volume offers fresh perspectives on linguistic and cultural diversity in multilingual picturebooks, examining their potential to support multilingual learning in different educational contexts. Drawing on international, transdisciplinary perspectives from over fifteen countries, the book provides a comprehensive view of this unique literary genre.
The collection showcases a wide range of languages featured in multilingual picturebooks, including Chinese, Farsi, Georgian, Irish, Korean, Malagasy, Mexican Indigenous languages, Mirandese, Northern Sámi, Portuguese, Spanish, Te Reo Māori, Ukrainian, and Welsh. Various chapters examine how multilingual picturebooks foster language and literacy development for emergent bilinguals in multilingual and multicultural environments, highlighting benefits such as linguistic and semiotic code-switching, as well as their ability to stimulate intercultural awareness in readers. The book also considers the creation, translation, and complex publishing processes of multilingual picturebooks, while exploring modern technologies such as eye tracking to analyse the reading processes of these books.
Reflecting current insights and innovations in picturebook research, this volume will appeal to scholars, academics, and researchers in language and literacy education, multilingual education, and early childhood education. Those involved in children’s literature studies, multimodality, and bilingualism more broadly will also find this collection valuable.
Introduction: Creative Readings of Multilingual Picturebooks Part I: Multilingual Picturebooks: Exploring a Multifaceted Literary Genre Chapter 1: Linguistic and Pictorial Worlds: On the Interplay between Text and Image in Multilingual Picturebooks Chapter 2: Resisting English as the Norm: Moving between Languages in Translingual Picturebooks Chapter 3: Boundaries, Activism, and Language Revitalisation: Bilingual Picturebooks in Wales and Aotearoa New Zealand Chapter 4: Frozen and Timeless: Nature, Identity, and Intercultural Encounters in the Dual Language Northern Sámi-Norwegian Picturebook Namalávlla/Navnesangen Chapter 5: Voices of Mexican Indigenous Languages in the Digital Multilingual Picturebook “68 voces, 68 corazones” Chapter 6: Multilingualism and the Semiotics of Comics in Comics and Picturebooks for Children: All Here! Part II: Pedagogical Affordances of Multilingual Picturebooks Chapter 7: The Creative Potential of Multilingual Picturebooks. Perspectives from Literary Studies and Foreign Language Teaching Research Chapter 8: Using Multilingual Books in Kindergarten Classrooms with the ELODIL Multilingual Picture Books Digital Platform: Outcomes and Critical Perspectives Chapter 9: Pedagogical Mediations of a Dual Language Northern Sámi-Norwegian Picturebook in English Language Education: An Indigenous, Environmental, and Translingual Perspective Chapter 10: Exploiting Bi/multilingual Picturebooks Through Translanguaging and Beyond: Making Meaning Chapter 11: Exploring the Educational Contribution of Two Bilingual Picturebooks from Madagascar Chapter 12: Language Order of Dual Language Picturebooks and Children’s Retelling Strategies Part III: Creating, Translating, and Publishing Multilingual Picturebooks Chapter 13: Portuguese Multilingual Picturebooks: An Overview of Contemporary Creative Trends Chapter 14: Multilingual Picturebooks and Involuntary Displacement: I Want to Speak Ukrainian Chapter 15: The Creative Journeys of Rosa Ibarra and Monica Brown: Writing and Illustrating Bilingual Spanish-English Picturebooks for Children as Community Engagement Chapter 16: Writing, Translating, and Publishing Bilingual Picturebooks: A Creative and Committed African Perspective Chapter 17: Coronavirus, Monsters, and Battles: A Multimodal Approach to Translation in Multilingual Picturebooks about COVID-19 Chapter 18: Exploring Translation in a Translingual Picturebook: Creative Poetics Afterword
Esa Christine Hartmann is Associate Professor of German Language and Literature, Comparative Literature, and Bilingual Education (French-German) at the University of Strasbourg, and Associate Researcher at the Institute of Texts and Manuscripts (ITEM) at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), France. Áine McGillicuddy is Assistant Professor in German and Children’s/Young Adult Literature Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland.
