Editorial

Roxanne Harde

Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, Volume 52, Number

4, 2014, pp. iv-vi (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2014.0129

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/557386

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]
Editorial
Bookbird Editor
Roxanne Harde is a Professor of English
and a McCalla University Professor at
the University of Alberta, Augustana
Faculty. She studies and teaches
American literature and culture. She has
recently published Walking the Line:
Country Music Lyricists and American
Culture (Lexington 2013), and her essays
have appeared in several journals,
including International Research in
Children’s Literature, The Lion and the
Unicorn, Christianity and Literature,
Legacy, Jeunesse, Critique, Feminist
Theology, and Mosaic, and several edited
collections, including Enterprising Youth
and To See the Wizard.
“About the cover: I thought of people that bring books and the
sharing of reading books in very far away, almost inaccessible places
in the Amazon. There, sometimes the water ways are the only way
to bring fiction for people who already have plenty of stories of their
own tradition, but desire and deserve so much to have books and
to read stories from abroad as well. I also decided to make a forest
basically with the roots and fruits of palm trees. One of these palm
trees is Paxiuba. Paxiuba is a moving plant. It grows as any plant
grows, but as she gets older her axial roots substitute the main root
that gets tied to ground not anymore, and so Paxiuba goes wherever
she thinks it’s better. I like Paxiuba for many reasons, because she
breaks with the concept of unchangeable perspective, immutable
background.”
Roger Mello
Dear Bookbird Readers,
T
his issue of Bookbird focuses in part on this year’s Hans
Christian Andersen Awards, which were announced by
IBBY at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in March and
given out at the awards banquet at the IBBY Congress in México
City in September. Roger Mello, the winner of the Illustrator
Award, provided the original artwork that graces the cover of the
issue (and the detail above). As Roger writes in the epigraph above,
the Paxiuba tree so prominent in his painting is a symbol of change,
as are the books being ferried by boats and insects to the depths
of the Amazon jungle. I am deeply grateful to have this gorgeous
painting on my last issue as editor of Bookbird.
© 2014 by Bookbird, Inc.
 editorIal

In addition to the wonderful cover provided by Roger Mello, this

issue has three fine articles on Mello’s illustrations. In the Hans Chris-
tian Andersen Award Winners section, Flávia Brocchetto Ramos and
Marília Forgearini Nunes focus on Mello’s Cavalhadas de Pirenópolis
to analyze narrative creation through the interaction of the verbal and
visual components of the picturebook and to comment on the ways that
Mello represents Brazilian culture. With a similar focus on the verbal
visual, Graça Lima and Claudia Mendes discuss Mello’s experiences
as a young boy in the Brazilian Cerrrado, linking them to the mixed
methods that Mello employs to tell his stories, right from the first tactile
experience the reader has with the material object of the picturebook.
Junko Yokota and Reina Nakano then provide an overview of the Japa-
nese fantasy worlds created by Nahoko Uehashi, winner of the Hans
Christian Andersen Author Award.
The section of peer-reviewed feature articles begins with María
Gracia Pardo’s “Mello and His Precursors: Invisible Threads.” Like
Lima and Mendes, Pardo examines a variety of Mello’s picturebooks,
arguing that Mello’s work, largely influenced by the time and place in
which he was born, both comments and criticizes the society in which
he lives, even as it creates a space for us to hear voices that are typically
silenced. In the second feature article, a team of researchers from the
University of Saskatchewan, led by Jean Emmerson, offers a qualita-
tive content analysis of Canadian and American picture books featuring
characters with disabilities. Then, Bahar Eshraq examines how words
specific to Persian culture are changed in translations of The Palm, a
novel by Hooshang Moradi Kermani. The theme of translating books
for children continues in the next article, in which Kasey Garrison and
Sue Kimmel analyze the characteristics of translations that have won
the Mildred L. Batchelder Award. Their study raises questions about the
availability and diversity of translated books for children in the United
States. Helma van Lierop-Debrauwer also offers a case study, focusing
on important Dutch authors of children’s books to trace the develop-
ment of the field in the Netherlands. In the final feature article, Cath-
erine Posey discusses rebellion and spirituality in two popular books for
adolescents, The Magician’s Elephant and The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
The next section features essays on the authors and illustrators who
made this year’s Hans Christian Andersen Award Shortlist. As the
scholars who contributed these pieces make clear, these ten artists and
writers matter a great deal to the world of children’s books, and the
overviews of their stellar careers and analyses of their work offer readers
new ways to understand and enjoy their many texts and illustrations.
Three Children & Their Books columns follow the essays on the
HCA shortlist. Terry Farish writes about storytelling to children across
the globe, Tülin Kozikoğlu discusses her work teaching creative writing
skills to children in Turkey, and Lydia Kokkola examines Finnish chil-
dren’s language and culture in Sweden. All three columns offer imagi-
native ways to engage children in the processes of reading, writing, and
understanding their world.
IBBY.ORG 52.4 – 2014 | v
editorial
The Letters columns come from the amazing
organizations that won this year’s IBBY Asahi
Reading Promotion Award. Established in 1986
and sponsored by the Asahi Shimbun news-
paper company, the award is given biennially to
two groups or institutions whose outstanding
activities make a lasting contribution to the
promotion of children’s reading. Carole Bloch
discusses the important and long standing work
done by PRAESA: the Project for the Study
of Alternative Education in South Africa, and
Kim Beatty details the history and operation
of the Children’s Book Bank in Toronto. Both
contributors have sent along wonderful photos
of their reading promotion activities in action.
Our columns in this issue also include an annual
update from the International Youth Library in
Munich by Claudia Söffner and Elizabeth Page’s
Focus IBBY, which provides a lively overview of
IBBY’s activities around the world. The issue also
includes a number of reviews of new scholarly
works on literature for children and young adults,
as well as several postcard reviews of new books
for young people.
As I mentioned, this is my last issue as editor
of Bookbird, and I must thank a number of people
and organizations, beginning with you, a reader
of this journal in which I have invested a good
deal of time and effort over the past years. The
many comments and compliments I have had
from Bookbird ’s readers have inspired and guided
me, and have made all the work more than
worthwhile. I believe in this journal; it isn’t like
any other in the field, and its tradition of offering
interesting, important, and imaginative material
to scholars, teachers, librarians, humanitarians,
parents, and everyone else with a vested interest
in books for children has always spoken to me,
as a scholar, former children’s librarian, parent,
and grandparent. I am deeply grateful to Valerie
Coghlan and the Bookbird Inc. Board for giving
me this opportunity and supporting my work
over these twelve issues. Ellis Vance has become
a treasured colleague and friend. Bill Benson has
designed the journal throughout my tenure, and
he has brought a wealth of talent and patience
to our collaboration; I owe him a good deal for
the beauty of this and all my issues, as I do to
vi | bookbird
the many contributors of articles and columns,
and the members of the Editorial Review Board.
Lydia Kokkola began this journey with me, and
though she couldn’t finish it, she has been unbe-
lievable helpful during my tenure. The dozens
of academics who have reviewed articles in the
blind peer review process must stay unnamed,
but I hope they know how much I appreciate
their work. They have helped me ensure the
highest quality of scholarship in the articles I
have brought to you.
I want also to thank the Executive Committee
of IBBY—Redza Khairuddin, Hasmig
Chahinian, Linda Pavonetti, Marilar Aleix-
andre, Gülçin Alpöge, Nadia El Kholy, Azucena
Galindo, Angela Lebedeva, Kiyoko Matsuoka,
Akoss Ofori-Mensah, Timotea Vrablova, María
Jesús Gil, and Jehan Helou—and its Secretariat,
Liz Page and Luzmaria Stauffenegger-Lobato.
This diverse group of people has taught me a great
deal about international children’s literature,
and I have been inspired by their commitment
to children’s reading. They are all exceptionally
talented and busy people who take time from
their daily activities to better the lives of children
around the globe.
The University of Alberta has supported
my work as editor, covering my administrative
costs, paying for graduate student assistance, and
making clear that this work is valued within the
academy as well as without. Dr. Allen Berger and
Dr. Kim Misfeldt, my dean and chair respec-
tively, have offered continued support for my
Bookbird duties and have not minded the time
away my commitment to the Bookbird, Inc.
Board and IBBY has required. I’m grateful also
to the students who have worked on Bookbird
with me—Samantha Christensen, Erin Peters,
Andrea Zerebeski, Tia Lalani, Taylor Kraayen-
brink, Ben Smith, Yulun Wu, and Fei Li: their
talent, enthusiasm, and efforts have made my
work stronger and more joyous. Thank you all,
and thanks to the incoming editor, Dr. Björn
Sundmark, who has collaborated with me to
make the editorial transition seamless. I know
you’ll enjoy the products of his editorship just as
much as you’ll enjoy this issue.
Roxanne Harde
IBBY.ORG