Parallel Sessions

Friday 24th August: 11am-12.30pm


Session 1: Translation

Nadia El Kholy (Professor of English, Cairo University & Director of National Children's Council, Egypt)
Translation of Children's Stories in Arabic: Challenges and Solutions
Challenges face translators of children’s stories into Arabic. The translator is not only a language mediator but is more significantly a cultural messenger. Possible solutions are offered to certain problems that translators encounter.

Judith Inggs (Associate professor, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa)
Transcending Borders: South African Youth Fiction in Europe
An examination of selected works of South African literature for young people in English and their translations into French and German with a focus on the way in which such works cross borders. How do translators succeed in moving narratives and characters from a specifically South African space into a new, very different European space?


Regina Pantos (Translator and former President of IBBY Germany, Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur e.V.)
Translation is No Child's Play
Translating literature for young readers requires special abilities and deserves high recognition. Translators from more than 10 countries meet each year in Hamburg, Germany, to discuss aspects of their work, to learn from their fellow professionals and other specialists. Presented by the workshop’s director.
 

Session 2: Translation

Atsuko Hayakawa (Professor, Tsuda College, Japan)
‘Here nor There’: Narrative of Children’s Books and Translation Theory Today 
View Transcript (PDF)
Children’s sense of identity in a time of globalisation has become diverse and hybrid. Some literature of “childhood memory” illuminates how “self-translation as re-narration,” (in the context of translation theory) helps those children with sense of psychological diasporic experience to relate their self to the Other, and eventually to the world.


Claudia Soeffner (International Youth Library, Munich, Germany)
The (Im)Possibility of Translating Children’s Poetry
The ‘Arche Kinder Kalender’, first published by the International Youth Library in 2011, features 53 poems from different countries both in German translation and in their original language. This presentation will introduce this children’s poetry calendar and address some of the difficulties, challenges and delights in selecting and translating poems from various countries for a new audience.

Vassiliki Nika (Educator and Translator, Greece
)
The translator as co-creator. The literature “ping-pong” between two authors and the translator's contribution to their work while it is coming into being 
View Transcript (PDF)
The translator usually takes action after the completion of a work without having the possibility to influence the original text. This paper describes the experience of a translator’s creative involvement in a work while it is “coming into being” by two authors who live in different countries, do not know each other and there is no kind of language code to be shared by them.

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Session 3: Translation

Marina Debattista (Editor and freelance author and illustrator, Romania)
Translating The Hunting of the Snark into Romanian
View Transcript (PDF)
There is a type of ‘translation’ which operates with images instead of words and creates a unique link between two historic moments. The challenges and restrictions of translating Carrolllian nonsense in both words and images are examined, through a consideration of the first translation into Romanian of The Hunting of the Snark.


Olga Bukhina (Translator, American Council of Learned Societies, U.S.A./Russia)

From Narnia to Russia: A History of Translation 
View Transcript (PDF)
The Chronicles of Narnia had a new life in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. The challenges of translation and the role of Natalia Trauberg in that process are considered, as are the difficulties of rendering both the fairy tale and realistic components of these books for a reader with a very different experience.


Mara Jardim (Professor, Faculdade Porto-Alegrense – FAPA, Brazil
)
Alice in Wonderland for Brazilian readers: translation and reception
View Transcript (PDF)
Problems are faced by translators of Carroll’s masterpiece, since there are parodies, puns, sayings and cultural references that are not recognised by Brazilian children. Two versions of Alice in Wonderland, translated by Brazilian writers, Fernanda Lopes de Almeida and Ana Maria Machado are analysed, pointing out the different solutions found by each of them.



Session 4: Crossing Borders & Boundaries

Donna Adomat (Assistant Professor, Indiana University, U.S.A)
Cultural Identity, Immigration and Visual Representations in Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
A report of a semester-long study by graduate students of the ways in which cultural identities are established, confirmed, or contested in contemporary novels; and how books can provide a context for understanding historical and political debates about immigration.

Rebecca Butler (Doctoral student, Roehampton University, U.K.
)
But you can't walk - how can you travel? Two migrations in books for young readers
View Transcript (PDF)
Some fictional characters make the migration to disability. This paper will consider two books in which characters make this journey, Hilary McKay’s Saffy’s Angel and Lois Keith’s A Different Life. What young readers can learn from the fictional journeys of such characters will be considered.

Barbara Lehman (Professor, Ohio State University, U.S.A.)
Global Literature & Migration: Investigating Borders between Cultures
View Transcript (PDF)
As global migration increasingly connects children from different areas of the world, literature may play an important role in providing young readers with inside perspectives of how immigrants navigate their cultural borderlands. Several recent novels from different countries, such as Annika Thor’s A Faraway Island, will be used to explore characters’ feelings of identity loss and being between cultures.
 

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Session 5: Global Social Networks 

Martha Baker (Librarian and Translator, Salem International College, Germany)
Promoting children's and youth literature in international school libraries throughout the world
Sharing book titles and booklists among an extensive world-wide network of school librarians is made possible through internet-based discussion forums and non-commercial Web2.0 software, such as "LibraryThing.com". This enables innovative and globally oriented libraries to support education, foster cultural identity and encourage recreational reading habits in international schools serving migrant communities.

Helen Boelens & Henk Van Dam (European Network for School Libraries and Information Literacy, Netherlands)
School libraries across cultures
Migration and globalisation have caused many schools to become multicultural institutions, where children who speak many different languages receive their education under one roof. Attempts are being made by the ENSIL Foundation, the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam and the International School of Amsterdam to explore how school libraries can meet the challenges and opportunities of this situation.

Carolyn Brodie 
(Kent State University, U.S.A.)
Connecting to the World's Special Collections of Children's Literature
An opportunity to observe the globalisation of children’s literature is provided in this description of
 the work of two researchers who plan to provide a centralised, easily accessible web resource to the electronic and on-site materials available in the special children’s literature collections around the world.
 

Session 6: Adaptation & Transition of Folk & Fairy Tales

Sioned Davies (Lecturer and Head of School of Welsh, Cardiff University, Wales)
'Curious old products of Welsh fancy': early adaptations of The Mabinogion
A focus on two adaptations (1881 and 1927) of Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation of The Mabinogion, analysing how the text is re-worked to satisfy the perceived requirements of a young, English-speaking (male) audience. A comparison with contemporaneous Welsh-language Mabinogion texts for children will highlight ideological differences between the source and target cultures.

Sabine Fuchs (Lecturer, Karl Franzens University, Graz, Austria
)
Retelling the Nibelungenlied to American children

In 2010 Groundwood Books (Canada) published a new free-verse retelling of the Nibelungenlied from an Argentinian author, illustrated by an Italian illustrator. It is based on Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle and focuses on one female character, Brunhilda. Through the medium of this book, the process of transcultural interpretation of ancient myths is examined.

Marita de Sterck (Author and teacher, School for Librarians, Ghent, Belgium)
Kinky Spiders on the web, the adaptation of trickster folktales in the age of globalisation
View Transcript (PDF)
While recording folktales in a maroon village in Surinam, the author came across some striking stories about the spider Anansi, a popular trickster whose tales have travelled around the world, even on the internet. She introduced a variety of versions of Anansi stories - oral, written, staged, and filmed – to classrooms, discussing the process of adaptation and domestication of Anansi with youngsters.
 

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Session 7: National Identity & Diaspora (History & Representation)

Patricia Kennon (Lecturer, Froebel College of Education, Blackrock, Ireland
)
The American Girl Franchise: Historical Fiction and Imagining the American Past
The representation and mediation of national identity in the historical novels of The American Girl multimedia franchise is explored. By constantly invoking notions of a collective history and culture, the company constructs a shared sense of an ‘American’ identity while also attempting to show diversity in American history and identity by introducing girls of colour into their historical collection.

Chris Crowe (Professor, Brigham Young University, U.S.A.)

Through a Glass, Lightly: Translating History for Young Readers
View Transcript (PDF)
How is history for young readers mediated? Serious students of history know that even careful historical accounts are only interpretations of actual events from the past. An examination of how children's authors translate history for their intended audience and how that translation influences the historical record as well as young readers' perceptions of history.

Mari Jose Olaziregi (Associate Professor and Director for the Promotion of the Basque Language, University of the Basque Country, Spain)
The Representation of the American Diaspora in Basque Literature for Children
An analysis of the representations of America in literature for children written in the Basque language. This representation was essentially negative before the 1960s: protective of a particular Basque national identity which America was perceived to threaten. More recent work has explored the possibilities of new transnational and hybrid identities. How children's authors translate history for their intended audience and how that translation influences the historical record as well as young readers' perceptions of history will be examined.
 

Session 8: Picture Books about Migration - Crossing Borders and Boundaries

Kimberly Black (Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee, U.S.A.)
The Wall/Die Mauer: Intercultural Meditations on Depictions of the Berlin Wall in selected US & German Children's Picture Books & Graphic Narratives
An exploration of the creation and fall of the Berlin Wall as expressed in recent illustrated children’s books published in the U.S.A. and Germany. The Berlin Wall historically functioned to maintain national identities as well as controlling migration between East and West. The Berlin Wall is still a significant symbol today.

Lesley Clement (
Lecturer, Lakeheadu University, Canada)Crossing the Boundary to the Great Unknown: Empathy & Death in Contemporary Picturebooks
A new aesthetic in children’s literature has emerged through the strategies within the visual and verbal narratives of Jutta Bauer, Roberto Innocenti, Wolf Erlbruch and Max Velthuijs. These strategies foster the dismantlement of a sense of self that inhibits empathy, enabling their characters to confront death; and providing them with escape from the ‘bounded self’ and discovering their fellowship as ‘relational beings.’ 


This paper has been published in Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, volume 51, number 4, pages 1-10, under the title "Death and the Empathic Embrace in Four Contemporary Picture Books".
 

Tomoko Masaki (Director, The Research Centre for Picture Books, Osaka, Japan)
Liminality, Passage from one status to another: Crossing the bridge over the deep mountain river in 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'
View Transcript (PDF)
Children often confront trials in their life. These trials seem like crossing a bridge over a deep river: the migration from a familiar shore to an unfamiliar shore. This can cause so much fear that they may hesitate to even approach the bridge. But once they succeed in crossing, they will find a new place in life.
 

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Session 9: Globalisation/National Identity 

Roxanne Harde (
Associate Professor of English, University of Alberta, Canada)
‘To pay attention to it': Migration, Attentiveness, and Ecocriticism in American Children's Literature
View Transcript (PDF)
Ecocritical impulses in three twentieth-century American children’s novels are examined: Michael Chabon’s Summerland, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and Pittacus Lore’s I Am Number Four. These novels pay close attention to the natural world and offer narratives of migrations that ensure the survival of human and non-human nature. Drawing on various theorists, it is argued that the theme of migration is particularly relevant in ecocritical studies of fiction for children and young adults.

Meghan Sayres (Author, U.S.A.)
Why I chose to write about an Iranian heroine: highlights of an author's school visits in the Middle East, Central Asia, & Iran's 1st International Children's Books Festival
View Transcript (PDF)
The author describes her motivation in writing Anahita’s Woven Riddle. It also features a personal glimpse of the author’s experiences in the Middle East, as well as “show and tell” of handmade material culture and illustrated samples of literature for young people by Turkish and Iranian writers, artists and weavers.



Sandra Williams (Senior lecturer in English, University of Brighton, U.K.)
Frogs, Fireflies and Geckoes: how talking animals help establish a distinct national identity in emergent children's literature
While there are many well-known animal characters in English children’s literature such as Black Beauty, Badger and Peter Rabbit, there are other significant animals who appear in emergent children’s literature across the world. A number of these will be identified and analysed, focusing on how they serve to construct a distinct local identity for the child reader.


This paper is to be published in The New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship.
 

Session 10: Reading Programmes

Silva Kos & Božena Kolman Finžgar (Anton Tomaž Linhart Library, Slovenia)
Crossing Borders: Readers with Special Needs in Foster Families & Schools Specialised for Children with Specific Learning Difficulties & Disabilities
View Transcript (PDF)
Two projects were undertaken by the Anton Tomaž Linhart Library, concerning readers with special needs: One is a partnership between the public library and a school for children with learning difficulties. Another is a partnership between the public library and social services aimed at foster children and their families. Their common aim is to make reading a habit and a pleasure for people of all ages and abilities.


Victoria Ryle (Australia) & Orla Kenny (Ireland)
Kids' Own Publishing
Kids' Own Publishing Partnership (Ireland) and Kids' Own Publishing (Australia) are sister visionary arts organisations that empower children, families and communities to tell and share their stories through cross-sector partnerships, artist-led creative processes and published outcomes.  In both Ireland and Australia, this unique brand of children’s community publishing is empowering communities to have a voice linguistically and culturally. Kids’ Own are the leaders in this new sector of publishing that empower children to create their own unique books and resources – often in minority or community languages – giving them a voice that too often is unheard within society.

Larka Tetens (Retired educator, now a therapist in private practice, Tetens Counselling Center, U.S.A.)
Developing a Culture of Literacy in a Village with No Books

Deep in the jungle of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, there is a Mayan village and a school with no books. Students in this elementary school have overcome the barriers of poverty, illiteracy among their parents, and learning a new language in first grade to outperform their more affluent peers across the state of Quintana Roo - and they did it without books!

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Friday 24th August: 4pm-5.30pm


Session 11: Translation

Olga Maeots (Translator/librarian, M.I.Rudomino Library for Foreign Literature, Moscow, Russia)
Translator at a crossroad of globalisation - pro and contra
The paper is devoted to the role of the translator in promoting cultural variety and opposing globalisation in publishing. It is based on the author's personal experience as a translator and children's librarian who has carried out many international reading projects. It also suggests strategies to support the work of translators and publishers of translated books.

Annette Goldsmith (Adjunct Instructor, University of Maryland College of Information Studies, U.S.A.)
Found in Translation: A Mixed Methods Study of Decision Making by US Editors Who Acquire Children's Books for Translation
Children in the U.S.A. would benefit from reading culturally conscious translations from abroad, yet relatively few are published. This mixed methods sense-making study investigates U.S. editors’ decision making in selecting children’s books to be translated into English for the U.S. market. The barriers that editors encounter, the resources available to them, and their perceptions about the value of publishing translations are explored.

Kasey Garrison (Doctoral student and graduate research assistant, Old Dominion University, U.S.A.)
Travelling from Language to Language: Culture Translated for Youth
View Transcript (PDF)
Mildred L. Batchelder Award-winning books are English translations of quality novels originally published outside the United States. Drawing on critical perspectives from the fields of children’s literature and multiculturalism, this paper seeks to analyse how culture is depicted in these translated texts in an effort to promote inquiry into issues of equity, power and social justice with young readers.


Session 12: Translation & Adaptation

David García Pérez (Professor, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)
Translation & Adaptation of the Ancient Greek & Latin Literature for Children
Using The Odyssey as an example, this paper discusses the problem of the translation of the Greek and Latin classical texts into modern languages, with particular reference to its reception by child readers. It examines the philological and cultural aspects of translation and offers methodological guidelines for the translation and adaptation of classical stories for children. 

Deepa Agarwal (Author, India)
Hallowed Texts – Irreverent Readers
Translating classics for young readers poses a special challenge. Deepa Agarwal describes her search for a modern idiom to express the original spirit of the Chandrakanta by Devakinandan Khatri, a bestselling nineteenth century Hindi fantasy novel.

Naomi De-Malach (Teacher, Oranim Teachers College, Israel
)
Translating Classical Juvenile Hebrew Books into Modern Hebrew
View Transcript (PDF)
The Hebrew language is constantly undergoing change in its vocabulary, morphology and syntax. This creates the need for translations of classical juvenile literature to be sensitive to current Hebrew usage. This paper discusses the changes made in a new edition of Habechor Leveit Avi (2008) and the public debate they aroused.

 

 
Session 13: National Identity and Intercultural Understanding

Seemi Aziz (Assistant Professor, Oklahoma State University, U.S.A.)
The Muslim Migrant
View Transcript (PDF)
The manner in which contemporary children’s books represent migrant Muslims and their varied circumstances is explored. The set of texts analysed encompasses picturebooks and novels that frame the various issues encompassing Muslim immigration. 

Andrej Jalen (Librarian and Sinologist, Slovenia)
Introducing Chinese culture to Slovenian children through creative workshops & translated Chinese children's literature
View Transcript (PDF)
The purpose of this paper is to present an effective method of introducing Chinese culture to Slovenian children through creative workshops and translated Chinese children's literature. It describes a project which was a partnership between the public library, kindergartens and primary schools (including those for children with special needs), whose aim was to make children perceive cultural diversity as enrichment rather than threat. 

Anna Wegener (Ph.D. Student, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Penfriends with Bibi - Italian & German children writing to the heroine of Karin Michaëlis' Bibi books
The paper analyses a number of letters written in the 1930s by Italian and German children to Bibi, the eponymous heroine of a series of children’s books by Danish author Karin Michaëlis. It explores how the children express multiple divergent identities in their letters to Bibi, from a “personal identity” to a “national identity”.



Session 14: Picture Books about Migration & Diaspora in the Classroom

Anne Dolan (Lecturer, Mary Immaculate College, Ireland)
The potential use of picture story books for exploring the theme of migration in primary geography
View Transcript (PDF)
This paper aims to highlight the potential of picture books in geographical education using the theme of migration. Sourcing a list of picture story books which are suitable for teaching the theme of migration in primary classrooms, the author analyses a range of illustrations and text and critiques the concepts they present as primary or secondary themes.

Julie McAdam (Lecturer, University of Glasgow, Scotland
)
Translating the Migrant Experience into Words & Pictures: How it can work in an inclusive classroom

An approach to reading and responding to books about the migrant experience is described. Visual strategies helped primary school “home” pupils translate and understand this experience and provided a space for migrant children to translate their culture and experiences into pictures and words. A set of shared practices and outcomes emerged that were inclusive and provided a deeper enjoyment of reading.


Kiera Vaclavik (Senior Lecturer in French & Comparative Literature, School of Languages, Linguistics & Film, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK.)
The Whole World in his Hands: Globalisation and Contemporary Picturebooks
Picturebooks are often much more successful than other contemporary cultural products for children in conveying the complexities of globalisation. Focusing on Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar’s World Tour (2005) and Marc Boutavant’s Le tour du monde de Mouk (2007), it is argued that child readers should be encouraged to view these texts critically and to be wary of assuming that they straightforwardly represent what the world is ‘really like’. 
 


Session 15: Diaspora

Sachie Asaka (Associate Professor, Nanzan University, Japan)
The Japanese Diaspora in Literature: How migration results in encounters with different cultures, but also prompts reflection on one's own identity
View Transcript (PDF)
The Japanese Diaspora created 2,600,000 overseas Nikkei: Japanese living abroad with permanent residency and children with non-Japanese citizenship. This is an analysis of three stories describing their encounter with different cultures and the impact on their sense of identity. It draws comparisons with waka poems which constitute a continuation of Japanese identity and solidarity, including those among the Diaspora.

Panna Kantilal (Librarian, National Library Board, Singapore)
Themes & issues reflected in picture books on the Chinese diaspora in the United States
View Transcript (PDF)
An examination of picture books published in the United States between 2000 and 2011 on the Chinese diaspora in the U.S.A. The books deal with themes, like inter-generational relationships, cross-cultural misunderstandings, and the emergence of cultural hybridity, that illustrate the challenges and opportunities of making a new life in a new land.

This paper has been published in the Journal of Reading and Literacy, volume 4, 2012, page 80, under the title "Reflections of the Chinese Diaspora in US Picture Books".

Yoo Kyung Sung (Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico, U.S.A./South Korea)
Exploring Diversity & Complexity of the US Korean diaspora through Picture Books
Findings from an in-depth qualitative content analysis of the depictions of the U.S. Korean diaspora in 25 contemporary realistic fiction picture books are discussed. Two different themes that emerge from these books are examined. Firstly, depictions of the immigrant Korean diasporic experience are revealed as concerned with the construction of cultural identities. Secondly, the depiction of the experience of the non-immigrant Korean diaspora highlights the universal experience of childhood.




Session 16: Reading Programmes

Anne Sarrag (Director, Summer Reading Challenge, The Reading Agency, U.K.)
Inspiring Reading: the Summer National Reading Challenge
The Reading Agency promotes reading through public and private partnerships in a variety of projects in public libraries in the U.K. The Summer Reading Challenge, a holiday reading scheme which has been running for more than ten years in the U.K. is described and evaluated.

Fieke Van der Gucht & Peter van Duijvenboden (Stichting Lezen Vlaanderen (The Flemish Reading Foundation) Belgium)
I bet you can read: reader-centred programmes based on the concept of a reading challenge in the UK, Belgium (Flanders) & The Netherlands
How the concept of the Reading Challenge, first introduced in the U.K. as a means of promoting reading for pleasure, was ‘translated’ into new reading programmes in Flanders (after 2009) and Belgium (after 2011).

Patrick Ryan (Storyteller & Research Fellow at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, University of Glamorgan, Wales)
Kick into Reading project
Training and encouraging professional football players and coaches to tell and read aloud stories to children and teens, to keep blogs on their reading habits, and to give talks at school assemblies, library awards programmes, and similar gatherings turned thousands of children and young people on to reading, writing and telling. The involvement of players from all over Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, playing professionally for UK Sports Clubs encouraged children with English as an additional language to persevere and enjoy reading in English, and celebrated and encouraged pride in literature in the children's home language.

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Session 17: Digital Technologies

Carmen Martinez-Roldan (Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A.)
Immigrant Latino Children's Responses to the Storyline in Literature & Online Games
An inquiry conducted with second-grade bilingual students in a public school in the U.S.A. where culturally relevant Latino literature, online games and digital resources were used to support Latino students’ language and literacy learning. The presentation focuses on how students responded to the storyline in both literature and online games and the aesthetic experience each kind of text enabled.

William Teale (Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago, U.S.A.) & Junko Yokota (Professor and Director U.S.A./Japan, National Louis University, Center for Teaching through Children’s Books, Chicago, U.S.A.)
eBooks, Apps, Audio Books, and Other Things Digital: How are books changing and what is the impact?
Digital literature resources have found their way into homes, libraries, and classrooms around the world. This paper addresses how, as literacy professionals, we can address the issues of best uses of these new resources, what their impact on readers is, and criteria for evaluating and selecting them for library, classroom or home settings.


Naama Benziman (Illustrator, Holon Institute of Technology, Israel)
Illustration as a means of translation and migration
View Transcript (PDF)
Illustration is a mode of mediation between the written text and the young child. While enabling a translation of the text into another medium, it also operates independently, sometimes contradicting the meaning of the original text. An additional layer of textual migration is reached when picture books are presented in digital format, as the author found when presenting them to her students.




Session 18: Diaspora

Blanka Grzegorczyk R. (Doctoral Student, University of Wroclaw, Poland
)
(Un)Safe Spaces: Place and Displacement in Beverley Naidoo's and Benjamin Zephaniah's Refugee Novels
Naidoo’s and Zephaniah’s refugee novels are examined as modern examples of postcolonial fiction. The Other Side of Truth, Web of Lies and Refugee Boy combine cultural geography with ethnic identity and with a political critique of certain aspects of British culture to show the psychological effects produced on the displaced children by physical environments.

Evelyn Arizpe (Lecturer, University of Glasgow, Scotland)
Resilient Refugees & Empowered Readers: 'Boy Overboard' & 'Girl Underground' by Morris Gleitzman
These two books by Morris Gleitzman invite the implied reader to empathise with their protagonists. The gaps created by the text encourage a more independent subject position, increasing awareness and agency which, as children’s responses to the books show, can empower real readers.

Maria da Conceição Tomé (Teacher and Librarian, Ph.D. Student, Universidade Aberta / CEMRI (Center for Migration and Intercultural Relations Studies), Portugal)
Literature With(out) Boundaries? Immigrants and immigration in Portuguese children's literature
View Transcript (PDF)
This paper reflects on the existence and relevance of the theme of immigration in contemporary Portuguese children’s literature and analyses the representations of immigrants and their cultures in those literary productions. It questions the way those portrayals may contribute to children’s global citizenship, to cultural exchanges and to a world without boundaries.


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Saturday 25th August: 11am-12.30pm


Session 19: Translating Visuals 

Agnes Blümer (Research Assistant, Goethe University, Germany
)
Typography in translation: Visual elements and their translation for children
View Transcript (PDF)
In translations of children’s literature, typographical changes have often been made without any awareness of the expressive and emotional effects of the typographical aspects of a book. How translators with typographical literacy can act as effective mediators is explored.

Xosé Tomás Diaz (Illustrator and Teacher, GALIX (Galician language section of OEPLI) Spain)
Translating illustration: Galician literature through images
Translating books for children must also imply translation of illustrations, as the relation between text and images is itself a translation process. Consequently, in the translation of the literature written in a minority language such as Galician, the correct transfer both in text and image is crucial, so that the cultural and philosophic import of the original may travel abroad unspoilt.

Sahar Tarhandeh (Graphic Designer, Critic and Lecturer, Children’s Book Illustration, Children’s Book Council of Iran)
Is it Possible to Have a Global Illustration?
Using Anthony Browne’s picture books, this paper examines whether children from different cultural backgrounds can engage fully with and understand images that have cultural codes. Browne’s books, some of which have been translated into Persian, have several layers to discover and many cultural codes. Studying the way that Iranian children understand and respond to them is the main theme of this research.




Session 20: Translation

Ligedeng Orlet (Author, Flourishing Literature Magazine, Inner Mongolia, China)
The Language barrier is very high
Mongolian literature, including children's books, suffers from a lack of translations in and from major languages such as English and Spanish, which means that the world knows very little of Mongolian literature and culture and Mongolia misses out on literature from the rest of the world. This paper describes Mongolian literature and the attempts to make it more widely known.

Tilka Jamnik (Retired Librarian, Slovenia
)
The best Slovene Children's Literature in the last 20 years - in the period of the Slovenian section of IBBY
View Transcript (PDF)
One of the tasks of the Slovenian Section of IBBY is to promote Slovene children’s literature of high quality internationally. In the last 20 years (1992-2012) it has regularly nominated Slovenian authors, illustrators and translators of children’s literature as candidates for the IBBY Awards. But only a few of the best Slovenian children´s books have been translated into foreign languages.


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Session 21: Film & Theatre Adaptations

Luciano Camio (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo / Colegio Bilingüe Mark Twain, Argentina) & 
Sandie Mourão (Teacher, Freelance / University of Aveiro, Portugal)
The Lost Thing: response to the book and the film in an English Language classroom
This presentation shares findings from a small research project investigating how English language learners (12 - 16 years old) in Argentina and Portugal interpreted the picturebook The Lost Thing (Tan) and the film The Lost Thing (Ruhemann & Tan). It analyses how these interpretations developed through an increased understanding of multimodality and cinematographic techniques and considers implications for classroom practice.

Jenni Woodroffe (IBBY Australia)
From Page to Stage: Shaun Tan's 'The Red Tree' as interpreted by a West Australian theatre company
This paper addresses some of the issues and challenges encountered in translating The Red Tree into a stage production suitable for children. The Barking Gecko Theatre Company has been working with young people from 4-18 years in workshops and productions for the past 20 years. It adapted The Red Tree into a non-narrative 50 minute journey accompanied by a live soundscape produced by a 3 piece band.

Carmen Hidalgo (Professor, University of Granada, Spain)
Children’s stories and their film adaptations. A Spanish production: “Donkey xote”
View Transcript (PDF)
Focussing on Donkey xote, an animated feature length version of Don Quijote de la Mancha, this paper examines how a classic literary text can be presented in audiovisual form to a modern child audience while conveying the spirit of the original.

 


Session 22: Picture Books about Migration

Janet Evans (Senior Lecturer in Education, Liverpool Hope University, U.K.
)
There are those who chase their dreams and those who are chased: Exploring issues of migration in picturebooks
Many people, for various reasons, leave the land of their birth to live in another place and yet it is not always easy for them to see the new place as home. This presentation explores issues relating to migration in picturebooks with particular reference to the way in which readers are able to respond to and begin to understand the issues associated with migration
.

Janelle Mathis (Professor, University of North Texas, U.S.A.)
Forced Journeys: A Conceptual Framework to Contemplate Migration
Migration in picture books is explored here within the context of forced journeys, mental and physical, on which characters embark, not by choice, but as a result of life circumstances, nature, or the use of power. Such a positioning of migration has the potential to offer critical insights into its complexity and disrupt stereotypes about the migrant.

María Natalia Marin Suarez (M.Phil. Student, University of Cambridge, U.K./Colombia
)
I am not from here: a critical study of the utopian possibilities offered to migrants in 'Eloisa y los bichos' and 'The Island'
View Transcript (PDF)
The treatment given by two picturebooks to the theme of migration, highlighting the transformative utopian potential offered by them, is considered. This is done by examining the construction of the subjectivity of migrant characters in text and image, and analysing how the subjectivity-reference triad of the characters (self-community-space) is negotiated.

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Session 23 National Identity 

Djeukam Youmbi Anselme (Laboratory technician and Author, Societé des provenderies du Cameroun, Cameroon)
Children's & young people's literature & national identity
A consideration of the importance of children’s and young people’s literature in the support of the conservation and transmission of culture and national identity.

Trish Brooking (Senior Lecturer, University of Otago College of Education, New Zealand
)
Stories of migration in children's literature: diaspora & dissonance in shaping cultural identities
View Transcript (PDF)
Societies with a legacy of colonisation produce literature which resonates strongly with the conference themes of migration and diaspora. This paper is an examination of the impact of migration on children's stories in an Australasian context.


Ira Saxena (Author, India)
Asian Identity in Children's Books & Multicultural Life
View Transcript (PDF)
A study of perceptions of Asian identity, and, in particular, that of the Indian sub-continent as revealed in books for young people published in the west. This literature for young people in a multicultural society depicts minority groups realistically with the intention that the majority culture will understand the needs of the minority. At the same time, Asian characters in these books display a newer culture evolved in the process of adaptation and assimilation to the society they live in.


Session 24: Globalisation 

Janet Hilbun (Assistant Professor, University of Texas, U.S.A.)
& Jane Claes (Assistant Professor, University of Houston-Clearlake, U.S.A.)
A Window to the World: Book Awards for Children's & Young Adult Literature & What They Tell Us about Young People, Reading Interests, & National Identity in a Global Society

Most countries give awards for children’s and young adult books. The examination of award winners shows both cross-cultural similarities as well as a sense of national identity. By looking at award winners, we realise that adults everywhere have the same concerns for children and their literature and that young people’s reading preferences are similiar across the world.

Mingzhou Zhang (CBBY Vice President, China)
The Hans Christian Andersen Awards Publication Project in China
A publishing project in China means that, from 2012 on, artworks of all Hans Christian Andersen Awards winners and some selected nominees will be published every year together with IBBY related documents such as the autobiography of Jella Lepman, IBBY Asahi winning projects, messages and posters of International Children’s Book Day. The issues involved in achieving the project’s aims are described.

Aksinja Kermauner (Professor, Institute for Blind and Partially Sighted Children, Ljubljana Faculty of Education, Slovenia)
Is literature for visually impaired children minority literature?
A project in Slovenia aims to introduce tactile books to every public library. Tactile books enable the development of fully sensed children just as they do blind children. They can be the means of fully sensed children developing empathy towards blind children; and of demonstrating that the needs of all children are essentially the same.


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Seminar 25: Oral Storytelling and Translation

Bill Mboutsiadis (Lecturer, University of Toronto, Canada)
Japanese Storytelling-Kamishibai Folk Tale Translations & Migrations in Japan & the Philippines
Kamishibai, traditional Japanese picture storytelling, provides unique learning contexts that nurture cross-cultural understanding, second language acquisition, creativity in narrative skills and a joy in listening, reading, making and telling of stories. The presentation will include the history, instructional methodology and a demonstration of Kamishibai. It will share the experience of storytelling with Japanese students and with a Mangyan tribe from Mindoro Island in the Philippines 


Vijaylakshmi Nagaraj (Educationist, Author and Storyteller, India)
Borderless tales: Impacting Young Minds
India is a country with a diverse traditional folklore that transcends state boundaries and entertains the young. Stories in oral traditions and folktales have crossed both language and cultural barriers to engage with young Indians. The migration of each tale has seen a modification and an adaptation that has retained the relevance of these timeless tales.

Beatriz Montero (Author and Storyteller, Spain)
Two Worlds' a bilingual Storytelling project in India and Spain
View Transcript (PDF)
The “Two Worlds” project features bilingual storytelling and the publication of a book with fourteen dual language stories in Spanish and English for children ages 0 to 5 years old in schools of Spain and India. The stories have been written by Beatriz Montero and Geeta Ramanujam, who are renowned storytellers in their countries of origin, and also coordinators of the biggest International Storytelling Network of the World: www.cuentacuentos.eu.


Seminar 26: Migration of authors/Diaspora 

Rosana Faría (Illustrator, Teacher/Reading Promoter, Venezuela)
Jararaca, Perereca y Tiririca, a tale of leaving or staying
View Transcript (PDF)
An examination of the process of illustrating a story by Brazilian author Ana Maria Machado which resonated with the situation in Venezuela, a country which received immigrants in the 19th & 20th centuries and is now experiencing emigration. The story shows that strength is in unity and perserverance.

Frané Lessac (Author/Illustrator, Australia)
One World, Many Stories
Children need to develop a world view that appreciates the richness of other cultures while at the same time preserving and celebrating their own uniqueness. Through personal experience, this session will explore the extensive research and the balancing of creative interpretation with cultural authenticity that goes into producing such books.

Robin Moncrieff Morrow (Teacher and Critic, University of technology, Sydney, Australia)
The environment bleeds into the stories': the effects of migration on the picture books of Bob Graham
View Transcript (PDF)
As a result of his living in the UK for an extended period, the settings of Australian illustrator Bob Graham’s books have undergone subtle changes, not just in being less Australian and more English, but also in being increasingly urban.



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Seminar 27: Globalisation

Devika Rangachari 
(Author and historian, India)
Coming-of-age Books That Have Come of Age
View Transcript (PDF)
The creation of a ‘young adult literature’ in the Indian market is one of the most direct impacts of the globalisation of literature for children and young people. The emergence of a fresh aesthetic will be examined through four books that are representative of a new way of writing, mapping unexplored territory and focusing on issues hitherto considered publishing/writing taboos.


Emily Roach (M.A. Student, Roehampton University, U.K.)
Cross-Border Fannish Interaction: The Boundless Internet & Participatory Culture in the Harry Potter Fandom

This paper considers the migration of cultures and the cross-border nature of participatory culture in the age of the internet, with specific reference to globalisation and the Harry Potter fandom.


Avgi Daferera (M.A. Student, University of East Anglia, U.K.)
Translating a 'global environment' for children
Drawing examples from my own translations of the anti-war series Bam-Boum-Taratatzoum by Greek children's author Eugene Trivizas this paper gives a definition of a "global environment" in children's fiction and explores how it affects translators. It also suggests possible solutions.



Seminar 28: Meeting of Bookbird correspondents
 

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SATURDAY 25TH AUGUST: 16.00-17.30


Session 29: Translation (Picture Books) 

Junko Yokota (Professor and Director U.S.A./Japan, National Louis University, Center for Teaching through Children’s Books, Chicago, U.S.A.) & William Teale (Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago, U.S.A.)
A Case Study of Translating the Text of Picture Books, Considering Factors of Language Play & Audience
A case study of the situational contexts involved in the translations of two picture books that contained considerable language play in the originating language. The focus is on the processes the translators used, as well as their interactions with publishing representatives and the author of the book. Editor feedback, author/illustrator feedback, and final publishing decisions are analysed.



Darja Mazi-Leskovar (Professor, University of Maribor, Slovenia)
Children’s literature in translation: the case of Slovenian picture books
Three Slovenian picture books are presented, Marko Kravos’ Ko je zemlja še rasla/When the Earth was still growing, Desa Muck’s Kakšne barve je svet?/What colour is the world? and Irena Kampuš’s Naš otrok/Our child, translated into German and/or Italian, highlighting the interplay of text and illustration and the translation strategies facilitating non-Slovenian readers access to the texts.


Seonju Ko (Assistant Professor, Soong Eui Women’s College, Korea
)
Translated Picture Books in Korea since 1960 [presented by Eileen Do-Yun Koo]
View Transcript (PDF)
A study exploring the characteristics of translated picture books and their cultural impact in Korea over the last five decades. It is divided into three periods: the beginnings of publishing (before the year 1990), a period in which the publication of translated books flourished (1991-2000) and globalisation (after 2001), when Korean books began to be exported abroad.


Session 30: Translation 

Paul Gravett (Author, Curator and lecturer, U.K.
)
Asterix versus Superman & Astro Boy: How can Franco-Belgian Bandes Dessinées compete with American comic books and Japanese manga?
Tintin, Asterix and The Smurfs are among the most popular children's bande dessinée series in France and Belgium, but in translation their success has been variable. Newer favourites have also struggled to find a global audience. This paper considers the lessons to be learnt from translating Francophone comics and the challenges they face from their American and Japanese rivals

Hiroko Inose (Lecturer and Translator, Dalama University, Sweden) &
Charlotte Lindgren (Senior Lecturer in French, Dalarna University, Sweden)
Translating Japanese manga into French
The translation and exportation of manga (Japanese comics) started in the late 1980s. France is the biggest market for Manga in Europe. In the present study, we will focus on the techniques used to translate manga into French; and identify and compare them to the techniques used in the translation of more traditional forms of children’s literature.

Kirsty Jenkins (Doctoral Student, University of Manchester, U.K.
)
The Role of the Translator & the Difficulties of Translation in the 'Case Closed' manga novels
View Transcript (PDF)
The difficulty of translating manga novels from Japanese into English whilst retaining the humour and sentiments of the original is examined, focusing on the role of the translator as mediator, bridging a gap between two languages and examining the choices made by the translator and the changes to the text resulting from translation.


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Session 31: Translation 

Carole Bloch (Director, PRAESA Early Literacy Unit, University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Nal'ibali, it starts with a story! Growing books and readers in South
 Africa

The growth of Reading Clubs in the Nal'ibali National Reading for Enjoyment Initiative, started by PRAESA is leading to an increased demand for appropriate storybooks in African languages.  PRAESA is producing a bilingual newspaper supplement, a website, and a mobisite with stories and story related material.  I will discuss some of the strategies, processes and decisions related to story translations that we are developing as we deepen our attempts to inspire a love of stories
among South African children from diverse communities.

Kathy Short (Professor, University of Arizona. U.S.A.)
Family Stories as Cultural Resources for Young Children
This paper describes The Family Story Backpack project: a transportable curriculum in early childhood bilingual classrooms to facilitate the sharing of stories around themes significant to families. The languages in which the families choose to tell and record their stories, the types of stories that they tell, and the ways in which they interact around global and multicultural books and stories is highlighted.

Mark Greenwood (Author, Australia)
Creating Books in Remote Indigenous Communities
To Aboriginal people story is more than words: it is a treasured cultural inheritance. For many years Mark Greenwood has conducted bilingual book making workshops in remote Indigenous communities, inspiring student’s natural curiosity about reading, writing and the power of the story. 



Session 32: Translation

Veronica Rot Gabrovec (Lecturer, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
The Curious Incident of the Trolls in Ljubljana
This paper looks at a selection of English children’s books, published in Slovenian in the last twenty years, and explores how the translators of these texts approached the linguistic and the non-linguistic aspects of the two cultures and how they managed to overcome the differences.


Kestutis Urba (Lecturer, Vilnius University, Lithuania)
Tales by Beatrix Potter in Lithuanian: domestication of proper names
View Transcript (PDF)
The original English proper names of Beatrix Potter‘s tales would be very alien to Lithuanian children. Therefore the translator creatively domesticates character‘s names as well as toponymy. Some variants of this domestication are presented, including: Lithuanian equivalents of international names; substitutions based on graphic similarities; translation of names derived from appellatives; and substitution of two-word names, when both words are phonetically connected.


Murti Bunanta & Dina Tuasuun (Society for the Advancement of Children’s Literature and Indonesian Board on Books for Young People, Indonesia)
Publishing & Translations for the Young Reader: Bilingual Bible Stories
View Transcript (PDF)
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country, where the publishing of Bible stories through translations is growing. This paper examines the phenomenon of bilingual Bible stories: their publishing history; the challenges of translation; and their contemporary impact, including on Muslim stories for children.


Session 33: National Identity

Evangeline Barongo Ledi  & Eva Mutongole Wamala (Uganda Children’s Writers and Illustrators Association)
Writing for children and young people, the Ugandan experience
The Uganda Children’s Writers and Illustrators Association (UCWIA) was conceived by a group of authors whose aim was to promote a reading culture amongst Ugandan children. This paper takes you on a journey from the time when an idea is conceived to when a book is published. It gives an account of how the nature of our audience determines what we write and what should be published.

Eun Hye Son (Professor, Boise State University, South Korea)
Responses of Transnational Korean Children in Picture Story Books about their Heritage & Culture
Based on reader response theory, this case study seeks to examine the responses of 8 Korean transnational children (4 groups differing in the extent of exposure to Korean culture) to books about Korean culture and heritage.

Libby Limbrick (Head of School of Arts, Languages and Literacies, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand)
& Helen Villers Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Becoming a (Pacific) nation of readers: a view of children's literature in New Zealand; through the looking glass & out the window
This paper explores the role of children’s literature in New Zealand in the creation of identity. Storytelling in this country has evolved from oral traditions of myths and legends to a contemporary canon of robust home-grown children’s literature. The challenge lies in maintaining this in the face of globalised political, economic and technological change.

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Session 34: Adaptation & Migration of Folk & Fairy Tales 

Jim Cipielewski (Associate Dean, School of Education and Human Services, Oakland University, U.S.A.)
Cinderella: Exploring a Tale’s Migration to the American South
While there are numerous Cinderella variants, many are closely linked while others show greater cultural diversity. This paper examines what happened to the Cinderella story as it migrated from the British Isles to the Appalachian region of the United States. What did tellers keep, and what did they change?

Yasmine Motawy (Instructor, The American University, Cairo, Egypt)
Arabic Retelling of Little Red Riding Hood & Cinderella by Abdel Wahab El-Messiri: the intertext, the enchanted and the narrator
The children’s books of Abdel Wahab El-Messiri, an Egyptian contemporary philosopher, are a conscious act of counter-narration against what he sees as the failure of modernity “to assert human dignity and values”. His series of retellings of traditional tales are subversive, realistic and metatextual, and make a profound statement on the nature of evil.


Natalia González de la Llana Fernández (Lecturer in Spanish and French Literature and Culture, Aachen University, Germany)
Little Red Riding Hood as Crime Fiction: A Comparative Study of the Films 'Hoodwinked! (2005) and 'Red Riding Hood' (2011)
View Transcript (PDF)
Little Red Riding Hood is a successful folktale with many versions. In recent years, there have also been two films based on this story: Hoodwinked! (2005) and Red Riding Hood (2011). This paper analyses how these films have transformed the tale into crime fiction.



Session 35: Picture Books about Migration 

Zeynep Bassa (Author and Illustrator, Turkey)
Picture Books on the Theme of Migration in Germany
Questions of migration, discrimination, social marginalisation and integration appear as newly emerging topics in children’s books. Based partially on the author’s personal experiences as a migrant mother of two children in Germany and from work with migrant children, this paper reviews some of the children’s books published in Germany on the subjects of tolerance and acceptance of different identities.

Marjorie Coughlan 
(Editor, Paper Tigers, U.K.)
Escaping Conflict, Seeking Peace: picture books that relate refugee stories, and their importance
Attention is drawn to picture books in English from around the world about children and young people who have been forced from their homes because of conflict. These are stories that need to be told, whether they are biographical or fictionalised accounts, for understanding of the past, healing in the present, and hope for the future.


Susanne Gervay (Author, Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators Australia and New Zealand)
Ships in the Field: giving voice to migration
View Transcript (PDF)
The picturebook Ships in the Field is a collaboration between Susanne Gervay, whose parents were post war Hungarian refugees, and illustrator Anna Pignataro, whose parents were post war Italian refugees. Susanne relates how they translated these experiences into the universal refugee immigrant experience of war, loss, migration, hope and a new home. The presentation is accompanied by an exhibition of illustrations of Ships in the Field.


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Session 36: Reading programmes 

Deepa Agarwal &  Devika Rangachari (Authors, Habitat Children’s Book Forum, India)
On the Book Trail in Delhi
View Transcript (PDF)
The Habitat Children’s Book Forum (HCBF) in New Delhi, India, administered by award-winning children’s writers Deepa Agarwal and Devika Rangachari, is a pioneering, unique initiative that promotes the reading habit among children and provides them with a much-needed platform to express their views about books.

Martin Gries (Teacher, Buecherpiraten e. v, Germany
Geschichten-Sucher)
The Story Seekers
This paper describes the success of Geschichten-Sucher, a reading project for 3-6 year olds, which has been carried out in two hundred kindergartens in Northern Germany. The project is interactive, with the children becoming part of the story through their own research, contacting experts to answer their questions and creating their individual stories.

Sally Goldsworthy (Director, Discover Children’s Story Centre, U.K.)
Connecting Stories - an exploration of using digital technology to bring diverse communities together to share stories and cultural values
Discover Children’s Story Centre in east London collaborates with parents and children to develop intercultural dialogue through gathering, recording and sharing stories. The paper will look at two case studies of long-term programmes with migrant communities that used technology to promote and increase cultural exchange and create high quality children’s literature resources with authors and illustrators.


Session 37: Diaspora

Cristina Colombo (Translator, Argentina)
The Architecture of Migration
View Transcript (PDF)
Throughout its history, Argentina has played a double role as regards migration. First, welcoming thousands of immigrants and then later sending thousands into exile. This paper offers a panoptic view of the way in which children’s literature has explored this phenomenon: its secret intimacy, the push and pull factors and the survival strategies chosen.

This paper is also published on the author's own website.

Evelyn Freeman (Professor Emerita, Ohio State University, U.S.A.
)
Displaced Children Who Survived World War II: Fiction and Nonfiction for Young People
View Transcript (PDF)
This presentation will focus on fiction and nonfiction written for young people about displaced children who survived World War II. The books’ protagonists experience a myriad of thoughts and emotions that can be applied to contemporary situations. The books discussed convey a diverse portrait of children who were displaced by war but survived. A bibliography of titles will be provided

Margarida Castellano i Sanz (Associate lecturer and high school teacher, Universitat de València and State High Schools in València, Spain)
Analysing the New Catalan Literature of Immigration: common topics, diverse authors
View Transcript (PDF)
This paper describes the common themes that emerge from contemporary immigrant authors in Catalonia, who are published in Catalan and write for young people about the immigrant experience. It analyses the idea of the border (geographical, political, real or imaginary) both as a dangerous space and a space of cultural interaction and the emergence of new hybrid identities. It also explores the possibilities that these novels offer for work with teenagers in schools.

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Session 38: EUROTOOLBOX project

Eurotoolbox 2012 is a collection of books in French, German, Portuguese and Spanish, selected and presented by expert librarians in cultural institutes in London and publishers in the countries represented. With guest speaker, Siobhán Parkinson, writer, translator, publisher and former editor of ‘Bookbird’.

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