Journal of Children's Literature Explores "Liminal Spaces"

Watson College Professor Caitlin Ryan, coordinator of WCE’s Language & Literacy programs, is co-editor of the Journal of Children’s Literature.

In the Fall 2023 issue, researchers explore liminal spaces and how they offer insight into reading. The publication begins with a thought-provoking quote from Ryan and co-editors Jill Hermann-Wilmarth of Western Michigan University, Craig Young of Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania and Laura Jiménez of Boston University:

“What if having a clear beginning, middle and end that flow in a A-to-B-to-C order isn’t the way the story goes? What if instead, the story begins in the middle? What if the story leaves the confines of Western ideals of time and space to open into infinite, conflicting, and disordered possibilities that do not follow a predictable path or end with the satisfaction of a clear wrap-up?”

“We're very proud of this issue of JCL,” Dr. Ryan said. “As an editorial team, we are committed to publishing high-quality, humanizing research that can help educators disrupt inequality and imagine themselves and their students into a more just society. We hope the research in this issue helps us see how children’s literature can represent and create experiences of borderless, disruptive, and nuanced in-betweenness. We hope teachers will notice and encourage – rather than be scared by – this idea of messy meaning making."

Karla Zaccor authored an article in the publication titled, “How Did White People Even Know Not to Like Us?: Sixth-Grade Discussions of Culturally Relevant Texts.” Dr. Zaccor is an assistant professor of language and literacy at the Watson College of Education.

Other articles in the publication include:

• “The Promise and Joy of Liminality in the Disney Descendants Series,” by Stephanie Anne Shelton
• “Girlhood Across Time: Portrayals of Girlhood in Award-Winning Historical Fiction Novels,” by Andrea Lemahieu Glaws, Emily Johns-O’Leary and Sarah Leonhart
• “Adoption as Liminal Space: Representations of Adoption in Children’s Picturebooks,” by Amy Burke and Melody Zoch

This issue also included a new feature, a recurring column called Call and Response that investigates how key theories and groundbreaking research in the field of children’s literature have provided a “call” that inspires other theories, research, and practice. For this inaugural column, the editors asked classroom teachers, scholars of children's literature, and children's author Alex Gino to consider how Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop's influential article from 1990 about the importance of providing children with texts that act as windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors has informed their work. The curated responses are titled, “The Enduring Impact of Rudine Sims Bishop.”

The JCL is a publication of the Children’s Literature Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The refereed journal, devoted to teaching and scholarship for the field of children’s literature, is published twice annually.