Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Evelyn Arizpe

Notes on contributors

Children’s thoughts on challenging and controversial picturebooks

Adults’ thoughts on challenging and controversial picturebooks

PART I Challenging and controversial picturebooks: What are they and who are they for?

1 Picturebooks as strange, challenging and controversial texts

Janet Evans

2 The scandal of the commonplace: The strangeness of best-selling picturebooks

Perry Nodelman

3 From traditional tales, fairy stories, and cautionary tales to controversial visual texts: Do we need to be fearful?

Sandra L. Beckett

4 Who are these picturebooks for? Controversial picturebooks and the question of audience

Åse Marie Ommundsen

PART II Controversy and ambiguity in the art of the visual

5 Fusion texts – the new kid on the block: What are they and where have they come from?

Janet Evans

6 ‘These books made me really curious’: How visual explorations shape the young readers’ taste

Marnie Campagnaro

7 Beware of the fox! Emotion and deception in Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Jörg Meibauer

8 Fear and strangeness in picturebooks: Fractured fairy tales, graphic knowledge, and teachers’ concerns

Elizabeth Marshall

PART III Creative, critical and philosophical responses to challenging picturebooks

9 What’s real and what’s not: Playing with the mind in wordless picturebooks

Sandie Mourao

10 Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf ? Children’s responses to the portrayal of wolves in picturebooks

Kerenza Ghosh

11 Filling the gaps: Exploring the writerly metaphors in Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree

Sylvia Pantaleo

12 Could this happen to us? Children’s critical responses to issues of migration in picturebooks

Janet Evans

PART IV Thoughts from a children’s book publisher

13 The legendary Klaus Flugge: Controversial picturebooks and their place in contemporary society

Klaus Flugge in conversation with Janet Evans