The Conference Begins!

After many months of preparation, the Stranger in a Strange Land Children’s Literature Conference takes place today. As you can see from the program we have an excellent lineup of speakers. We hope to see you down at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at UBC for a jam-packed informative day.

Sarah Park Keynote: Storying Adoption

Sarah Park Keynote (Room 182) 4:30 – 5:30 P.M.

Since the early 1950s, more than 200,000 Korean children have been sent from South Korea to North America and Europe to be adopted into previously all-white families. More than 110,000 were adopted into the United States and Canada. Representations of these transnationally and transracially adopted Koreans have appeared in over fifty American children’s books since 1955. What kinds of stories do they tell? How are librarians and educators to evaluate these books? And what do Korean adoptees think of these depictions? In this keynote, Dr. Park will share her analyses regarding the content and context of children’s literature depicting transracially adopted Koreans.

Elizabeth Marshall Keynote: Global Girls and Strangers: Transnational Travel in The Nancy Drew Mysteries

Elizabeth Marshall Keynote (Room 182) 11:00 A.M. – Noon

While the Nancy Drew series is most often associated with North America, the mysteries are also a global phenomenon. Since the inception of the original series in the 1930s, the books have been translated into numerous languages and sold or marketed across the globe. In addition, the character Nancy Drew regularly travels across national borders to solve mysteries. The Nancy Drew materials demonstrate how fictional representations of “strange” places and contact with “strangers” remain central to texts produced for and marketed to young readers within contemporary North American children’s culture.

Creative Presentations

Along with the panels we’ll have some creative presentations throughout the day.

Creative Presentations Session 1 (Room 182) 9:00 – 9:30 A.M.
following Opening Remarks

Stacey Matson, Arthur Unknown
Laura Ritland, Frummy Bo and Billy
Megan Hodge, Lucy’s Tooth

Creative Presentations Session 2 (Room 182) 11:00 A.M.
preceding Elizabeth Marshall’s Keynote

Roslyn Muir, Kyra, the Last Murch
Matt Beilman, Defence of the Heart

Creative Presentations Session 3 (Room 182) 4:15 – 5:30 P.M.
preceding Sarah Park’s Keynote

Allison Mills, Ghost Boy
Nathanael Vass, Halcyon Days
Sam Markham, Lynx

Panel 12: Imagination, Ideology, and Teaching the Future

Panel 12 (Room 158) 3:15 – 4:15 P.M.
Chair: Judi Saltman

Katie Kinsley, University of British Columbia
Imagining the Future: Advocating with Children’s Literature

Viktoriya Yakolyeva, University of Alberta
Toreadors in a Strange Land: The Analysis of Ideological Messages in a Book for
Children

Laura Quintana Crelis, University of British Columbia
Mise-en-abyme in the Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges and Arabian Nights

Panel 11: Heroes and Villains: The Making of

Panel 11 (Room 157) 3:15 – 4:15 P.M.
Chair: Rob Bittner

Eleanor Crumblehulme, University of British Columbia
Beowulf, the Self-Creating Hero: Robert Nye’s Exploration of Heroism and Identity

Kate Conerton, University of British Columbia
Bellatrix: Stories of a Villain

Kevin Tunnicliffe, University of British Columbia
The Shadow and the Other Mother: A Jungian Reading of Coraline

Panel 10: Critical Literacy and Pedagogy

Panel 10 (Room 156) 3:15 – 4:15
Chair: Eric Meyers

Kathie Shoemaker, University of British Columbia
Visual and Verbal Cohesive Resources used to Construct Coherent Picturebook Texts for
Young Children.

Lindsay Bromley and Alexis Birner, University of British Columbia
Critical Literacy: Using Picturebooks to Read the World

Justin Unrau, University of British Columbia
Unreliable Instructions: Book-Failure and Critical Readership in Fantasy for Young
Readers

Panel 9: Technology, Fantasy, and Escape in Young People’s Literature

Panel 9 (Room 158) 2:00 – 3:00 P.M.
Chair: Rick Gooding

Leanne Hooper, University of Roehampton
Travel, Teens, and Tethering: Exploring Cell Phone Use in Childhood Journeys in
Ostrich Boys and Unhooking the Moon

Phil Gough, Currently Unaffiliated
Ghost in the Machine: Displacement and Embodiment in Mary E. Pearson’s The
Adoration of Jenna Fox and The Fox Inheritance

Alethia Shih, University of California, Los Angeles
Lands Beyond Home: The Distance Between Child Protagonist and Reader in The
Phantom Tollbooth

Panel 8: Navigating Merchandise, Franchises, and Online Media

Panel 8 (Room 157) 2:00 – 3:00 P.M
Chair: Naomi Hamer

Lindsey Krabbenhoft and Julia McKnight, University of British Columbia
Peeling Back the Layers of Intertextual Adaptation of the Tinkerbell Character in
Contemporary Children’s Texts and Merchandise

Naomi Hamer, University of Winnipeg
Growing Up with the Olsens: A Case Study of Global Distribution and Cross-Cultural
Consumption Within a Teen Franchise

Devon Greyson, University of British Columbia
Navigating Teen Parenthood Online: Grrrl Mom Texts for Support and Resistance

Panel 7: “You Want Me to Read on That?” Apps, eBooks, and Multimodal Texts

Panel 7 (Room 156) 2:00 – 3:00 P.M.
Chair: Eric Meyers

Cynthia Nugent, University of British Columbia
Picturebook Theory and the Touchscreen Picturebook App

Teresa Lin, University of British Columbia
Multimodal Electronic Books and Mobile Apps as Resources for Supporting Struggling
Readers in Secondary Schools

Lindsay Zebrowski, Simon Fraser University
“Beyond the Book”: Preliminary Observations on Childrens’ Engagement with Digital
Texts