Call for Papers: 2017 IBBY UK/NCRCL Conference

24th ANNUAL IBBY UK/NCRCL CONFERENCE

SATURDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2017

Centre for Literacy in Primary Education, London SE1 8QW.

Call for Papers

‘Happily Ever After: The Evolution of Fairy Tales Across Time and Cultures

The same fairy tales often appear across different cultures. How and why does this happen?

Should fairy tales be updated – or even subverted – to appeal to modern audiences?

How have fairy tales evolved as they’ve been retold across the centuries?

The conference will include keynote presentations by writers, publishers and academics. Proposals are welcomed for parallel sessions (lasting about 20 minutes) on any relevant issues from any period in the history of international children’s literature. These might include:

• variations in fairy tales across cultures
• campfires to apps – how fairy tales have been shared across time
• how fairy tales are viewed through a feminist lens
• whether fairy tales are inclusive for readers of all backgrounds
• the challenges that modern tellers of fairy tales face
• how fairy tales can challenge established storytelling tropes
• how to make an old story feel new

The deadline for proposals is July 31^st 2017. Please email an abstract of approximately 200 words (for a 20-minute paper), along with a short biography and affiliation to Ann Lazim of IBBY UK at annlazim@googlemail.com.

Please note that only six papers can be selected due to the smaller size of this year’s venue.

Details of past conferences can be found on the IBBY UK website at http://www.ibby.org.uk/ncrcl-conference.php

 

 

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NCRCL Blog

This is the home of the NCRCL blog, where you will find news, updates and posts from members of the staff, students and alumni at the National Centre for Research in Children’s Literature (NCRCL) at Roehampton University in west London.  You can read more about our popular MA in Children’s Literature which is run on-site and through distance learning, as well as undergraduate teaching in children’s literature in both our English and the Creative Writing departments. Please feel free to comment with questions or thoughts.

Roehampton Readers: Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Review: Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce

By Julie Mills

Frank Cottrell Boyce won the Carnegie award for Millions (2004) and his novels have been regularly shortlisted/nominated for the Carnegie medal since then. His children’s novels include Framed (2005), Cosmic (2008), The Unforgotten Coat (2011) and The Astounding Broccoli Boy (2015). He has also revived Ian Fleming’s famous flying car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again (2011).

Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth gives us a hearty helping of Frank Cottrell Boyce’s humour and fantasy whilst being grounded in the not so wonderful life of Prez, a young boy who is living in temporary care. It is a boy-orientated narrative with episodic flights of fancy and imagination.

Cover via Pan Macmillan

The flights of fancy are great investigations of “what if?” – What if the remote control really could rewind real life? Or a reverse explosion could rebuild Hadrian’s Wall? Or the supermarket self check-out gave you money and not the other way around? – all delivered with Frank Cottrell Boyce’s trademark humour. These sequences also allow him to explore big themes: time, ageing, death, love, home (Life, the universe and everything?). The story also gives insight into the experience of children who are carers, living with dementia and life in care for both young and old.

CFP for Second Issue of Postgraduate Journal RoundTable

Roehampton Readers: Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

Review: Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

By Clare Walters

Set in rural Western Pennsylvania, USA, in 1943, Wolf Hollow (2016) tells the story of 12-year-old Annabelle’s bruising experiences with an ‘incorrigible’, ‘dark-hearted’, older girl, Betty. It is a coming-of-age novel, a Bildungsroman, in which the protagonist goes through a period of intense psychological change over a matter of a few months. She transforms from a happy, innocent child into a more wary, but stronger and independent, young person who’s had first-hand acquaintance with the underbelly of humanity.

Cover via Puffin

The story, told in the first person, is narrated by a mature female voice, reflecting on a time when she was younger. The older Annabelle recalls how, during a few momentous months, she was forced to reconsider both her place in the world and her understanding of other people. She ‘learnt how to lie’, and discovered that what she said and what she did actually ‘mattered’ – that her actions directly affected others.

As Lauren Wolk explains in her video on the Carnegie shadowing website, Annabelle is a good girl, with a strong sense of right and wrong, who tries to solve a problem without recourse to her parents. In doing so, she discovers her own moral strengths and weaknesses. To cope with the situations before her, she has to face her own fear and draw on reserves of courage. Annabelle is both brave and loyal, but she is also subject to emotions such as anger and meanness (at one point she prays for Betty to get blisters from her encounter with some poison ivy). She also experiences constant confusion, as she’s unfamiliar with dealing with the difficult new challenges that tumble fast, one upon the other.

Roehampton Readers: Shadowing Carnegie and Greenaway 2017

Roehampton Readers, who meet at the University of Roehampton to discuss the CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards shortlists as a shadowing group and post reviews to the shadowing site itself, are now in their fourth year. NCRCL MA student Nicki Oakes-Monger, who coordinates the group with fellow MA student Judy Digby, reflects on their summer outing and this year’s shadowing experience.

 

Here we are, the Roehampton Readers shadowing group, composed of current and former Children’s Literature MA students on our summer outing to Chawton, Hampshire. We had a private tour of Chawton House Library where Jane Austen’s relatives lived and which now houses a collection of early women’s writing, including some books written for the instruction of children. We also visited the house where Jane herself lived and which is now a museum. All this was interspersed with the consumption of plenty of coffee and cakes!

We have been meeting as a group for the past four years over the summer in the weeks leading up to the selection of the Carnegie and Greenaway winners. In the past year we have also met up regularly to talk about past award-winning books. It is enjoyable to get together with other people who have a strong interest in children’s literature and the discussions often go into considerable depth, which is a stimulating experience.

NCRCL Open Day 2017

The annual NCRCL Open Day was held on Saturday 13th May 2017 at Digby Stuart College, University of Roehampton.

As usual, the Open Day was an exciting opportunity to meet new, current, and past students and staff over cupcakes, Danish pastries, cookies, tea, juice, and coffee. Apart from marvelling at displays of children’s literature treasures, staff publications, and poster presentations by current MA students, we also enjoyed fascinating talks by Zetta Elliott and Peter Hunt.

Zetta Elliott: “Inclusivity and Indie Authors: the Case for Community-Based Publishing”

Photograph via Zetta Elliot

Award-winning Canadian author and educator Zetta Elliott spoke of her experiences as an author published through both traditional publishing and self-publishing routes. She advocated for “organic writing”, which “originates within a particular community and emerges without outsider approval and/or interference”, and prioritises the welfare of the community over commercial success. The value of self-publishing for marginalised groups was underlined by Elliott pointing out bleak statistics related to white supremacy in the American publishing industry:

 

Infographic via Sarah Park

The First Issue of RoundTable

The first issue of RoundTable, the new postgraduate journal for academic and creative writing at the University of Roehampton, is now available online (open access)! The first issue focuses on the theme of journey and includes fascinating children’s literature-related content: a candid interview with Professor David Rudd, academic articles, a YA short story, and reviews! You can access the journal here.

The cover of the first issue