Abstract

This project is a collaboration between researchers in Norway and the UK on children’s reading across these two cultures. It examines picturebooks as iconotexts and children’s responses to these in words and pictures. The research draws on a range of theoretical viewpoints in children’s literature and literacy education, including the work of Wagner (1997), Nikolajeva and Scott (2001), Nikolajeva (2008), Kress (2003) and Arizpe and Styles (2003)

Our main research question is: how do children from different cultures interpret the iconotext of contemporary picture books? The two texts selected for the research are relatively modern picture books, Svein Nyhus: Pappa; 1998 and Rachel Bright: What does Daddy do?; 2009. Twenty-four 7 year old children (12 from each country) participated. In Norway, meetings took place in after-school clubs and in the UK in out-of-classroom locations during school time. The children had two encounters with each book, with the locally published book being used first. The seminar presents some of our initial findings.