Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new ways of facing the world and its multiple realities. Picturebooks, as a crossover genre, help in the process of understanding new contexts while offering literature as therapy. The new challenges of the 21st century require the implementation of methodologies that focus both on words and on other modes of representation to construct knowledge, and to this end, literacy education through challenging picturebooks involves paying attention to the diverse pedagogical demands of a global, aesthetic, and multimodal world. This chapter supports the notion of visual literacy as a multidimensional concept and proposes the approach to different picturebooks dealing with neighbours and neighbourhoods through the pedagogy of the multiliteracies, in order to enhance the transformation of the self and the global and local understanding of the current world. A learning path for teachers is designed according to the four knowledge processes: experiencing, conceptualizing, analyzing, and applying.
TopChallenging Picturebooks For A Changing World
Since Janet Evans edited the collection Challenging and Controversial Picturebooks in 2015, the term 'challenging picturebooks' has been widely discussed. Maria Nikolajeva (2014) states that “[c]omplex picturebooks are beneficial for young readers' cognitive-affective development because they offer the brain something to work on (p.214; see also Kümmerling-Meibauer and Ommundsen, 2022). In fact, reading different kinds of picturebooks enables young readers to develop a sophisticated visual competence and aesthetic literacy, as several recent studies show (Arizpe and Style, 2003; Beckett, 2018; Campagnaro and Dallari, 2013; Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2014; Druker and Kümmerling-Meiebauer, 2015; Evans, 2015). Also, regarding experienced readers may find interesting facing challenging picturebooks, since some of the aspects of this genre is that they can be “highly sophisticated, in cognitive, aesthetic, and critical terms” (Farrar et al., 2022, p.46). So that, challenging picturebooks can be seen challenging in terms of:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Lockdown: “Voluntary or mandatory restriction of movement of individuals who have been exposed to the virus or those who are possibly infected. During this time, people must remain in a specific place until the incubation period is over” (Sánchez-Villena & La Fuente-Figuerola, 2020 AU75: The in-text citation "Sánchez-Villena & La Fuente-Figuerola, 2020" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). Lockdowns have significantly disrupted the daily lives of children and adolescents, with increased time at home and limited physical social interaction.
Isolation During COVID-19 Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic is assumed to have caused an increase in the number of socially isolated people. Social Isolation was defined as less frequent contact with people other than co-residing family members. Mental health outcomes of such situation include psychological distress, suicidal ideation, loneliness, and fear of COVID-19.
COVID-19 and Challenging Picturebooks: Picturebooks read for the sake of reflecting personal and collective experiences during the lockdown can also been considered challenging: because they assume an introspection in what we understand to be our immediate reality (our house, our neighbours, our habits) and, also, different abstract feelings (the fear, the loneliness, the confusion, the bewilderment, etc.).
Pedagogy of the Multiliteracies: A more contemporary view of literacy that reflect multiple communication forms and a context of cultural and linguistic diversity within a globalized society. Multiple ways of communicating and making meaning, including such modes as visual, audio, spatial, behavioral, and gestural ( Pilgrim & Martínez, 2013 , p. 62).
COVID-19 Pandemic: A global emergency situation caused by virus SARS-CoV-2 which was identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China and spread very quickly to other countries. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak of a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020 and a pandemic in March 2020.
Post-COVID-19 Era: The world after COVID-19 Pandemic.