A learning curve in children, young adult writing in a faraway place
By Uchenna Emelife
I recently arrived Aarhus, Denmark for my second semester and I can’t overemphasise how much learning, unlearning and relearning I have done in the past few months. The highlight for me so far has been finding connections with the work my team and I do at Book O’clock, and being introduced to academic standards and global practises that can refine my work.
Uchenna Emelife making a point in class on Nigeria’s ‘Religion and Spirituality’
I remember sitting in a “Cross Boundary” class where film adaptations were discussed, and I could relate to the ideas and arguments made in the class because back home, there is the Book O’clock project Literature and Film, where I have unknowingly for the last four years, applied these theories in the curation/realisation of the event, but now I get to recognise my efforts better and align them with global conversations.
The “Text for Children and Young People” course that has exposed me to contemporary conversations about children and young adult books, and wherein, I explored the concept of childhood innocence and cultural influences of childhood perceptions – a research interest spurred by a visit to a childhood museum in Edinburgh and how I could not recognise any of the play materials exhibited because my childhood isn’t typical enough. I particularly studied two children chracters from different cultural backgrounds – Max of Sendak’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are and Juba of Kilanko’s Juba and the Fireball and how they challenge notions of a child’s innocence from differing interpretations as influenced by their cultures. I also got the chance to make a presentation about Trish Cooke’s colourful picturebook So Much and its non-patronising representation of blackness in an industry with still yet a poor representation of black children in children’s books.
The most eye-opening learning experience is the “Critical Enquiry” course which exposed me to the criticality of the seemingly ‘simple’ picturebook and how texts and images can be weaponised positively and negatively. It equipped me with tools to locate tensions in these books adopting foundational literary theories I previously reserved for other kinds of literature. In my critical analyses of these texts, I was taught to consider both textual and visual narratives as even illustrations have stories within them. Applying this knowledge, I adopted a decolonial lens in reviewing previous children’s literature research that have explored the concepts of colinialism, coloniality, decoloniality, decolonisation, postcolonialism and found a huge gap in not just the research but the publication of Nigerian culturally relevant children’s books, especially picturebooks that represent the many facets and multiculturality of the Nigerian state. Further underscoring the importance of interventions by authors like Lola Shoneyin, Namse Peter, Tonye Faloughi-Ekezie, who are on a mission to save the industry.
In “Publishing for Early Years”, my curatorial skills were on overdrive as I was exposed to the levels of consideration that should go into the cataloguing and recommendation of texts for children in their early years. Taking the ‘book’ as a product in its entirety, appropriateness is determined by not just textual and visual qualities but materiality as well. For a child in an early age, the story begins with the texture of the paper, the quality of the cover as that can shape their reception of the story therein. As someone in the book trade, learning this is a game-changer and I intend to apply this knowledge in my stocking, cataloguing and curation of children’s books, including my engagements with publishers.
I can’t thank enough the teaching staff at the University of Glasgow: Prof. Evelyn, Dr. Elizabeth, Dr. Jennifer, Prof. Melanie, Dr. Cristina, Dr. Julie, and Ro who generously led my learning journey in the first semester, and I look forward to more learning at Aarhus University. Send all the love and light you can spare my way for the busier days ahead.
PS: Applications for the next Erasmus+ CLMCE cohort ends soon. If these are conversations that excite you, then you should join us. Application link here: https//www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/erasmusmundus/clmce/
