Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows and Doors by Dr. Maria José Botelho and Dr. Masha Kabakow Rudman, both of the College of Education’s Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, Language, Literacy and Culture concentration, has been published by Routledge.
The book, which “brings a critical lens to children’s literature,” prepares teachers, teacher educators, and researchers of children’s literature to analyze the ideological dimensions of reading and studying literature.
COE Professor Emerita Sonia Nieto says in the book’s Forward: "Children’s literature is a contested terrain, as is multicultural education. Taken together, they pose a formidable challenge to both classroom teachers and academics…. Rather than deny the inherent conflicts and tensions in the field, in Critical Multicultural Analysis of Children’s Literature: Mirrors, Windows, and Doors, Maria José Botelho and Masha Kabakow Rudman confront, deconstruct, and reconstruct these terrains by proposing a reframing of the field…. Surely all of us – children, teachers, and academics – can benefit from this more expansive understanding of what it means to read books."
Note that Dr. Botelho’s father and sister are pictured on the book’s cover. When asking her family for permission to use the photo, Dr. Botelho said she described the book to her sister this way: “Critical multicultural analysis of children's literature offers mirrors for readers to locate themselves in texts and images, as well as unveils how language use reflects power…. The open window with your young image reminds us that literature offers us vistas of how society is organized. Our house [in the Azores] and its burgundy door reminds us that the door is an entry point for social participation. The carpet of flower petals and leaves created by Papá signifies the sacredness of human life and the possibility at hand for social transformation."