Pushing Boundaries on Children's Literature: An Introduction to Crossover Picturebooks

BY MEGHAN VALERIO & WILLIAM BINTZ

Recently, I (William) introduced crossover picturebooks in a graduate literacy course to students pursuing a reading specialization Master’s degree. All students were practicing teachers ranging from elementary through high school. Each week, I read aloud a crossover picturebook to introduce the class session. Selected picturebooks dealt with themes including death and dying, divorce, suicide, mental illness, physical disability, parent-child separation, and other life-changing and impactful events. One example is Dragon by Gro Dahle (2018). It tells the story of Lilli,  a young girl who is a child abuse victim by her mother.  Lilli regards her mother as a dragon because she is explosive, hot-tempered, and abusive. After reading, I invited students to share their questions and reactions to crossover picturebooks. Three questions and one reaction were particularly illustrative:

• ​​Why did the author write a picturebook on this controversial topic? 
• Who is the intended audience for this book?
• What tensions or repercussions might teachers face if they read this type of picturebook?​
• I had no idea these kinds of picturebooks existed. I feel a little conflicted. Teaching these kinds of books makes me nervous, but I’m excited to know more about them.
  

These responses inspired this blog post. They revealed teachers may not know much about crossover literature but are curious to know more about it.    

What are Crossover Picturebooks?

Crossover literature, or texts written for dual-aged audiences, is not a new genre, as many books could be considered crossover already. While picturebooks specifically might be enjoyed by both children and adults, crossover picturebooks, a subset of crossover literature, are written and illustrated intentionally for both children and adults, breaking conventional assumptions that books are intended for one age group (Falconer, 2008; Harju, 2009, Rosen, 1997).  Crossover authors communicate purposeful messages to both audiences equally (Harju, 2009). Narratives then are considered ageless and timeless, often portraying issues that might be deemed controversial including death, verbal and physical abuse, and divorce.

In a world where in-person and online book shopping and borrowing is organized by genre and age, this makes these “ageless” books complex. Consider first an adult purchasing a picturebook for themselves, and on the flip side, encouraging a child to purchase a book about abuse. Both instances could be questionable, even alarming to some. 

While there are truly designated texts for children, like aesthetic and sensory appealing babybooks (Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2015), crossover picturebooks defy traditional book categorizing norms, causing anyone interested to rethink what counts as children’s literature vs. adult. 

Children’s literature though is written and published by adults for children (Rosen, 1997). So really, is there such a thing as a true children’s book if the text isn’t written by children at all?

What Concerns Does This Raise?

Currently, we are conducting research on crossover picturebooks. Specifically, we are exploring teacher concerns on using this literature in the classroom. Based on this research, two major findings indicate that many K-12 teachers worry about the following issues:

FINDING	EXAMPLE
Feel uncomfortable with the idea of using literature, like crossover picturebooks, to teach controversial issues.	“I struggle with the idea of using literature to teach controversial topics.  Mostly it is because I want to teach in elementary, and you combine that and ESL learners and all the extra culture and language barriers and it could be very difficult” (elementary teacher)
Feel pressure from a variety of stakeholders.	“I will face a lot of pressure to use literature like this. Using these books to teach will put me in big trouble with the whole community members” (elementary teacher)

These concerns, and many others like them, are real for teachers. Traditionally, children’s literature is to be enjoyable not uncomfortable, entertaining not controversial. Crossover literature invites a different perspective and pushes the envelope on censorship and what constitutes taboo topics in classrooms. To help explore this further, we recommend the following resources. These resources include picturebooks and professional literature that have pushed our thinking about crossover literature. We hope they will push yours.

Picturebooks

• Beaty, D. (2013). Knock Knock. New York: Little, Brown Books.
  
• Dahle, G. (2019). Angry Man. New York: NorthSouth Books.
  
• Erlbruch, W. (2016). Death, Duck and the Tulip. Auckland, NZ: Gecko Press. 
  
• Fortes, A. (2008). Smoke. Pontevedra, Spain: OQO Books.
  
• Garland, S. (1994). I Never Knew Your Name. New York: Ticknor & Fields. 
  
• Gleeson, L. (2011). I am Thomas. Crows Nest, AU: Allen & Unwin.
  
• Greder, A (2020). Diamonds. Crows Nest, AU: Allen & Unwin. 
  
• Hathorn, L. (1994). Way Home. New York: Knopf Books. 
  
• Lanthier, J. (2012). The Stamp Collector. Ontario, Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. 
  
• Marsden,, J. (2008). Home and Away. Sydney, AU: Lothian.
  
• Ouimet, D. (2019). I Go Quiet. New York: Norton Young Readers.  
  
• Ringtved, G. (2016). Cry, Heart, But Never Break. Enchanted Lion Books. 
  
• Tan, S. (2003). The Red Tree. Sydney, AU: Lothian. 
  
• Taylor, C. (1992). The House that Crack Built. Chronicle Books.   
  
• Woodson, J. (2002). Our Gracie Aunt. New York: Jump at the Sun. ​​
  

Professional Literature

• Evans, J. (2015). Challenging and controversial picturebooks: Creative and critical responses to visual texts. London, UK: Routledge. 
  
• Druker, E., & Kummerling-Meibauer, B. (Eds.) (2015). Children’s literature and the avant-garde. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 
  
• Beckett, S. (2011). Crossover picturebooks: A genre for all ages. London, UK: Routledge.
  
• Falconer, R. (2008). The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children’s Fiction and its Adult Readership. London, UK: Routledge.
  
• Kummerling-Meibauer, B. (2014). Picturebooks: Representation and narration. London, UK: Routledge.
  
• Beckett, S. (1999). Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults. Shrewsbury, MA: Garland Publishing.​
  

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Editorial Note:
Valerio and Bintz will contribute a follow-up post next week. The next entry dives deeper into exploring Crossover Picturebooks by looking closely at one such book, discussing the benefits of using crossover picturebooks, and inviting a new possible stance on curriculum

References

Bishop, R.S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6 (3). 
Falconer, R. (2008). The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership. London, UK: Routledge. 
Harju, M.L. (2009). Tove Jansson and the crossover continuum. The Lion and the Unicorn, 33(3), 362-375. 
Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (2015). From baby books to picturebooks for adults: European picturebooks to the new millennium. Word & Image, 31 (3), 249-264.
Rosen, J. (1997). Breaking the age barrier. Publishers Weekly. 243 (6).

Meghan Valerio is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction with a Literacy emphasis at Kent State University. Meghan’s research interests include investigating literacy and cognitive development from a critical literacy perspective, centering curricula to understand reading as a transactional process, and exploring pre- and in-service teacher perspectives in order to enhance literacy instructional practices and experiences.

William Bintz​ is Professor of Literacy Education in the School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. His professional interests include the picturebook as object of study, literature across the curriculum K-12, and collaborative qualitative literacy research.