WOW Review – Submissions

WOW Review publishes original reviews on global and multicultural books on the following schedule for issue themes and submission deadlines. Each submission is sent for blind review. Please check to see that the book has not previously been reviewed at our Alphabetical listing of all books reviewed by WOW Review.

WOW review: reading across cultures
ISSN 2577-0527

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Call for Submissions:

Volume 17, Issue 1 (Fall 2024 – submission deadline: September 1, 2024) – Open theme. The editors welcome reviews of global or multicultural children’s or young adult books published within the last three years that highlight intercultural understanding and global perspectives.

Volume 17, Issue 2 (Winter 2025 – submission deadline November 15, 2024) – Sharing Space: Animal/Human Relationships. Themed issue on the relationships between humans and animals as they share spaces in the world (e.g., protection of endangered animals, relationships with pets, human/animal dynamics). The editors welcome reviews of fiction and nonfiction global or multicultural children’s or young adult books published within the last three years that highlight intercultural understanding and global perspectives.

General Submission Guidelines:

WOW extends a call for critical reviews of children’s and adolescent global literature to be published in WOW Review: Reading Across Cultures, an electronic journal of Worlds of Words. Generally, WOW Review issues focus on a theme, though some issues are unthemed. Future issue themes and deadlines are listed at the end of the page. The criteria for reviews include:

• Books published throughout the world, including the U.S., that represent life within a specific cultural group, especially as related to the global community. Editors look for children’s or young adult books published within the last three years.

• The review lists the complete bibliographic information for the book.

• The review begins with a careful summary of the content or story, including both text and illustrations. Issues of culture that relate to the content should be highlighted using a broad definition of culture, including ethnicity, language, gender, geographical areas, age, socio-economics, historical eras, physically/mentally challenged individuals, religion, etc.

• Consider excellence in text and illustrations. This includes evaluating genre fit, cultural authenticity and thematic relevance.

• Citation of sources used to evaluate authenticity, such as personal communication with individuals from a particular cultural group, perspectives from media sources, personal insights, author’s notes and research citations.

• Background information about the author and illustrator should be included.

• List other relevant texts that might extend thinking about a particular cultural group, life experience, or theme. Include other information that might be useful to educators such as the audience that might find this book most compelling if that is significant (e.g. young children or teens). Note, however, that we do not age level books (e.g., ages 3-5) since many books go across multiple age levels based on the purpose for sharing the book and the life experiences of readers. Instead describe the book in enough depth and with information on the main character so that readers of the review can make their own decisions about audience.

Evaluating cultural authenticity is complex and includes issues of accuracy, cultural values, and diverse lifestyles and perspectives within a cultural group as represented in text and illustration. Criteria for exploring cultural authenticity can assist reviewers in this process.

The reviews should be written in APA format and be 500-800 words in length including the bibliographic and author information. Please be sure to double and triple check spelling of author names, book titles, publisher names, etc. Refer to current and past issues for specific formatting. Further guidance on determining cultural authenticity can be found in the introduction to the inaugural issue of WOW Review: Reading Across Cultures.

Please submit reviews for possible publication here.

Additional Resources:

1) Stories Matter, The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children’s Literature (Fox & Short, 2003)

2) PDF of criteria for exploring cultural authenticity (Short, 2008)

Consent to Publish and Copyright Information

Terms of publication:

APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE: We mutually agree that publication of the Contribution is contingent upon its acceptance for publication by WOW and upon its meeting WOW editorial standards. WOW reserves the right to withdraw Contribution at any point in the publication process, at which point, this agreement is terminated.

COPYRIGHT ASSIGNMENT:

You are retaining the copyright for Contribution but grant permission for WOW to publish the manuscript in an issue of the electronic journal WOW Review per the following licensing:

WOW Review, a publication of World of Words, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Journal is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to readers or institutions who may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text under the copyright assignment without asking permission from the publisher or author.

WARRANTY: You warrant that the Contribution is original with you; that it contains no matter which is libelous or is otherwise unlawful or which invades individual privacy or infringes any proprietary right or any statutory copyright; and you agree to indemnify and hold WOW harmless against any claim or judgment to the contrary. Further, you warrant that you have the right to retain copyright and have not granted copyright to anyone else. You acknowledge that the Contribution may include an educational record under FERPA and expressly consents to the use of such content under this Agreement.

REQUESTS TO REPRINT: Any requests to reprint the Contribution, or any parts thereof will be forwaded to you. WOW will not grant requests for reprinting. A credit line, “first published in WOW Review,” with the URL should be added to any reprint.

COMPENSATION: You shall receive no royalty or other form of compensation. If the foregoing terms are satisfactory, please sign and date this agreement and return one copy. You may wish to keep a photocopy for your records.

Download full Consent to Publish form as PDF.

For questions or inquiries, contact the editors at:
Susan Corapi: scorapi@email.arizona.edu
María Acevedo-Aquino: maru_veronica@yahoo.com

Submit your WOW Review online now.