WOW Review – Submissions

WOW extends a call for critical reviews of children’s and adolescent international literature to be published in WOW Review: Reading Across Cultures, an electronic journal of Worlds of Words. 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.
• 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.
• Consideration of literacy excellence for text and illustrations, including criteria for evaluating particular genres as related to the authenticity of the book and an indication of the major themes highlighted within the book.
• A critique of the cultural authenticity of both text and illustration.
• 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 related texts that might extend thinking about a particular cultural group, life experience, or theme and other information useful to educators such as the age level of the audience for whom the book is most appropriate.

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, organized using a similar format to the reviews in the current journal issue, and be 500-800 words in length including the bibliographic and author information. 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 via e-mail. Be sure to include your name, professional affiliation, and location.

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)

Deadlines

WOW Review publishes original reviews on international books on the following schedule for issue foci and submission deadlines:

• Vol. 2, issue 1: September 2009 (Manuscript is due August 15.) Unthemed open focus.
• Vol. 2, issue 2: December 2009 (Manuscript is due November 15.) Focus on hope amidst of conflict.
• Vol. 2, issue 3: March 2010 (Manuscript is due February 15.) Unthemed open focus.
• Vol. 2, issue 4: June 2010 (Mansucript is due May 15.) Focus on the Middle East.

Submit your WOW Review online now.