WOW Dozen: Making and Using Maps

By Janine M. Schall, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Where are we in the world? How do we get someplace new? How do we perceive the world—or how do we want the world to be perceived? How does one place or idea connect to another? These are all essential questions for how people experience and move through the world, and they can all be answered by maps.

A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships between places, things or ideas. While they often focus on spatial relationships and geographic elements, both real and imagined, maps can also be used to display associations between ideas or concepts. Maps are tools to help us navigate and understand the world but are shaped by the map-maker’s culture, beliefs, and knowledge. As such, they are statements about what matters and what does not. Continue reading

WOW Dozen: Difficult and Challenging Topics in Children’s Literature

By Seemi Aziz, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

While teaching a graduate course on the art of picturebooks this past semester, I realized that there has been an influx of children’s books on challenging topics. This piqued my curiosity, and I began digging into the stacks at the Worlds of Words and online. While I found many recent titles about anxiety, depression, death, and grandparents who are growing older, I also thought of books that would pair nicely and help ease the acceptance of these hard topics. Needless to say, picturebooks have never been simple and mono-dimensional and it is there power to speak to the youngest of our audiences, giving them strength. Continue reading