Being of the World. Locating Childhood

We invite submissions for Issue 8 of “Paidia i Literatura”, entitled Being of the World. Locating Childhood.

The aim of the upcoming issue of “Paidia i Literatura” is to reflect on how children’s and young adult literature, pedagogy, and education foreground space and place, and what meanings they attribute to them.

We welcome theoretical and empirical articles, including literary studies, critical discussions of place-based educational projects, and analyses of interdisciplinary (including humanities-oriented) outdoor practices addressing the following topics:

• Landscape in literature for young readers,
• Pastoral / degraded landscapes of childhood in children’s and young adult literature,
• Urban and rural spaces of childhood in literature and other cultural texts addressed to young audiences,
• Literature in the context of playing with space and place (e.g., adventure novels, fantasy literature),
• Reportage and non-fiction for young readers,
• Relationships with place in children’s and young adult literature,
• Community and intergenerational narratives of place in literature for young readers,
• Local narratives (local heroes) in children’s and young adult literature,
• The language of place and about place in children’s and young adult literature,
• Memory of place and local memory in shaping the postmemory of the younger generation,
• Environmental memory in literature for young readers,
• The topos of place in narratives of childhood addressed to adult readers (fiction and non-fiction),
• Pedagogy of place,
• Place-Based Learning as building relationships with place,
• Outdoor education – critical discussion of good practices,
• Contact with place as a response to “nature-deficit disorder” – literary, pedagogical, and educational perspectives,
• New reading practices – reading in place, about place, and for place,
• Children’s spatial imagination and the construction of fictional worlds.

The submission deadline is 30 April 2026.

The Editorial Team
“Paidia i Literatura”

We invite you to submit contributions to the 7th issue of Paidia and Literature, titled “Influences/currents. Rivers and Other Waters in Children's and Young Adult Literature.”
The river, as a symbol of water, has great imaginative power, serving both as a literary motif and an educational element. In the context of children's and young adult literature, it can serve various functions – from a place of adventure, to a space for reflection on nature, to a metaphor for emotions or a symbol of transformation. Especially today, the river, representing the element of water, plays a crucial role in shaping the environmental and climate awareness of young readers.

The aim of this issue is to engage in an aquacritical reflection on the presence of rivers and other waters in children's and young adult literature. We wish to draw attention to the diversity of ways rivers are portrayed, their role in shaping the imagination of young readers, and their significance in the process of education, particularly regarding climate and the environment.

We are accepting articles until April 30, 2025.

Miło nam poinformować, że czasopismo "Paidia i Literatura" zostało umieszczone w bazie DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) która indeksuje największy zbiór czasopism recenzowanych, publikowanych przez różne wydawnictwa uczelniane i towarzystwa naukowe (w tym z zakresu nauk technicznych i ścisłych), dostępnych dla użytkowników na wolnych licencjach.

Strona czasopisma: https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/pl