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The purpose of this paper is to introduce the social and scientific rationale for book clubs, whose members read wordless books together, and give examples of storytelling with picture books in libraries and other community settings for people with intellectual disabilities and autism.

The authors consider the impact of book clubs reading picture books without words, alongside an understanding of the underlying neuroscience (see Table I for search strategy). The authors compare differences in the neuroscience of information and emotion processing between pictures and words. Accounts from book club facilitators illustrate these differences in practice.

Many readers who struggle with reading and comprehending words, find pictures much easier to understand. Book clubs support community inclusion, as for other people in society. A focus on visual rather than word literacy encourages successful shared reading.

No research has been published about the feasibility and effectiveness of wordless books in community book clubs or shared reading groups. There is very little research on the impact of accessible materials, despite a legal requirement for services to provide reasonable adjustments and the investment of time and resources in developing storylines in pictures, or “translating” information into easy read formats.

Book clubs whose members read picture books without words are growing in number, especially in public libraries in the UK. Expansion is dependent on funding to pay for training for librarians and volunteer facilitators.

There is a shortage of fully accessible activities for adults with intellectual disabilities in mainstream community settings with a primarily social purpose.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper describing the theory and impact of wordless book clubs for people who find pictures easier to understand than words.

This study provides a gender analysis of National Council for the Social Studies Notable Trade picture book selections suitable for the primary grades from the years 2006-2008. The study examines the number of male and female characters and the presence, or absence of, gender stereotypes relative to characters’ personali-ties, occupations, and behaviors. Results indicate a significant difference in the number of male and female characters, with many more male characters represented. Both males and females frequently performed stereotypical jobs or roles, with no books depicting males in lower status jobs than females. In books with only female main characters, some women were able to cross traditional gender lines and demonstrate strong personalities. Of the 17 predetermined behaviors in which characters engaged throughout these books, seven of them showed significant differences between males and females. Males were more likely to participate in sports, fight in battles or demonstrate aggressive behaviors, pursue worthy causes such as heroism, use television/computer/radio, and earn a living. Females were more likely to perform domestic chores and demonstrate affection or emotion.

The contribution of children’s literature to the social-emotional development of children has been recognized across disciplines. Especially picture books, as multimodal texts which communicate with young readers with two codes simultaneously, can be a potential means of fostering empathy in young children (Nikolajeva, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to introduce the program “My BEST friends, the books,” an empirical project (in progress) based on a Book-Based Emotional Social Thinking approach.

This approach is inspired by the Critical Thinking and Book Time approach (Roche, 2010, 2015). The program, based on the scales and competences of the Βar-On (2006) model of social-emotional intelligence, explores the way young readers interpret social-emotional skills when discussing about literary characters in children’s picture books. This paper examines the philosophy, the main characteristics and structure of the program, and presents the first results of the pilot phase.

The initial findings indicate that the design and implementation of such a program is a complex procedure that requires from the researcher to take into consideration various aspects that concern both the material and the participants, but also to step back and let children express their thoughts freely.

Moreover, such discussions allow for understanding how preschoolers interpret the social-emotional skills of literary characters in a critical manner.

Since their inception in the early 1980s electronic books have grown substantially in popularity, mainly due to their usefulness in distributing large volumes of interactive multimedia information in the form of text, pictures and sound. This paper describes the basic nature of electronic books and the philosophy underlying their use. A basic taxonomy of electronic books is then presented and a description is given of the various techniques involved in their design and fabrication. The paper concludes with a description of some application case studies and an outline of some possible future directions of development.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the representations, figures and processes of shopping/commerce in books published in France that are aimed at three to seven-year-olds.

A semiotic analysis of nearly 50 books published over the past 60 years.

These books reveal a broad diversity in the images of shops given to children (ranging from the traditional shop, a source of pleasure and creator of social ties, to the hypermarket/megastore, a symbol of stress and overconsumption) and the wealth of information that is given to children to help them assimilate the process of a shopping transaction.

The originality and richness of this research lies in its methodological approach. Indeed, it is perfectly aligned with a recent academic trend that calls on researchers to mobilise and compare new data collection tools to apprehend current and future consumer behaviour. Consequently this research is based on an immersion in children’s books that depict the world of commerce in one way or another.

One hears sometimes of precocious children who can read before the average baby can talk, and this raises the interesting speculation as to when a child is old enough for books. Picture books and story‐telling undoubtedly make early appeal and educationists now consider book provision in nursery schools important in order to make the “under fives” book conscious before their schooling proper begins. More and more librarians now provide attractive A.B.C.'s such as Eileen Mayo's Nature's A.B.C. (Universal Text Books, Ltd., 6/‐) with its beautiful printing and illustrations; and gay picture books like Mary Shilla‐beer's We Visit the Zoo (Hutchinson, 4/6) in which there is just enough text to satisfy the young mind. Some librarians seem to have an objection to odd‐shaped books because of the shelving difficulty but the artist's requirements and the child's partiality for large‐size books should outweigh the slight inconvenience of arranging special shelving.

Interaction – above all, food consumption, the fact of eating together – is connected to human representations and human fears. All of these are involved in socialization, particularly in educative mechanisms (such as rules at table, regulation/moderation, apprenticeship) and pleasure (tasting discovery and games). This paper proposes to show the paradox between education (often in relation with health) and pleasure (in all forms) in food, using a cultural object appreciated in childhood, i.e. picture books.

The study is based on a sociology thesis about the representations of food in picture books (50 picture books for children under six years of age, which were selected in bookshops to identify how food, the child and daily life are represented in fiction) and how they are used, and on a collection of data from interviews with professionals and parents (qualitative approach to analysis).

The paper finds social representations which corroborate the eater paradox. Between education and pleasure, between discovery and fear, the forms of food consumption are numerous in the picture books.

The paper shows that social representations are signified in all items for children and reveals the importance of this medium.

This study provides a gender analysis of National Council for the Social Studies Notable Trade book selections suitable for the intermediate grades from the years 2006-2008. The study examines the number of male versus female characters and the presence, or absence of, gender stereotypes relative to character personalities, occupations, and behaviors. Results indicate a significant difference in the number of male and female characters, with many more male characters represented. Males frequently performed stereotypical jobs or roles with none of the books depicting males in lower status jobs than females. Some female main characters were portrayed in stereotypical jobs or roles while others were able to cross traditional gender lines and demonstrate strong personalities. Of the 17 predetermined behaviors exhibited by characters throughout these books, six of them showed significant differences between males and females. Males were more likely to engage in physical activity, participate in sports, fight in battles or demonstrate aggressive behaviors, pursue worthy causes such as heroism, and earn a living. Females were more likely to perform domestic chores.

This study aims to understand how informational factors influence online purchase intention when considering secondhand books.

A conceptual model linking book condition, description, delivery cost, picture, sellers’ rating and delivery date to purchase intention was developed and tested by using structural equation modeling. Survey data from 234 respondents was used to analyze both direct and mediating relationships.

The examination demonstrates how book condition, delivery cost and sellers’ rating influence consumers’ purchase intention. Book condition directly and indirectly influenced purchase intention, while delivery cost and sellers’ rating were significant only when including the mediating variable delivery date.

This work clarifies where resources should be allocated when offering secondhand books online. Sellers should dedicate time to include informational factors such as book condition, delivery cost and sellers’ rating. Contra wise, there is little value expounding on the book’s description or providing a high-quality picture when selling online.

The following lesson is an example of how to begin a unit of study on cultural universals through the accessibility of quality literature. Be My Neighbor (2004) by Maya Ajmera and John Ivanko is an NCSS Notable Book (2005) that attempts to bring the world closer to readers’ homes and lives through the theme of being a neighbor to people around the world; the book provides vivid examples of cultural universals related to the theme. Following the lesson are ideas for developing related instructional units and relevant websites and literature to assist in creating such a curriculum.