Emergent Literacy: Children’s Books from 0 to 3 edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

Abstract

This collection of essays concerns itself with ‘‘emergent literacy’’ in two senses. Its authors explicitly investigate the experiences of very young children as they gain awareness of and access to printed forms of communication. But in the process, it also reveals that scholars in children’s literature and human development are constantly finding new layers, forms, and even ways of describing the process of decoding meaning in the physical world and/or social interactions. These essays repeatedly represent children struggling to master categories of description and representation, including those of language, while the authors resist the taxonomic limits arising from prior studies’ assumptions and conclusions about what emerging literacy practices look like, and when children become capable of them. They should find a ready audience under the umbrella of childhood studies. Moreover, a strong tendency toward reflexivity helps this collection reposition literacy as a ‘‘keyword’’ in a wide range of disciplinary discussions, in continuation of the project initiated by Raymond Williams in