Barnboken: Journal of Children’s Literature Research received a new graphic profile in 2024, but the content of the forty-seventh volume is similar to previous years: seventeen articles dealing with mainly Nordic children’s and young adult literature. Many belong to the two themes “Motherhood and Mothering” and “Multilingualism and Children’s Literature.” Moreover, eight reviews of recent Nordic and international theoretical literature were published. The Barnboken team has also been delighted to note that the number of people following the journal’s Facebook page has continued to increase and passed 500 during the year.

“Motherhood and Mothering” was initiated in 2023 and the theme is concluded with the publication of eight articles this year. Editors are Tuva Haglund (PhD, the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books/Uppsala University, Sweden) and Malin Nauwerck (PhD, the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books). The contributions published in 2024 give a rich and varied image of motherhood, exploring both the joyful and darker aspects of the subject – from mothers transformed into birds in Classical literature to contemporary influencer and celebrity cultures, where writing for children can be utilized in building a personal brand.

Genre-specific conventions for describing mothers are examined through analyses of horse stories and historical novels in two articles. Another contribution discusses how the transmediation from book to film creates different possibilities for a multifaceted portrayal of the mother. Several articles explore the dynamic interplay between children’s and adult literature or between child and adult readers in depictions of motherhood and mothering. They highlight how intertexts to adult culture are introduced in texts and images for children, but also how the use of double address may confirm adult co-readers in their mothering role. Picturebooks by Kitty Crowther, Scandinavian classics by Astrid Lindgren, Bjarne Reuter, and Martha Sandwall-Bergström, as well as less familiar children’s books about surrogacy or exhaustion disorder are some of the works in focus in this theme. The articles are published with support from Stiftelsen Konung Gustaf VI Adolfs fond för svensk kultur (the Foundation King Gustaf VI Adolf’s Fund for Swedish Culture) and Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne (the Foundation Lars Hierta’s Memory).

The second theme, “Multilingualism and Children’s Literature,” began this year with the publication of six articles and it will continue in 2025. Helena Bodin (Professor, Stockholm University, Sweden) and Julia Tidigs (Docent, Åbo Akademi University, Finland) are the editors. The contributions concern both arenas for multilingualism and how multilingual experiences are depicted in images and texts. Two of the articles investigate to what extent different languages are accommodated in the literary and pedagogical activities of school libraries and kindergartens respectively. Multilingualism as part of immigrant or minority identities are explored in three articles on Sephardic children’s books, naming practices in Italian post-colonial literature, and rap in a Norwegian diary novel. These texts show in different ways how an affirmation of multilingualism also may be a strategy to counteract alienation and marginalization. The last contribution to the theme this year focuses on the evaluation of literary multilingualism in Finland-Swedish young adult novels in contemporary reviews. The articles are published with the support of Letterstedtska föreningen (the Letterstedt Foundation).

The forty-seventh volume of Barnboken is rounded off by three independent articles, applying new theoretical perspectives to Nordic children’s and young adult literature. Katrina Åkerholm discusses the challenges facing teachers when dealing with climate change and the insecurity about the future it brings. Inspired by Clémentine Beauvais and Donna Haraway, she shows how a complex picturebook like Linda Bondestam’s Mitt bottenliv: Av en ensam axolotl (2020; My Life at the Bottom: The Story of a Lonesome Axolotl), avoids clear-cut solutions and, by doing so, enables pupils as well as teachers to stay with the trouble. Two young adult novels by Anna-Liisa Haakana are analyzed in Lydia Kokkola’s article about feelings and landscapes. She uses Sara Ahmed’s theory of orientation to explore how the protagonists deal with emotional and geographical isolation in Finnish Sápmi in the 1980s. Conceptualizations of space are also in focus in Tatjana Kielland Samoilow’s article on Astrid Lindgren’s Ronja Rövardotter (1981; Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter) and Maria Parr’s Tonje Glimmerdal (2009; Astrid, the Unstoppable), where she examines the role sound plays in the novels’ place-making.

Barnboken is an Open Access journal, which means that all articles and reviews are published online and are freely available on the journal’s website and in full text through several international databases. Article submissions are subjected to double-blind peer review, ensuring that all articles published in Barnboken have been reviewed by at least two external reviewers outside of the journal’s editorial board. When members of the editorial board or theme editors contribute with submissions of their own, they are not involved in the editorial work or the peer review process of their article in any capacity. Barnboken’s focus is mainly Swedish and Nordic, but the journal has readers all over the world.

During 2024, my fellow members of the editorial board were Nina Goga (Professor, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway), Maria Jönsson (Professor, Umeå University, Sweden), Peter Kostenniemi, (PhD, Umeå University, Sweden), Anne Skaret (Professor, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway), Olle Widhe (Professor, University of Gothenburg, Sweden), and Mia Österlund (Professor, Åbo Akademi University, Finland). Review editor is Malin Nauwerck (PhD, the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books) and Hanna Liljeqvist is editorial secretary (research assistant, the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books/PhD student, Åbo Akademi University, Finland). Åsa Warnqvist (Docent, the Swedish Institute for Children’s Books) functions as consulting senior editor and responsible editor. The journal’s international advisory board includes fifteen prominent Swedish, Nordic, and international researchers. The journal is published with support from Vetenskapsrådet (the Swedish Research Council).

Barnboken welcomes new and old readers to take part of the exciting and inspiring research presented in this year’s volume.