This paper traces the presentation of these traditional minority groups in Finland and the emergence of literature incorporating the more recently arrived groups of immigrants in the history of Finnish language children’s literature. We contextualize the development of multicultural themes in children’s literature within the history of Finnish nation-building and the country’s struggles for independence. We conclude with a brief consideration of how these less than ideal books might, nevertheless, serve to promote pluralism.
This paper focuses on the child reading the literatures discussed in the other articles in this special issue of Bookbird. More specifically, it focuses on how the bilingual brain differs from the monolingual brain, and provides a general overview of those areas of difference that relate to reading. I conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of these differences for literacy development and education, paying particular attention to the place for multilingual literatures within literacy development.
Images of human-animal-machine mergers – “cyborgs” in Donna Haraway’s terminology – are ways of exploring the human/non-human dichotomy and embracing non-human features as empowering: the cyborg supposedly enables humans to achieve their full potential by going beyond anthropocentric boundaries. Alternatively, the cyborg may not result in the empowerment of humans; on the contrary, it may lead to the complete loss of humanity. This article examines the interior conflict of the cyborg-protagonist in Peter Dickinson’s Eva (1988). Eva is subjected to life-saving experimental surgery during which her mind is transplanted into the body of a chimpanzee, and speak only by using a keyboard. Eva-the-cyborg explores the limits of human identity. Although she is expected to move beyond her human identity, perspective and body, Eva rejects these assumptions. Drawing on Judith Halberstam’s notion of “queer failure” (2011), this article argues that Eva’s failure to achieve a balance between her human and non-human selves is a creative act which defeats humankind’s daring attempt to control the universe using scientific and technological achievements.