Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

Remixing Dialogue: A Case Study On Perceptions Of Hip Hop Pedagogy In A Professional Learning Course, Kelly J. Thelen

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This qualitative case study examines how teachers’ decision-making and professional autonomy shift while participating in a Hip Hop Pedagogy Professional Learning course supported by structured FIXIT (Lo & Wachter, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d; Wachter & Lo, 2024) game-facilitated dialogue in a rural, culturally and linguistically diverse Midwest community. Grounded in Freire’s (1970) Critical Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), and Adult Learning Theory (Knowles et al., 2005), the study explores the reclamation of agency by teachers in a time of constrained creativity and educator autonomy shaped by strict policy environments, an emphasis on …

Our Heritage Vol Ii 2026, Ana Iraheta, Jake R. Turcotte, Siobhan Lahiff

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

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Ana C. Iraheta and Jake R. Turcotte (Editors)

Siobhan Lahiff (Illustrator) "

Más Que Saltos: Patinar Me Hace Feliz/More Than Jumps: Skating Makes Me Happy, Amelia Costa

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Skater changes her goals, works hard, and finds new joy.

Por Siempre En Mi Corazón/Forever In My Heart, Valeria Barrón

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

A young woman honors her late friend with love and tradition.

Los Abuelos Viven Para Siempre/Grandparents Live Forever, Mariana Padilla

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

A young woman misses her grandpa, remembers his love, and applies his lessons every single day.

Una Historia Sobre Cultura, Familia Y Sueños/A Story About Culture, Family, And Dreams, Roseline Tavarez Cepeda

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Young immigrant celebrates culture, overcomes fear, and shares her story.

La Pequeña Defensora/The Little Advocate, Krystal Cuello Samper

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Krystal faces challenges, uses bilingualism to help others and grow.

Mi Loca Mundaza A Connecticut/My Crazy Move To Connecticut, Luciana Ybarra

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Moving from Hawaii to Connecticut taught values, adaptation, and cultural respect.

Cuando No Entendía El Por Qué/When I Didn't Understand Why, Nancy Nuñez

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Nancy moved to a new country, learned English with effort, and discovered how valuable education is.

Camino Al Corazón/A Choice From The Heart, Daniela Montoya

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Daniela felt unsure about her future, but chose to care for others and found her calling.

Carta Para Mi Tierra/Letter To My Country, Britnnie Minaya

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Britnnie misses her country, values her culture and her memories.

Barreras Rotas/Broken Barriers, Rachel Barrón

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

María faces change, grows through challenges, and honors her parents’ sacrifices.

Aprendí A Querer Mi Nombre/I Learned To Love My Name, Cici Martinez Osorio

Our Heritage: Short Stories of Bilingual Youth in the Northeastern United States

Citlally learns to love her name and value her culture.

Members’ Meeting And Closing Ceremonies, The Mythopoeic Society

Mythcon

While the Members’ Meeting portion of Mythcon will be of interest primarily to members of the Mythopoeic Society, all conference participants are welcome to attend. Led by the Mythopoeic Society Stewards, the meeting will announce and discuss timely and necessary Society topics. Following the meeting, we will host our traditional leave-taking closing ceremonies that feature singing songs dear to Mythcon regulars. Words and music at: https://mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-closing-songs.htm

Members’ Meeting/Closing Ceremonies will be held Monday morning,at 11am in the Event Center.

A Charles Williams Diptych: G. M. Hopkins And T. S. Eliot, Eric Rauscher

Mythcon

This presentation consists of two short papers touching upon an interest of mine in the development of Williams' poetry.  In the first paper about Hopkins I argue for a direct influence that played a role in the transition from Williams' early poetry to his late Arthurian poems.  The second paper dealing with Eliot tangentially addresses a similar influence, but in a much more nuanced fashion. Here I am only offering hints. I am quite sure there are many other avenues of study for the transformation from his early poetry to his later mature style which is a poetically complex style …

Visit With Joe R. Christopher, Leslie A. Donovan

Mythcon

In this session, our Scholar Guest of Honor, Joe R. Christopher, will be on hand to informally visit with anyone who wants to hear more about his 50+ years of scholarship on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, fantasy literature, and mythopoeic scholarship. Joe will also sign copies of his new essay collection, In Plain Sight Behind a Wardrobe Door: Essays on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia and, we hope, share some stories about not only his career as an early mythopoeic scholar but also about past Mythcons!

Are Book Clubs The New Discussion Groups?, Megan B. Abrahamson, Dusty Brooks, Grace Moone

Mythcon

Mythprint used to publish Discussion Group reports pretty regularly, and the Discussion Group model was a great way for local Inklings fans to find each other. How has technology and changing social mores (especially post-COVID) altered how we do "Discussion Groups"? Is the difference between a Book Club and a Discussion Group just down to whether we submit a report to Mythprint, or are there other elements we need to bring back? Attend this panel if you want to get or give advice about running your own mythopoeic Book Club or Discussion Group!

Boundary Crossings: Charles Williams And Bruce Cockburn As Grim Traveling Companions, John Mabry

Mythcon

This paper explores the deep influence of Charles Williams on the lyrics of singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, one of the few Christian rock musicians to enjoy mainstream success. Both artists suffer “outsider” status in Christian culture because they regularly cross the boundaries of what is considered “acceptable” Christianity, both in terms of their personal lives and their theologies. Yet their work profoundly depicts crossings between the mundane and spiritual worlds, to the point of denying such boundaries exist at all. In his doctrine of co-inherence, Williams denies ontological separateness, a theme echoed repeatedly in Cockburn’s lyrics. This is more than just …

Author Guest Of Honor Keynote - Fantasy As A Tool Of Resilience And Resistance / Mythopoeic Awards Ceremony, David R. Slayton

Mythcon

We find ourselves in a dire reality. America is facing a literacy crisis, especially among the young. College professors are sounding the alarm that students are entering higher education without having read a full novel while book bans are limiting access to reading materials. Many libraries are preemptively removing works before anyone can protest their inclusion even as budgets are being cut. Reading for pleasure among adults is down significantly, as is reading comprehension, at a time when media literacy is made crucial by weaponized misinformation, outright gaslighting, and the proliferation of AI generated media that is becoming increasingly hard …

“The Daemons Of Unplumbed Space”: Einsteinian Portals Into The Unknown In Paul W. S. Anderson’S Event Horizon And H.P. Lovecraft’S The Dreams In The Witch House, Kristine Larsen

Mythcon

Jason Colavito notes that “cosmic horror” developed in response to the counterintuitive and unsettling repositioning of space and time within Einstein’s Special and General Theories of Relativity, as embodied in H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The horror of such a “weird tale” derives from the violation of already unnatural seeming physical law by the influence of super-natural powers. Lovecraft himself defined a weird tale as containing at least a hint of a “suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature, which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.” Surely the singularity of …

The Road To Armageddon; Commonwealth Orcs, 1872-2000, Joseph Rex Young

Mythcon

J.R.R. Tolkien’s orcs are perhaps his most exported creations, having become stereotypical antagonists of fantasy games, hewn down in countless dungeons as the evil minions of unnumbered dragons. Commentators have raised justifiable questions about the notion of an ‘evil race,’ though on examination the absorption of orcs into the post-Tolkienian genre, especially by writers from the British Commonwealth, has perpetuated a strikingly consistent, coherently evolving notion of what that evil is. Rather than relitigate questions about the admissibility of orcish evil, the purpose of this paper is to document this point of continuance.

Tolkien equates the orcs of Middle-earth to …

Today’S Christianity: Are We In The Mirror Universe? A Comparison Of Petrine Christianity And The Gospel Of Mary Via The Heroine’S Journey, Blythe A. Collier

Mythcon

What if there was an alternative to Joseph Campbell’s so-called ‘Monomyth’? What if we could dodge yet another rehash of the tired old trope of an oversimplified, Eurocentric ‘Hero’s Journey’? The monomyth is often considered the sine qua non of archetypal modern Western literature. We can easily pick out some of its described elements within both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Silmarillion, and in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series—as well as within Petrine Christianity, which is the mythic structural basis of both the contemporary bible, and also the fabled worlds of Tolkien and Lewis.

But …

Middle-Earth Inspired Chess Sets, Bruce Leonard

Mythcon

The response to Tolkien’s work is amazing in variety and depth. Flieger and others note The Lord of the Rings invites a participatory response from the reader. For a number of us this results in a lifelong engagement, from academic pursuits such as this conference to fan creations. Chess is a wonderful example of the creative reaction to Tolkien’s work. There are as many as 97 Middle-earth related chess sets. This includes different editions of the same set. Dr. Graeme Anthony produced ~32 editions of his War of the Ring set. As with most responses to Tolkien inspired work the …

The God Machine: Environmental Resonances In Tolkien And Hollow Knight: Silksong, Alicia Fox-Lenz

Mythcon

After reading The Lord of the Rings, it would not be surprising for the reader to assume Tolkien was a luddite or at very least had some deep-rooted environmentalist leanings. After all, the anti-industrialist sentiment is one of the many themes that so enamored his American fans in the 1960s. In LOTR, industry (as opposed to craft) is aligned with evil, most notably through Saruman — a failed craftsman who has turned to machination. Through him, we see the industrialization of Isengard and its deleterious effects on nearby Fangorn, as well as the resulting destruction of the failed …

The Harlequinades: Agatha Christie’S Forays Into Fantasy, Joe R. Christopher

Mythcon

This review by Joe R. Christopher explores Agatha Christie’s long engagement with the Commedia dell’Arte tradition - referenced in current popular culture through figures such as the Batman series’ Harlequin character – and traces how elements of that fantasy appear throughout her early poetry and some of her short-fiction work. Her Harlequinade foray was in a self- funded volume of poems, some of which read as autobiographical. The evocation of wandering ancient, semi-immortal spirits may reflect a business trip taken with her first husband. Christie extends the Commedia motifs into her prose where she introduces recurring characters; notably, a character, …

Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Discussion, David Lenander, Grace Moone

Mythcon

General Discussion of the Finalists for the 2026 Mythopoeic Awards. We expect some committee members to offer their opinions and experiences and invite others to share their reactions to the books! Discussion of the awards process and suggestions for the future are also in order. Find out how to become involved for next year. What books did we miss?

Gondor Calls For Aid! Volunteering And Running For Office With The Mythopoeic Society, Janet Brennan Croft, Megan B. Abrahamson, Phillip Fitzsimmons, Alicia Fox-Lenz, Victoria Gaydosik, Tim Lenz

Mythcon

We often talk about volunteering and about serving as a Society officer at the membership meeting at the end of Mythcon. But this more intimate panel will give you the opportunity to hear from Stewards and Managers directly about their experiences as volunteers and ask questions about how you can get involved -- and why you should think about it! Panelists will talk about how they got started, how rewarding it is, what kind of time commitment it takes, the differences between being a Steward and a Manager, and other long and short term volunteer opportunities.

Illustrating Lothlórien As A Faerie Space In The Lord Of The Rings By J.R.R. Tolkien, Marie Bretagnolle

Mythcon

In The Fellowship of the Ring, when the travelers step in Lothlórien, their perceptions of their surroundings and of time are altered. Numerous papers have considered the literary devices used by J.R.R. Tolkien to convey the sense of otherness that makes this Elven realm an equivalent to Faerie in Middle-earth. In their turn, how do visual artists tasked with illustrating The Lord of the Rings transpose these effects in their pictures? In this paper I continue my research into Tolkienian illustrations by analyzing the visual devices used by Mary Fairburn, Alan Lee, and the duo formed by the Queen …

Glen Goodknight's International Narnia Collection, David L. Emerson

Mythcon

In 1975, Glen GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society, began to take serious interest in translations of the Narniad, collecting editions from over 40 different countries. By 2004, he had begun to make his wonderful collection of non-English editions available to the world through his website, inklingsfocus.com. With his passing in 2010, the site was due to be shut down, but I participated in preserving the images of these foreign book covers, assisting Lewis fan Gordon Greenhill in reconstructing the gallery on his site called The Disordered Image.

This presentation will be a slide show of many of these …

Perception As A Gateway Of Faërie In Owen Barfield’S Philosophy Of Language, Sylwia Wilczewska

Mythcon

Since Verlyn Flieger showed the importance of Owen Barfield’s account of poetic language outlined in Poetic Diction for the metaphysical structure of Tolkien’s universe (cf. Flieger 33-44), Barfield’s writings have been an object of increased scholarly attention. While the point most often commented upon is the impact of Barfield’s vision of the evolution of language on Tolkien’s theory of sub-creation, the traces of Barfield’s influence can also be found in other Inklings. Here I would like to offer some speculations on the connection between Barfield’s idea of language and the way in which the writings of the Inklings depict discovering …