Summer School 2026: Indigenous Voices in Children's Literature

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/17954

Nau mai, haere mai to recordings of lectures from our first Summer School focusing on Indigenous Voices in Children’s Literature held from February 2-5, 2026 at the Hamilton campus of Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato - The University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. Here are some of the reasons we wanted to host this summer school:

While there is some research concerning inclusivity practices in the children’s literature that we see in libraries, homes and publishing houses, little work exists that examines how the publishing process can contribute to increased diversity in children’s picturebooks, particularly in relation to Indigenous languages and cultures. International research shows that the cultural and linguistic diversity evident in children’s picturebooks lags far behind such diversity in society. This lack of diversity has implications for literacy engagement and the perpetuation of social inequalities.

This Kaupapa (topic) also links to a three-year research project being done by researchers at The University of Waikato (Julie Barbour, Nic Vanderschantz and Nicola Daly) and independent researcher Dr. Darryn Joseph in conjunction with colleagues at HUIA Publishers of Pōneke, Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand (Eboni Waitere, Pania Tahau-Hodges, Kawata Teepa, Te Kani Price and Bryony Walker) in which we explore how authentic Indigenous picturebooks are created at HUIA. You can read more here

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The picturebook: The intergenerational pretzel
(2026-02-04) Price , Te Kani
Picturebooks, as a finite and static object become a temporal anchor point for different generations of audience. Each audience group will have different motivations to purchase or engage with a picturebook. As a designer how do you cater for an audience driven by nostalgia, one for the now and another reader a future generation from now. Not to mention the historical journey the story itself may have taken prior to being immortalised in a book. In this presentation I will explore my process as a picturebook designer from both an audience and a marketplace perspective.
Welsh publishing for children
(2026-02-03) Rosser, Siwan M.
Cymraeg (Welsh) is one of the UK’s indigenous languages and was, until the end of the 19th century, the language of the majority of the population of Cymru (Wales). Despite its decline during the 20th century, it is still spoken by around 20% of the population and was recognised as an official language in 2011. Language activism and changes to legislation have led to new rights and opportunities for speakers of Cymraeg to use the language and a growing demand for Welsh-medium education. More and more children are now learning Welsh at school rather than at home, and books and the Welsh publishing industry underpin efforts to connect new speakers with the language beyond the classroom, as well as sustain those who are raised in Welsh speaking families and communities. Children’s literature in Cymraeg – although at times overlooked, and more often than not underfunded – plays a pivotal role in engaging children with language, culture and a sense of belonging to the land they inhabit. This lecture will outline the key developments, struggles and achievements of Welsh publishing for children in recent times, allowing a space for us to reflect on some of the common issues facing children’s publishing in indigenous, marginalised languages in a global context.
Indigenous children’s literature in Canada: Ethical teaching, research, and librarianship
(2026-02-03) Harde, Roxanne
In the introduction to his edition of Indigenous writing from the decades between 1890 and 1930, Frederick Hoxie argues that by “talking back to those who considered themselves superior,” these authors “rejected the self-serving nationalism they heard from missionaries and bureaucrats [and] made it clear that they refused to accept the definitions others had of them⎯savage, backward, doomed” (8). In her studies of earlier Indigenous writers, Abenaki historian Lisa Brooks delineates the myriad ways in which Indigenous peoples have always talked back to colonialism. This history of talking back to the dominant discourse necessarily involves writing for children, these days as part of the project of decolonisation as Indigenous writers offer children counterstories that work to champion their own narratives, often through stories about residential schools in North America. The systematic and purposeful governmental removal of Inuit, Métis, and First Nations children and incarceration in the schools became a major focus of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s hearings and recommendations, and this removal and its consequences are the subject of several children’s books written by Indigenous authors. This presentation outlines how those books come into being, then draws on theorists including Brooks, Daniel Justice (Cherokee), Robin Kimmerer (Potawatomi), and Leanne Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg) to demonstrate how, by offering representations of removal from healthy families and child resistance to residential schools, these books talk back to dominant interpretations of Indigenous peoples and colonial history.

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