Wander and Wonder at the Child and the Book Conference 2026
Our colleague Sarah Caré participated in the 20th edition of the Child and the Book Conference at the University of Crete in Rethymno, Crete.
At this year’s Child and the Book hosted by the University of Crete, Sarah Caré presented her ongoing research on a common type of character in children’s nonfiction: the nomadic child-guide, a child who leads readers from one place to another with each page turned. She looked at how these child-guides engage with the world, with knowledge, and with their readers as they wander and wonder around the world.
Nomadic child-guides challenge traditional adult-child relationships of knowledge transmission. They lead the narrative content and decide where to go, how long to stay, and what to do. Simultaneously, they learn and teach the expository content. In doing so, they model a type of teaching and learning that is participatory, agentic, and child-led. Most importantly, they show that wander and wonder go hand in hand.
The conference fostered lively discussions about exile, displacement, nostalgia, trauma, authenticity, and identity. The red thread running through all these discussions was children’s experiences, voices, and memories.
At the end of Sarah’s presentation, questions from the audience prompted reflections on the gender of nomadic child-guides, the illustration style, and the nature of the different elements of nonfiction present in the books, such as maps, numbers, and tutorials.
