Abstract
The article explores whether reading Lene Ask’s documentary graphic novel Kjære Rikard (‘Dear Rikard’) may provide children and adults with training in, and an increased awareness of the importance of, emotional literacy and theory of mind. In order to investigate this question, the authors of the article conduct a close reading of Ask’s novel, using terminology from narratology, picture book and comics’ theory, and look for connections between the findings from the analyses and insights from reader-response theory and cognitive literary studies. The authors suggest that in combination, Ask’s fictive and documentarist drawings and the excerpts from the hand-written correspondence between young Rikard in Stavanger and his father, a missionary in Madagaskar in the 1890s, invite both children and adult readers to develop a keen sense of the value of emotional literacy and theory of mind.
Article note
Mange takk til Lene Ask for tillatelse til å gjengi utdrag fra Kjære Rikard, og til fagfeller for konstruktive tilbakemeldinger.
Referansar
Andersen, Per Thomas 2011: “Hva skal vi med skjønnlitteraturen i skolen?”. Norsklæraren 2(11): 15–22.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2014a: Kjære Rikard. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2014b: Jo får en venn. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2013: Jo og Jenny feirer bursdag. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2012a: Jo og Jenny på sykehuset. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2012b: Neste gang blir alt riktig. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2011: Jo og Jenny i svømmehallen. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2010: Familien Rotle besøker mormor. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2009a: Familien Rotle på museum. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2009b: Da jeg reddet verden. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2008: Familien Rotle flytter. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Ask, Lene 2006: Hitler, Jesus og farfar. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Bal, P. Matthijs / Martijn, Veltkamp 2013: “How Does Fiction Reading Influence Empathy? An Experimental Investigation on the Role of Emotional Transportation”. PLoS ONE 8(1): e55341.10.1371/journal.pone.0055341Search in Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, Simon 1995: Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA.10.7551/mitpress/4635.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland [1964]: “Bildets retorikk”. I: Knut Stene-Johansen (red.): I tegnets tid: Utvalgte artikler og essays. Oslo 1994. 22–35.Search in Google Scholar
Currie, Gregory 2002: “Imagination and Motivation”. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. New Series 102: 201–216.10.1111/1467-9264.00116Search in Google Scholar
Espeland, Anett Johansen & Bjørn Grimen 2014: “En historie om kjærlighet og savn”. Nrk.no, 13. juni 2014 [https://www.nrk.no/rogaland/misjonaerbarn-etterlatt-pa-barnehjem-1.11774353]. Lest 21.01.2021.Search in Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley 1980: Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA.Search in Google Scholar
Frafjord, Reidar 2010: “Misjonærsønnen Bertram Jensenius, hans familie og ‘Misjonsbarna på Korsteig’”. Mortepumpen 2(10): 11–13.Search in Google Scholar
Hallberg, Kristin 1982: “Litteraturvetenskapen och bilderbokforskningen”. Tidsskrift for litteraturvitenskap 3–4: 163–168.Search in Google Scholar
Hogan, Patrick Colm 2011: What Literature Teaches us About Emotion. New York, NY.10.1017/CBO9780511976773Search in Google Scholar
Iser, Wolfgang [1970]: “Tekstens appelstruktur”. I: Michel Olsen & Gunver Kelstrup (red.): Værk og læser: En antologi om receptionsforsking. København 1981. 102–133.Search in Google Scholar
Jensenius, Bertram 1973: Misjonsbarna på Korsteig. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Kidd, D. C. / Castano, E. 2013: “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind”. Science 342 (6156). 377–380.10.1126/science.1239918Search in Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Tomm 2014: Biskopens hemmelighet. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Malt, Ulrik 2018: “Empati”. Store norske leksikon [https://snl.no/empati]. Lest 21.01.2021.Search in Google Scholar
McCloud, Scott [1993]: Hva er tegneserier, oversatt av Alexander Leborg. Oslo 2016.Search in Google Scholar
Nikolajeva, Maria 2013: “Picturebooks and Emotional Literacy”. The Reading Teacher 67(4). 249–254 [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1229/full]. Lest 21.01.2021.10.1002/trtr.1229Search in Google Scholar
Nikolajeva, Maria 2012: “Reading Other People’s Minds through Word and Image”. Children’s Literature in Education 43. 273–291.10.1007/s10583-012-9163-6Search in Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1997: “The Narrative Imagination”. I: Martha C. Nussbaum: Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Cambridge, MA & London. 85–112.10.2307/j.ctvjghth8.7Search in Google Scholar
Palmer, Alan 2004: “The Fictional Mind in Action”. I: Alan Palmer: Fictional Minds. Lincoln, Neb. 205–239.Search in Google Scholar
Sandve, Gerd Elin Stava 2014: “Misjonsmarken i svart-hvite ruter”. Dagsavisen.no, 13. juni 2014 [https://www.dagsavisen.no/kultur/boker/misjonsmarken-i-svart-hvite-ruter-1.285233]. Lest 21.01.2021.Search in Google Scholar
Shaw, Matthew 2015: “Children’s Animal Tales”. British Library, 10. november 2015 [https://www.bl.uk/animal-tales/articles/childrens-animal-tales]. Lest 21.01.2021.Search in Google Scholar
Sontag, Susan 2003: Å betrakte andres lidelse. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter 2002: Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction. London.Search in Google Scholar
Udir 2016: “Håndtering av kriser og sorg i barnehagen”. Utdanningsdirektoratet [https://www.udir.no/laring-og-trivsel/stottemateriell-til-rammeplanen/kriser-og-sorg-i-barnehagen/Handtering-av-kriser-og-sorg-i-barnehagen/].Search in Google Scholar
Vermeule, Blakey 2010: Why do we Care About Literary Characters? Baltimore, MD.10.1353/book.3505Search in Google Scholar
Vågnes, Øyvind 2014: Den dokumentariske teikneserien. Oslo.Search in Google Scholar
Wall, Barbara 1991: The Narrator’s Voice: The Dilemma of Children’s Fiction. Basingstoke.10.1007/978-1-349-21109-8Search in Google Scholar
Zunshine, Lisa 2017: “Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness”. I: Lisa Zunshine (red.): Introduction to Cognitive Cultural Studies. Baltimore. 193–213.Search in Google Scholar
Zunshine, Lisa 2006: Why we Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel. Columbus, OH.Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituaries
- In memoriam: Klaus Düwel
- In memoriam: Julia Zernack
- Editorial
- Kenningstudien
- Kenningstudien
- Kennings and variability
- Kennings for ‘raven’ and ‘eagle’
- Riddles and Kennings
- Kennings in Old English Verse and in the Poetic Edda
- Kenningar in den metrischen Runeninschriften der Wikingerzeit und des Mittelalters
- “The fair draught of Óðinn”
- Articles
- Lene Asks Kjære Rikard som utgangspunkt for utvikling av emosjonell literacy og mentaliseringsevne
- Den kriminelle romanen og leseren
- Reviews
- Harald Bjorvand/Fredrik Otto Lindeman:Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok
- Helge Sandøy, Agnete Nesse (eds.):Norsk språkhistorie. Bd. I Mønster (681 S.), Bd. II Praksis (684 S.), Bd. III Ideologi (548 S.), Bd. IV Tidslinjer (798 S.)
- Katharina Fürholzer:Das Ethos des Pathographen: Literatur- und medizinethische Dimensionen von Krankenbiographien
- Leonie Krutzinna:Der norwegische Schwitters. Die Merz-Kunst im Exil
- Rebecca Merkelbach:Monsters in Society. Alterity, Transgression and the Use of the Medieval Past in Medieval Iceland
- Kim P. Middel:The search for self-awareness. The road to national identity on Iceland, sæc. xiii–xx
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Obituaries
- In memoriam: Klaus Düwel
- In memoriam: Julia Zernack
- Editorial
- Kenningstudien
- Kenningstudien
- Kennings and variability
- Kennings for ‘raven’ and ‘eagle’
- Riddles and Kennings
- Kennings in Old English Verse and in the Poetic Edda
- Kenningar in den metrischen Runeninschriften der Wikingerzeit und des Mittelalters
- “The fair draught of Óðinn”
- Articles
- Lene Asks Kjære Rikard som utgangspunkt for utvikling av emosjonell literacy og mentaliseringsevne
- Den kriminelle romanen og leseren
- Reviews
- Harald Bjorvand/Fredrik Otto Lindeman:Våre arveord. Etymologisk ordbok
- Helge Sandøy, Agnete Nesse (eds.):Norsk språkhistorie. Bd. I Mønster (681 S.), Bd. II Praksis (684 S.), Bd. III Ideologi (548 S.), Bd. IV Tidslinjer (798 S.)
- Katharina Fürholzer:Das Ethos des Pathographen: Literatur- und medizinethische Dimensionen von Krankenbiographien
- Leonie Krutzinna:Der norwegische Schwitters. Die Merz-Kunst im Exil
- Rebecca Merkelbach:Monsters in Society. Alterity, Transgression and the Use of the Medieval Past in Medieval Iceland
- Kim P. Middel:The search for self-awareness. The road to national identity on Iceland, sæc. xiii–xx