Ep 19 Where is the Heart of the Child?: Discovering the state of childhood through stories and narratives curated in the Childlike Journal.

5:10PM Aug 18, 2021

Speakers:

Shelli Ann Garland

Ciara O'Siorain

Keywords:

children

childhood

journal

stories

book

read

fascinating

people

literature

thought

absolutely

childlike

text

themes

ciara

interested

adult

piece

abnormal

opus

Hello, and welcome to a dash of salt. I'm Dr. Shelli Ann and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you stumbled upon this podcast by accident, or you're here because the subject drew you in welcome. Salt is an acronym for society and learning today. This podcast was created as an outlet for inviting fresh discussions on sociology and learning theories that impact your world. Each episode includes a wide range of themes that focus on society in everyday learning, whether formal or informal. So let's get stuck in Shall we?

Welcome to a dash of salt. Today I'm joined by Ciara O'Siorain. Ciara is currently a master's in philosophy student at Trinity College Dublin studying children's literature. Her research interests are in depictions of monstrosity and child abuse narratives in modern children's fiction. She's a writer with the Museum of childhood Ireland, and an intern with the miracle makers production team, and the executive editor of child like a journal of childhood, which we'll be speaking about today. Welcome, Ciara. I'm really delighted to have you on the podcast.

Hi, thank you so much for having me, Shelli, it's great to be here.

And can you tell us a little bit starting off here about your background about yourself and about your programme of research? With Trinity?

Yeah, of course. So I'm just finishing up my master's. As I mentioned, in my brief bio, I've been studying children's literature throughout the pandemic with Trinity College. I've been interested in children's literature since second year of my undergrad. So it's kind of a no brainer for me to move forward to the Masters in children's literature. And the MPhil course is incredible. If anyone listening has considered joining it is like I really encourage you to do so. It's been the best year of my life so far, despite all the craziness of COVID-19. And throughout the year, I kind of became interested in looking at how certain childhoods are excluded, or kind of made abnormal, almost in texts, these kind of experiences, I felt were very commonplace ones that are the Messier bits of childhood kind of the weird kids in school, the kind of, oh, that kid doesn't have the right lunch, they don't have the right uniforms, they don't have the right wear. And there's this weird dichotomy that kind of crops up all the time. So I was kind of interested in researching this throughout the year, and finding what children's literature does to create this ideal of like the real child.

So that's really, really interesting. Um, so a lot of these things that pop up in like social justice education and trying to teach people to be more aware of the realities of life and social justice, but but you're not actually looking at that social just through the social justice lens. Specifically, you're actually looking at the reality of these stories, and why are they not depicted? Yeah, so tell us a little bit more about I'm really interested in in, you know, the content of your research thesis in these depictions of monstrosity and child abuse narratives in modern children's fiction. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so um, that's kind of like throughout my undergrad looking at, like modern horror fiction, like, I kind of picked a lot of modules that were like, coinciding by their children's literature, or I'd pick horror. So it was really weird thing to kind of write a lot of essays about, but like, as I'm reading, a lot of the theories at the time, like, there were so much like cohesion between these theories were like, how you depict a monster in power is very similar to how we then tried to portray a lot of moral ideas to children. And these like figures that are quite frightening, that are quite unstable and identity that don't really know who they are. So like a lot of modern horror kind of leans into tropes from mental illness, kind of like schizophrenia, like borderline personality disorder, and like a lot of these symptoms are then made monstrous to terrorise their audiences. And a lot of like, children's literature kind of does the same thing, especially with this modern narrative of like broken home children. There's like a lot of the same tropes where like the bad parent or the bad minder has like this divided identity, they have this unstable personality that is dangerous. And then the trope kind of starts to play with this notion of like, are they mad or are they bad? And then depending on how the text decides to look at this person, then we follow this thing of like, we need to institutionalise them, or we need to get rid of them, which is terrifying and it could make sense at all. Horror fiction because you're like, Okay, Frankenstein, or some zombie monster, like, that makes sense, we're gonna have to get rid of that thing, that thing that frightens us, that is a kind of self and other. Whereas in these narratives, it just felt super problematic. So a lot of my research now is looking at how, how did they come about in the first place? How can we look at them through a horror lens? And by doing that, can we stop?

And, you know, it's really interesting, because, um, you know, sometimes children, little children could never even be exposed to any type of horror or depictions of horror, whether in stories or movies or that kind of thing. But yet, you know, the nightmares. And monsters are very real to young children, where they, they they are scared often by things like that. Where do you think that comes from? And do you think that some of these depictions that are written about and brought up in children's literature and that type of thing, are based on some of the nightmares that children, you know, have?

Like, I think a lot of our use of children's literature, especially from where it came from, was a lot of folktales, a lot of folktales are about morals, they are about monsters and bad things in the woods. So there's, like a whole lot of that, that does come into modern children's literature still. But my, my problem, I think, with it is the depictions of, for what I'm looking at, for my thesis, it's all like female characters that are abnormal, that have kind of been either 'witchifide', like they're aligned with the witch, or they're aligned with this kind of bad mother, this kind of Earth mother who swallows back her young, who doesn't show warmth, she's just cold, like, dry Earth kind of mom. And I find it just so fascinating, because I'm like, it didn't really need to be done. Like, it doesn't have to be a witch, you have to make, like assumptions that this person is which like, you don't have to make her magic, you don't have to put these things into the text yet we have. So it's fascinating to like, think about, like, why what are we doing when we put these images into these books that have such a sensitive nature to them? What is the purpose of that?

Yeah, and even things like the books and the movies now like, even you know, it makes it You're making me think of the Uber popular Disney movies. You know, they always have that element of evil. And these children in these Disney, you know, stories lose parents, sometimes one sometimes both, you know, and there's always an element of evil or an evil person or an entity there. And while there might be a good ending, and a happy ending to the story, there's a lot of darkness that happens within the story that now children have to deal with. And, and, you know, I don't know if it's a society, you know, hoping that in some way that it's supposed to help children to deal with some of the dark things that happen in society. But I don't think that it works that way.

Yeah, like one of my, like, parts of my thesis is looking at the structures that surround poverty that surround child abuse that's around so many things that have a factor on how children become abnormal, or like become perceived of abnormal. And it's just fascinating, because so many of the texts that I'm looking at, even though most research coming out is like huh, abuse is classless it happens across all of their, like wealth divides. But they're all lower class families. And there has to be at some stage in the text, this reference to how bad the home is. That it's a dilapidated shack. It's a flat. It's council home. Like it's just so fascinating to me that there's like this build up first of how to make a home homely. And then we show that it's not a home the home. So surely the kids that are coming out of it can't be children. They can't be right. There's something wrong. So the text kind of works this plot around. Okay, well, we found the reason we're gonna say it's mom, we'll take that so mom is unwell she's got a mental illness or an addiction that has now made her monstrous. She looks monstrous in the depictions her hair is like she's super pale, she looks ghostly, these long fingers that are working irradically at what she's doing. And it's absolutely terrifying. Like, you're right. And most of the time, that's okay. Those are actually often realities. Sometimes that is how we perceive the situation's we're in. But the ends of the text, rarely ever give you a real conclusion. It's never Okay, well, we're going to be taken out of poverty. People have noticed this is really wrong. children shouldn't be raised in this environment. And we should be supporting families to be getting out of this. That is never what happens. It's like we'll institutionalise someone, they'll suddenly be right as rain and we'll just end the book there. I just it's crazy to me. So for me, it's like who is the audience of these who's buying it? Because people who've been through it don't buy that? You know? Yeah, absolutely. And that's what I mean. I'm like, why are you taking them? If the audience of the text isn't the person who's actually going through this, and isn't the child who is experiencing this, then you're taking the traumatic experiences of that group for wealthier class of people have more privileged class of children, for them to read, so they can experience it and be like, Oh, that's really, really bad, but it's not happening to me. So I can just believe the end of this book, close it over and get on with my life. Right? It just really fascinating like how, like, obviously, that's very much like, biassed I'm still in my research, but for me right now, so far, I just can't find anything that's like, countering me.

Yeah, you make a really good point there, though, that that, you know, are these books? And are these these, you know, elements of literature. And when it's supposed to be classless or classless society, it is very classist, and and you know, those people who aren't in those situations are reading, reading about it, and, and saying, Oh, well, that's not me. So I don't have to worry about it. But you know, and that's, that comes also from some of the folktales in the stories as well, you know, you know, only bad little children or only children from, you know, bad backgrounds and experiences suffer this type of ailment, or, or, you know, experiences where you don't have to worry about that, but take heed, and and listen, you know, because you don't want to be one of those children that gets stuck into that situation. And, yeah, so it's, it does seem to be a, you know, an issue of, of opposition, you know, when we really should be, you know, thinking about stories that build children up,

more modern stories coming out of like, the last 20, like years, there definitely has been a change, like, there's a lot more of like, we are socially accountable for these children. To know like this society is accountable. And it's not really on the school, specifically, this one teacher that we don't like, and it's not on this mother, and it's not on the children that are also in the home. So yeah, I do think there's like a great change wave, but it's like, interesting to note, there's not like enough research done on this specific time of like, where modern, it's like the early 80s, but it's just wild, the text coming out of it, it's absolutely fascinating.

And there's and just for the listeners, Ciara is, obviously, from Ireland, and I just wanted to give that piece of background there because, um, you know, Irish folk stories, and, and, you know, children's literature and stories that were told children in Ireland, over the many, many years have been often been very dark, and even the stories, you know, you're probably much more familiar with them than I am. But even the stories of, you know, the fairies, and from my perspective, in American perspective, I've would have never known that the story of sort of the fairies would have been had such a dark, you know, undertone to it, where I, when I moved here, and I heard about the fact that the story of the fairies is not, you know, it's not, they're not really told in a good, you know, a good space in place. So, you know, coming from there, I can see why that would be really, you know, fascinating and why, why you would be interested in this.

A lot of our beginning kind of folktale-esque things I grew into being children's literature are so dark, like they started off pretty dark, like across all cultures, but Ireland specifically has quite a few very dark mythological stories.

So I want to I want to actually get to talking about your this amazing publication that you've started. Um, I what I'd like to know is, you know what inspired you to start this, it's the childlike journal, and it's online, it's an online space. It's a very inclusive journal, where you have various bits of artwork, and you have some graphics, but then you also make sure that there's text available for that's very easily readable for people that, you know, have problems with reading the text in the graphic areas and things like that. So I'm just really curious as to what inspired that in you.

I think I was more inspired by the theories. I was reading, like, looking into children's literature, like historically was so interesting, and obviously I did a lot of it at undergrad level. But in masters level, I think, like, in depth luck was just mind blowing. And like, for me, it completely blew my mind that I have no idea what it is. The childhood is I don't know what children are. I don't even know what I would call children's literature like as Mr. Cook thing like, I don't know, it just seems like so far branched. So I think when I was starting child like, what really annoyed me was the sick use of like childish and childlike, that are somehow to do with children about how children as one massive homogenous group behave. But like, the ideas of being childish are so rude. They're so awful and like how people respond to being called childish, versus childlike, which is meant to be like, oh, inspiring and creative, and you're full of joy and love. And like naivety but a good 90. I just found it fascinating where it's like being child ish was like, you're gullible. You are self obsessed, you're self absorbed, you make selfish decisions. You don't know anything. That's like, how, how dare you talk about children like this? You know, I thought it was fascinating. I was like, I don't know a single child who can encompass all of those things, to get this kind of adjectives slapped on. Like, imagine we ever did adult ish. Judo of all the negative things adults do, we are far more selfish, we are far worse. I just found it fascinating. So I think I like opened up the journal trying to discover this kind of sense of what is child? What do we think of children? How do we think of our own childhoods? How does that apply to our art to our academic work? What do we look for in concepts of childhood? So I thought making like a multi-discipline kind of every form journal would kind of bring to light like intrinsic concepts about childhood, or like notions about childhood, and it has become more unstable. Spoiler alert, I have even less idea what any of it means.

So Well, okay, on the tail of that, with that whole idea that you know, you it's more unstable, and you don't have, you know, you have less idea of what that means? How do you actually come up with the themes and the content for the for for child like, and? And then also, how do you recruit your contributors?

So I've usually come up with themes by, like, whatever I'm reading at the time, like, a lot of the time when I'm doing my research, like, I'll be reading a theory that I think is just fascinating. So I think our last theme was about relationships between like adult and child in society. And I was reading like a lot of kind of classic children's literature theorists who kind of argue about how do adult powers influence the behaviour of children? And is there such a thing as a natural child in the first place, when all the time we are conditioning children? And if we're seeing something in children that we don't like? Is it our fault? Or is this like a reflection of how we're behaving? What we're modelling for children? So I was really fascinated by this kind of like ideas of how do we influence our own ideas, childhood because it's a concept that benefits us really. And so when I opened it up, I wanted to expand on a section I already had, which was like big kids think big thoughts, where I kind of, I anonymously survey the public, to see what they thought of childhood, what they thought of childlike what they thought of selfishness and childlessness, and whether they thought like their interconnections between these concepts. And that was really fascinating. So I wanted to open that even wider, usually, it just took up like a double page spread. But I opened it to an entire interview series, and this one, and I found it fascinating. It was brilliant. So it's really exciting sometimes like the themes kind of lead to even better content for me. So I'm excited for the next one. The next one is basically because of how much work I've been doing on my thesis, the only theories I've been reading are about like abnormality of a lot of Foucault. So I said, I'd open it up as a theme on the abnormal across all boards doesn't matter what it is, if it's somewhat tied to childhood and concepts of being childlike. I want to hear it.

So the second issue of your of your childlike journal, included a series of those series of interviews that you were talking about. And then in addition to that, there were several short stories. Do you have a favourite from whether it was something that was said in one of the interviews? Or, you know, one of the short stories? Do you have a favourite? And what is it and why? Oh, it's

very difficult. It's very difficult. I think one of my one of the interviews, I found the most interesting because again, I do them anonymously, I just put it on a huge Google survey and I say, anyone who wants to answer it, you can answer it, you could outsmart full, you don't have to answer at all. But one of them, I found fascinating because it was from someone who'd been in hospital a lot as a child, like they were very sick. And like had a lot of hospital visits. And it was about role models. And how do you like I think the question was quite broad. It was just like, Did you have any role models growing up? And they were like, a lot of the time it was like doctors and nurses that like were interchanging all the time that I look up to but they were the people that I saw as part really were changing my life because they're receiving it. And I just thought it was such a like, fascinating thing because most people were like, Oh, my parents are not my parents or maybe a teacher. someone important, but I thought like, it's very rare you get to hear someone's firsthand feelings of of being a child and being sick. And so her interview was phenomenal. I thought it was just really fascinating. And looking at how a lot of growing up, it still kind of affects this like notion of like protection that we feel when there's like a sick child and the family, you want to protect them, and keep them safe and like, make a lot of decisions for them, which that completely changes how they feel about their own agency. She answered really, honestly on that, talking about how like, even as an adult people still kind of in her family Look at her like, okay, but maybe we should make that decision, maybe you don't know what's best for you. Even though she's a full adult now and isn't very sick and like has gotten a lot better in her life. I thought it was really, really interesting. And I think that probably is one of my favourite insights from the interviews. I loved the journal, like I really did love every single piece that came in. And like for the submissions, it was like I just kept making the journal bigger. Because everything that came through the submission box, I was like, Oh, I love this, oh, we can't not have this. But there are two stories. One was from my friend Jerry. And then another was from a very talented writer called rose that are in the issue too. But both of them wrote these beautiful reflective pieces about their fathers. And they have no idea about each other. They do not know each other, but they had all these beautiful themes that kind of like echoed off each other. And I love them. I love both of it. I was like this is going to be so good. I'm so happy to have them like so close side by side and the journal. They're really beautiful. I think I cried like a good few times going through the editing, reading.

Yeah. In the journal, I had a favourite. So I thought that's why it'd be fair enough for me to ask you what what your favourite was. But one of the short stories was by Ross Coleman, and it was the fundamental differences between adults and children. And it really captured my attention and in my imagination. Because this this story was very short story, I think it was only maybe two and a half pages. But it was just a moment in time from a very, very young child's perspective. And, and it was that interaction between, interestingly as well between a daddy and the child. And so you don't know if the child is is a male or a female. But you know, you know that daddy is the one that's nurturing and caring for him in this short little brief moment in time and this child is having that interaction and that experience with with his daddy who's rocking him who's feeding him who's reading him a beginning to read him a book that that's been read to him many times. But then there's also those things that are going on outside of his his little world with his daddy, where there's a knock at the door, or telephone call, I can't remember not knock at the door or a telephone call. And, you know, Daddy is interrupted by some something that the child is not really aware of, of but knows that his hearing that something, you know, not so pleasant is happening. But daddy's still making things very pleasant for him. And and, you know, it's it's almost like there's no The only thing that was frustrating, but was beautiful at the same time was that there was no real conclusion or no ending to this little short story and but it really reminded me that many of the memories and the stories that I think of like even in my own childhood, those moments are without conclusion. You know, you can't you might be able to remember those moments in time. But can you really think how did that actually conclude? What was the inclusion? And so I guess my question was, do you think that from you know, as the editor and do you think the author that that was intentional and and you know, what do you think about that story?

I love this story. I'm so biassed Ross is one of my like, very, very close friends, one of my best friends since the very start of undergrad and we kind of got close from sharing writing with each other we'd give like feedback we would read through each other's work we would change things up for each other try see what we could like do to get the published wherever. And I've just always had like insane respect for Ross's writings because it's incredible. It is so deft it has like such incredible subtlety throughout anything he's done that I've gotten to read. It's just been incredible. Like he's a poet as well and his poetry just has like three lines that will blow you away. So I was very biassed, when Ross decided to write it, I was like, so excited waiting on tenterhooks to see what it was gonna be. And I can definitely say that, like the ending that like uncertainty is absolutely classic Ross Coleman. And it's amazing like it. It's this perfect like you say it's just a snapshot. It gives you everything you need to know about this single tender moment, this agony and then the last lines are kind of just really phenomenal summation of being like a really good, I'm their parent, where it's like if the sacrifice is real. I've just went through something but I'm not going to take my stuff into my children. Like, I'm going to be there for my kids. This is brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Yeah. The standard was really high issue 2, Like everything that came into the submission box. I was like, Oh, my God,

it is really great. It's, it's so thought provoking. And with that being said, you know, what do you hope that the readers of of childlike, will take away from reading these stories that you that you present to them in the in the, you know, in the various issues?

Well, I think definitely first you to, like I kind of prompted people to just consider their relationships again, you know, I think like, it's very difficult to know what you're bringing to the table for the next generations people to come without reflecting on your own. Like, who influenced you? How did you become how you are today? What are the biggest values that you hold dear to you that you'd want to share with other people? And why? Why do you hold them? How did they come about? So a lot of like the journal was kind of With that in mind, it was kind of like, reflective pieces, it was kind of these real tiny snapshots from childhood that were like, so monumental and important for a lot of like the contributors. And that was what I really wanted. I really wanted to push that kind of like idea of like, you need to kind of reflect, and it's good. Sure. I mean, like, there's a lot of beautiful things that come from it like art, like this kind of the storytelling, these these captured moments that are really, really important. Yeah, so yeah, I think it was really, really important for me, to kind of push that I think I had it in my editorial as well, where I was very, I hate writing the editorial feats, like I really don't like that letters. Way too stressed out doing them. It's always like trying to find some connection roots of what I'm doing. And I'm like, it's actually about the art, like, I just want to talk about everyone else's art. The only reason this is like, so important to me put together is like, because I so desperately want to see other people's art about this stuff. And I want to see what people are writing about when I feel like the journal is like a really good way to like get it all together to see like that creative notion of childhood, that creative notion of like, how do relationships change us. And then you can also read about them in like the psychology essays we had made, like quite a few churches that address these. It's just fascinating. I'm just always so interested to see what people come up with

your letter, you know, as the editor is important, because, you know, obviously, you have a heart, a heart for this, right. And if you read something, and you know, as we were talking about some of these stories in these favourites, and you read something that moves you, you want to promote it. And so because you want others to read it and see, maybe it will move them differently, but but I think that what's the important piece is the movement in itself, you know, in whatever way it moves, somebody, you know, there's that hope that it does move them that it does impact them in some way. And so, you know, I feel like the letter your letter as the editor is it is important. You know, because you're presenting this for a reason, because it has moved you it has made an impact on you. And you are promoting these authors in these stories.

I think that's a great word movement. Like that's really what it is about. I feel like, often when I'm reading a lot of like, other kinds of journals, like a lot of literary journals, like there's very much like a static form to it, where it's like, this is what we're saying, This is what this author means. I don't know what anyone means most the time where they said, it's submissions, and I don't really want to, you know, I'm like I really like they want to tell me about what, like the background of this work is when we're editing and working on it. That's great. But I love that these texts are kind of so they're so relatable and also so vague. Yeah. Like they really could be anybody stories at any time. anyone's childhood, I find it fascinating.

Yeah. And that's the philosophy behind you know, behind that is that idea of, you know, let's just be thought provoking. And, and encourage the brain and the, you know, your mindfulness in what's within you to just, it, you know, to provoke thought to move you in some way. And I think it's brilliant. I think it's absolutely brilliant, lovely little journal. So, Kira, what do you have planned? You gave us a little teaser about it earlier on. But I want you to, to expand on it some more and tell me what do you have planned for issue three.

I'm very excited about issue three. So I'm obviously looking for a lot more of our like opinion pieces, we usually get in quite a few like creative works like writing or maybe like reflective short stories. And poetry. I always love seeing people's poetry. I've one friend who's been working on a art piece for quite some time now that I'm really excited about. It's like an inversion of a poem. But I'm not going to reveal it because I think it gets rid of like the whole theme. But she's basically flipped the children, the adults through the poem and drawn them out. And it is so cool. And I'm so excited to publish it. So that's gonna be quite a good piece that's somewhere in the middle. But I'm looking to see if we could do more of the interviews because I think even more like vague questions abnormality of normality in childhood, like, where do you internalise notions of what is normal? And what is normal for your family might be so different from my family, but I was still in that nice bracket of normal.

And also who, who was the decision maker as to what in childhood or you know, in in a child's life is abnormal? And isn't it? You know, who who makes that decision? And why do children care? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I would like to get a lot more child respondents, like haven't really had any like, it was one of the problems I felt with the last interviews was that like, a lot of the people writing that I like, saw the demographics of but not like the names or whoever they were, like, it was all quite far removed from what you would call as a state of childhood. Like, I think our youngest is maybe in their, like late 20s. So I'd like to get the kind of more modern childhood takes on what's going on for them now. So if I find a way to do that, I would be absolutely pleased.

So how can as I'm assuming you're not that issue three isn't ready to go yet, and that you're still looking for contributors? Or if issue three is closed? You know, how would a potential contributor contact you in so what's the process of getting an issue ready with potential contributors? Yeah, so

usually, we kind of clip put out a call out on our social media, they'll just be like, issue three submission box open rolling submissions. Because of last year, I had so many deadlines with Masters that I was kind of like, this is the deadline. This is where it ends, get it in before them. But this year, I'm much freer. I get to kind of decide my own decision. So I'm going to just have it as a rolling submissions. December is when we must publish something. But yeah, if anyone's looking to submit anything, the theme is on the abnormal and can be interpreted however you wish like I love seeing psychology, I love seeing English history essays, personal reflections, opinion pieces, drawings, poetry, creative writing, you name it, I want to see it. So submissions can be made by email to childlike journal@gmail.com. If you have any questions as well, you can always chat to us on Facebook or Instagram, as well at chocolate journal.

Kara, do you have any further recommendations for somebody who might be listening? any book recommendations or things that you might like to to inform our listeners about that might be interested in finding out more?

Yeah, absolutely. So if anyone listening is interested in kind of the study of childhood, and historical documentation of childhood in Ireland, there's an incredible project called the Museum of childhood Ireland, that I really, really do recommend you go and look up. So they are kind of working towards documenting or recording lived childhood and childhood experiences. So looking at how the education system in Ireland has been, I even wrote a piece about the work of Tony Flynn, who's this amazing researcher, I just think he's phenomenal, who looks at marginalia and the potter collection. So finding the writing of real children in the like descriptions on in the like margins texts, and trying to find out more about their lives, or where they got the book from or like what if they wanted an affair if they wanted a school contest? That's just absolutely fascinating. So there's a piece of the website at the moment. That's all about his work. And I really do recommend you read it. It was phenomenal. I was so so excited to interview him. Yeah, and then some book recommendations. I think from the master's programme this year, there have been some incredible books I've read so one that I wouldn't have really come across myself, because I'm not mad about teen literature. The kind of like romance stuff isn't really for me. But this book blew my mind. It's called full disclosure by Cameron Garrett. And it's absolutely incredible. And then more on my side of things with picture books, anything Oliver Jeffers does I just love, but specifically this moves belongs to me, just like has a special part of my heart like I have laughter so much of that book throughout the year. gd Baker's belonging is incredible for eco pedagogy. I just absolutely adore that book. Every time I look at it, there's something new I find. So that's kind of like a wordless picture book. And it's just beautiful, like documents how people coming together can change their environments for the good, and it's just beautiful. Another text I love is Fun House by Alison Bechtel. I know. It kind of like is on that verge of like a teen adult text, but it's like a graphic novel. It's a full comic. And it's just amazing. It's so good. Like the what I've recommended to everyone I know, this year, regardless whether they're into children's the journal, I'm like, this is so good. This is just such a good book. I'm trying to think what else I absolutely loved this year. One thing that wasn't in the course, but I just, I just loved it. I saw it in a bookshop and just picked it up and I've marvelled at it every day for how beautiful it is, is the wander and it's by Peter Van den Enden were found on end and I think is probably how he says his name, but it's just phenomenal. It's just so complex and stunning and it's just like monochrome graphic texts. That's just, oh, amazing. It's kind of Reminds me of like Shawn Tom the arrival. But far more like widespread pages. It's just beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Have you heard of the book? Good night Opus by Berkeley Breathed? No, that was a book, I need to get my hands on it again. I one of my older my older grandson has it now, but I want to get my own copy again. I was one that I used to read to my my boys, when they were really little. And Berkeley brothers did Opus, I don't know if you ever remember the old cartoons. And again, I'm talking from an American perspective. So he met, you know, his little newspaper cartoon may have never made it over. But if you googled Opus, is he's kind of like this some. I don't know what opuses like a sort of like a duck thing. Maybe like a platypus, kind of, I don't know, I don't know what kind of characters. But anyway, it was, it's been a long running cartoon and newspapers back in the US. The Opus cartoons. And Berkeley, wrote this book called Good night Opus. And I could actually, without even having the book in front of me now I've read it so many times to my boys, that I can still remember exactly how the story goes from page one all the way to the end. But it is the most wonderful little children's book that is devoid of, you know, monsters, it's more about fantasy and going on adventures when you know, you, you know, you go go to bed at night. And you know, some of the adventures that children think about when they they go to bed and you know, Opus goes, you know, and it goes up to the moon and the Milky Way. And there's the cows and the Milky Way. And it's a really great children's book. So I just thought, you know, you telling me all about you these amazing books that I'm going to look into, from your perspective, I thought I wonder if you know about sort of this one, but definitely it is a fabulous fab and it has such and I know you have a little nephew, it would be a fabulous book for you to get your hands on and and read to him because it's just, it's slightly his slightly poetic and prose to the story. So it is easy to memorise it, and to really enjoy it that way. So anyway, there's my recommendation to you, and anybody else listening. Um, so Ciara, as we come to an end here, I always like to ask my amazing guests. If you have any final words of wisdom or advice. Maybe for you know, anybody who again, might be interested in publishing your journal, or just maybe getting into writing. In general, um, do you have any words of wisdom?

Wow, that's tricky. Um, I think for the journal, if you look like if you want to get published, and you want to send it into us, I absolutely just recommend even emailing me to tell me a rough abstract of what you're going to do. Like even if you don't think you're going to get it then until the day before we publish. Just once I know there's work on the way I can keep it up for you. So I think that's like always my big days, like, I'm always like, just tell me it's coming. Like once I know it's on the way that I don't have to like worry about it. Whereas like, if someone's like worried that I won't have it in time, like we can work together, like all the time, like I love working with people to get their pieces to publish ability, or getting to like a publishable quality. So that's my one thing for if you want to get into the journal, absolutely do just email me talk to me, if you need more clarity, like clarity on what the topic is, hit me up and let me know. And for writing and stuff, it's very hard. I think this year, I've had the most amount of like imposter syndrome ever, just because I've had so many, like really phenomenal opportunities given to me that it's kind of just threw me away where I'm like, wait, I'm not actually, I don't know, any of these things. Watch. Even when it's my work, like I know, it's my work I'm presenting on I'm like, Oh, I don't I don't know what I'm going to do about this. So one piece of advice I was given this year, which I thought was brilliant is that if you're experiencing imposter syndrome, it's like often the effect of having been put in a bigger pond. And that the pond that you were in before is far too small for you. You've outgrown it, you're now in this big pond. And that's absolutely scary. And yes, there are bigger fish around you and you might feel like you fit in, but you don't literally fit anymore in the old pond. Like this is where you belong. And if you keep swimming, you keep growing, you keep learning, that'll be where you live, you'll be happy there. There might even be more ponds to grow into. Which I think is really like comforting when you do feel that like Oh God, like, I don't know how I'm gonna get through this. Like they don't. How do they pick me? I don't know anything like, I think knowing that, like you were picked by professional people to do the job to know. Like, they have far more experience than you and they wouldn't have picked you if they didn't think you were able for it. So yeah, I think that's like a great comfort for people who suffer like the imposter syndrome that I do.

You know, and it's a good That's a lovely metaphor, really to think about is that you know that if you've outgrown something You don't you don't often realise that you've outgrown it until you've you're looking at yourself thinking, Oh, wait, this doesn't fit right anymore, the fit isn't right. And you know, it's time to move into something bigger. So what a really lovely metaphor for growth rather than thinking about, you know, and that dialogue of imposter syndrome, actually thinking about the fact that you know, you're growing your you know, while it's painful, sometimes the growth is there. So, great, great, see great words of wisdom and advice. Appreciate that. Thank you so much, Ciara, for spending this time on a dash of salt and talking about your fabulous childlike journal and your journey through writing and education and sharing again, with some fabulous nuggets of wisdom as well. You know, I really appreciate you spending that time with me. And I will make sure to put your all of your contact information and how somebody can get in touch with you into the descriptor for the podcast. We'll make sure that it's there for you guys to reach out to Kira. And to Don't be Don't be afraid to do that. And I I'm assuming Ciara also that you don't it doesn't matter if they're they don't have to be Irish. It doesn't have to be Irish. It can be international anyone. Absolutely. Anyone. It's time to introduce everybody. Yeah, if you're listening from you know, Germany or from the UK or from, you know, Canada or the US and you're interested in, you know, what Ciara has to share in the child like journal, and maybe your own contribution. Please don't hesitate to contact her and to reach out. So Ciara, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me on. I've had such a blast.

It's been great. Thank you.

I hope that you've enjoyed this discussion on a dash of salt, a space where you'll always find fresh and current discussions on society and learning today. Season with just the right touch of experts in education, and a dash of sociological imagination. Please be sure to like and share this episode. And don't forget to subscribe to a dash of salt on pod bean so that you don't miss the next episode. Thanks so much and we'll chat again soon.