Dr. Patricia Kennon, a lecturer in English Literature at Maynooth University in Ireland, received the 2019 Kenneth and Sylvia Marantz Fellowship for Picturebook Research. She will be studying the potential of historical picturebooks as aids for teaching historical concepts in preschool and elementary education. Kennon’s project explores how picturebooks set in the past can cultivate children’s metacognition.
“My time as a Marantz fellow will enable me to further my investigation of how these visual narratives might support child historian’s agency, critical thinking, and reflective constructions of historical knowledge,” Kennon says. As an educator in youth literature, she intends to integrate her project findings into her own pedagogical practice.
She plans to promote the use of historical picturebooks in her department at Maynooth University, the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education, and in departments at partner schools. “I hope that my research will make a valuable contribution to the fields of children’s literature studies, primary education, initial teacher education, and history education,” Kennon says.
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Endowed by Dr. Kenneth and Sylvia Marantz, the Marantz Fellowship for Picturebook Research supports the scholarly study of picturebooks. This fellowship encourages scholars from the United States and around the world to use the resources of the Marantz Picturebook Collection for their picturebook research.
Learn more about fellowships at the Reinberger Children’s Library Center.