Picturebook between Fiction and Reality

Smiljana Narančić Kovač, Full Professor, recently retired from the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Croatia, where she taught courses on children’s literature and was Head of the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature and Culture (2018–2023). She is the Editor-in-Chief of Libri & Liberi.Nikola Novaković is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Croatia, where he teaches courses on English literature, children’s literature and picturebook theory. His fields of interest include humour in literature, especially children’s literature, picturebooks, comic books, and graphic novels.

• Picturebooks Between Fiction and Reality: An IntroductionSmiljana Narančić Kovač and Nikola Novaković1 When Reality Steps In: The Ontological Status of Reality in Narrative Picturebooks Smiljana Narančić Kovač2 Books, Toys and Drawings as Portals to Fantastic Storyworlds in Greek Picturebooks: Metafiction at WorkChryssa Kouraki3 When Geometrical Forms Come Alive: Abstract Shapes as Characters in PicturebooksBettina Kümmerling-Meibauer4 Nested Anthropomorphisation in Anthony Browne’s Picturebook Willy the DreamerNikola Novaković and Ivana Domitrović5 Fictional Cities between Utopia and Dystopia. Architectural Imagination In Picturebooks by James Gurney, Jörg Müller, and Shaun TanJörg Meibauer6 Fictionalising the Book-Object in Nostalgic PicturebooksAngela Yannicopoulou7 Even Children Know This! Product Placement in Croatian Picturebooks between the Two World WarsIvana Milković and Sanja Lovrić Kralj8 The Definition of Magic: Between Fact and Fiction in Children’s Picture DictionariesSarah Hoem Iversen