Children’s picture books reflect changing attitudes to languages and can support revitalisation

Detail from the cover of Te Kuia me te Pūngāwerewere, written by Patricia Grace and illustrated by Robyn Kahukiwa. Author provided, CC BY-SA

We know from a wealth of research that children’s picture books support language learning.

During a fellowship at the International Youth Library in Munich, I had an opportunity to examine how languages are represented in multilingual picture books and how their use can reflect their changing status in a society.