This book is based on the power of stories to support children in all areas of their lives. It examines the role narratives can play in encouraging growth in contexts and domains such as personal and family identity, creative movement, memory and self-concept, social relationships, or developing a sense of humor. Each chapter describes innovative and research-based applications of narratives such as movement stories, visual narratives to develop historical thinking, multimodal storytelling, bibliotherapy, mathematics stories, family stories, and social narratives. The chapters elaborate on the strength of narratives in supporting the whole child in diverse contexts from young children on the autism spectrum improving their social skills at school, to four- and five-year-olds developing historical thinking, to children who are refugees or asylum-seekers dealing with uncertainty and loss. Written by accomplished teachers, researchers, specialists, teaching artists and teacher educators from several countries and backgrounds, the book fills a gap in the literature on narratives.

…this work delves into the topic of narratives in young children’s lives with a breadth of topics and depth of study not found elsewhere.

Collectively, the insights of the contributors build a convincing case for emphasizing story across the various disciplines and developmental domains of the early childhood years.

The writing style is scholarly, yet accessible. Authors used a wide array of visual material to make their points clearer and show the reader what meaningful uses of story look like .

Mary Renck Jalongo, Journal and Book Series Editor Springer

Indiana, PA, USA