Art or pedagogy? : Contemporary reviews of picture books in daily press

The aim of this study is to examine views of picture books for children that reviewers in Swedish daily press express in their reviews in 2009 and 2010. The following questions were posed in the study: Are picture book reviews based on pedagogical criteria and/or aesthetic/literary criteria? Are picture books reviewed from an adult perspective and/or from a child perspective? Which elements of positive and negative criticism are to be found in picture book reviews? This qualitative study is based on 45 reviews of picture books in Swedish daily press. The theoretical approach is developed from four ways of looking at children literature that professor Maria Nikolajeva has compiled. The method used is idea analysis, which is a form of text-analysis. The results show that most of the reviews mainly were based on aesthetic/literary criteria, but many of them there were also based on pedagogical criteria. A common pedagogical criterion was if the book showed a desirable view or not. The results also show that there were both an adult perspective and a child perspective in the reviews. Positive and negative criticism indicated that a good picture book has an important message, provide a desirable view, and maintain high aesthetic/literary quality. In addition, it suits all ages, or is adapted to children