Staff Profile | English Literature, Language and Linguistics

Dr Helen King

Research Associate: Childrens Literature

Email: helen.king@ncl.ac.uk

I am a researcher in children's literature and its archives, and my work is largely contemporary in focus. I am interested in the contributions made by children to children's literature and culture, and the ways that these contributions show up in archives of childhood. My research is focused on the potential for adult-child collaboration in both literature and research, and participatory research methods within children's literary studies. My interests also include radical children's literature, refugee narratives in children's books, reader response, representations of trauma, and postcolonial approaches to children's literature.

I recently completed my PhD at Newcastle University, as part of a Northern Bridge AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books, UK. My thesis was an investigation of the work and archive of children's author Beverley Naidoo, entitled: "'We are the gift of life': exploring the political potential of childhood reading through the work of Beverley Naidoo'. This thesis used a mixture of literary, archival, and reader response methods of analysis to explore the mobilisation of the figure of the political child, with attention to the ways that real children speak back to Naidoo's work through her archive.

My current research is part of 'Beyond the School Gates', a Nuffield Foundation project investigating children's experiences of and views on community integration, with a view to how these findings can inform policy. This is a multi-strand project supported by The British Library and The Linking Network. My role on this project comprises an investigation of children's schoolwork from primary schools in the Northwest of England, exploring how children explore topics of migration, community, and belonging in the materials they produce in school. This research is mainly archival, but also includes observation and facilitation in the classroom, and some interviews with participants.

I am also currently carrying out research into collaborative intergenerational book creation, and the use of such texts in the classroom, in a project supported by the Catherine Cookson Foundation. In 2023, I co-ran a project to develop New Home, an original children's picture book written and illustrated by asylum seekers living in Tyneside. I am currently carrying out research in primary schools through Newcastle's School of Sanctuary scheme, gathering creative responses to New Home. This research is particularly interested in the ways that children believe refugee stories should be told to children, and how they use their reading to relate to others.