by Veronica Salinas
My name is Veronica Salinas. I am a writer and university assistant professor of children’s and young adult literature. I was born and raised in Argentina and immigrated to Norway 23 years ago. I work as a mediator, writer, and researcher at The Norwegian Institute for Children’s Books.
Waterlily on the Sea
This picturebook is the result of artistic research with refugee children recently arrived in Norway. As a writer, mediator, and researcher, I have met with more than 600 children, reading with them once a month for over ten years. All of them were refugees from wars and conflicts around the world. Some had arrived with one or both parents. Forty per cent of them lived in Norway without their parents. They were between 10 and 20 years old. They spoke Spanish, Arabic, English, Tigrinya, Korean, Polish, Turkish, Thai, Bantu, Dari, Farsi, Filipino, Ukrainian, Kinyarwanda, and Amharic. So many parts of the world suddenly united in one Norwegian classroom! Our literary gatherings took place in the school’s Norwegian classes. The young people had lived in Norway for two to three years, and all had completed a basic Norwegian course.
Group of teenagers part of the research. Photograph by: Tord Paulsen
Through dialogic reading, I tried to provide these children, with altered narratives and undergoing very difficult processes, with tools to continue writing their stories in this new context, in this new country: Norway. Dialogic reading has been an important tool and foundation for my artistic research, and the foundation of “Waterlily on the Sea” (Magikon Forlag 2024). The book was developed between 2022 and 2024. During this period, I worked with 60 refugee children and young people. I met with them once a month. Together, we read literature in Norwegian and discussed the literature we covered. In the project, I investigated the following questions: How do young people who are on a short stay in Norway experience group reading and independent reading of texts? How could I create a close dialogue with them?
Dialogic Reading
The method I used was dialogic reading. I applied it both as a read-aloud methodology to promote vocabulary and language use in children and as an artistic method for collecting data. Dialogic reading was developed as a reading program that encourages parent-child interaction (Whitehurst, 1988). Unlike traditional reading, in dialogic reading, the child plays a more active role, and dialogue about the book’s content is facilitated before, during, and after reading. Through reading, the child becomes the narrator and contributes their own perspective, rather than passively listening while the adult reads and recounts. A key principle is that the mediator asks questions and encourages the child to tell the story, reversing roles so that the child becomes the active protagonist. The difficulty of the questions is adapted to the children’s varying language abilities.
Two teenagers from the reading group. Photograph by: Janne Gravdal
In my case, we initially began with open-ended questions to invite them to immerse themselves in the story, and then gradually encouraged them to participate more. I also followed up the dialogue with individual questions at the end of each reading session, where we worked on words and phrases. I had deep and important conversations about migration with the children. After the reading sessions, I took notes and interviewed them about their experience with dialogic reading. For some of the children and young people, the group discussions about the literature were meaningful and formed an important part of their learning. At the same time, I recognized that each carried their own experiences, and the responses they gave to the stories were linked to their own past and present. Many were traumatized and had experienced distrust of adults and the world. Some children had already “shut down” and become “silent.” They were stuck, like ships in a storm, unable to find their way back. But how could we, through literature, create a safe space where their story, their journeys, could be discussed? In response to meeting these young people, I wrote “Waterlily on the Sea.” The story is based on the children’s real-life experiences. Their words were the basis for the poetry and narrative of the book. I tried to create a narrative space where they could express the unspoken, a form of narrative that connected loss, trauma, and the refugee journey with the hope for a future, based on the possibility of “safe” places.
Boy part of the reading group holding the picturebook “Waterlily on the Sea” . Photograph by: Verónica Salinas
Children refugees of war
In Waterlily on the Sea, the protagonist leads an ordinary life with her mother in a city, but war suddenly strikes. She is forced to leave and must do so alone. She embarks on a dangerous journey and eventually arrives in a new place. The protagonist will continue her life in this new place, where she will likely have to learn a new language, new norms, make new friends, and build a new life.
The picturebook format was my first artistic choice. In a picturebook, text and images allow for interpretation, giving each reader space to fill the pages with their own story. It is also a book in which children can rely on the visual elements if they don’t recognize or understand all the words. The question I asked myself was: Can we, through text and images, create balance within a heavy narrative?
I wanted to find an art form that addressed a journey through the body. Some young people have described powerful experiences of how these bodily sensations manifested. Some have said they felt their bodies fragment during the escape. Others have recounted how powerful it was to receive physical help from others. Suddenly, it can have a huge impact to have someone hold your hand, or to be allowed to sit next to someone you don’t know, but who offers a moment of help.
Double-spread of the picturebook “Waterlily on the Sea”. Illustration by: Narges Mohammadi
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian illustrator
The book’s illustrator is Narges Mohammadi, a visual artist and illustrator based in Iran with more than 30 children’s books published internationally. She shares her name with the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Narges Mohammadi fights against the oppression of women in Iran, for human rights and freedom for all. Our book addresses the issue of children in crisis, boys and war, girls and war. Furthermore, the creative process has been marked by another dark undertone: violence against women in Iran. I remember one night, a few years ago, when Narges wrote: “The girl in our book should show her hair. And her hair should be long.” I said it was a great idea. A few months later, I read the news about the situation in Iran: women under surveillance, restricted freedom of expression, silenced, and minors sentenced to death. The crime? Showing too much hair. I texted Narges: “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand the context when you said, ‘The girl in our book should show her hair.’ I don’t want you to do anything that will put you in danger.” She replied: “The girl in our book shows her hair. This is important to me.”
Narges has done a wonderful job. She has created a strong protagonist; despite the tragedy she is experiencing. Since the book is based on true events, I have reflected a lot on how I handle the stories I have heard and the trust between the children and me. The story doesn’t directly expose any of the personal stories I have been told but rather represents all the stories I have heard.
Double-spread of the picturebook “Waterlily on the Sea”. Illustration by: Narges Mohammadi
Children’s response
When I tested the book with the children during its development, they had varied reactions. Some focused on the text, others on the images. I share a few quotes from the children: “I recognized myself in her. Although I came over the mountains, I travelled by truck and flew to get here. Not by boat. But I also had a similar journey.”; “The book is beautiful and sad. Like life can sometimes be.”; “I think it’s a fun book to flip through, and it was almost a little scary. It’s scary to take journeys like that. It’s scary to experience change, and that’s conveyed very well in this book.”; “There are many children who travel alone, like the girl in the book.”; “The images are very good. Sometimes they helped explain that she is alone. When everyone is holding on to each other, I could see that she is alone. I felt the loneliness in the image.”
The children’s comments illustrate the point that literature is a space where we can find ourselves. Waterlily on the Sea has become what anthropologist Michèle Petit, in her book The Art of Reading in Times of Crisis, would call a “lap” experience (Petit, 2009). When you sit on someone’s lap, you are held. You are surrounded by two loving arms, you feel warm breath on your neck, and you hear kind words in your ear. Even if our voices were close, a lap would undoubtedly be the favourite place for any child, especially one who has experienced one or more major crises.
If we start from the theory that the way society receives refugees is crucial to their subsequent telling of their own story, I have enormous hope in literature as a place of encounter. Literature, with its transformative power and as an act of love, as philologist Irene Vallejo (2019) describes: “If someone reads for you, they desire your pleasure. Reading is an act of love and an armistice amidst the struggles of life.”
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