Journal of Children's Literature

For Authors

Submit Manuscript

Manuscript Submission Guide

Submission Requirements

Manuscripts should not exceed 25 double-spaced, typed pages (inclusive of references and tables, but exclusive of any images). Use APA (7th edition) format. Please submit a single file which includes tables, graphs, and images embedded at the end of the document. If accepted for publication, we will request them as separate files.

The manuscript should be fully blinded, free of all authors’ names. Citations of authors’ works should appear as “(Author, DATE)” in the text and be listed at the top of the reference list. The author(s) must secure permission to include samples of student work, photographs of students, and any copyrighted work.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Children’s Literature should not be under review for publication elsewhere. In addition, manuscripts should not have been previously published in another journal.

All submissions should be made electronically through Scholastica. Authors will need to login to their existing Scholastica account or create an account as part of the manuscript submission process.

Additional Required Information
During the submission process, submitting authors will be asked to provide:

  • The names, email addresses, and school/professional affiliations of all co-authors
  • Short bios (1-2 sentences) for each contributing author
  • An abstract of approximately 50-100 words
  • An indication of the issue for which the manuscript is being submitted.

Editorial and Peer Review Process

Please note that our review process begins after the submission deadline for each issue (August 15 for our Spring issue and February 1 for our Fall issue). Although we are open to submissions throughout the calendar year, you might experience a lengthier response time from us if your manuscript has been submitted between these dates.

After each submission deadline, all submitted manuscripts will first be screened by the editorial team. Incomplete submissions will not be sent out for peer review. Any manuscript that is selected for peer review will be reviewed by at least two reviewers. Final decisions will be made approximately 8-12 weeks prior to issue publication.

The Children’s Literature Assembly is the copyright owner of all of JCL’s Content.

Manuscript Calls

Spring 2027: Open Theme (Submission Deadline: August 15, 2026)

The Open Theme of the Journal of Children’s Literature Spring 2026 issue reflects the incoming editorial team’s focus on expansive inclusivity, a framework that honors and welcomes a variety of topics, stances, approaches, orientations, and perspectives from those invested in children’s literature from empirical, theoretical, and pedagogical perspectives. Submissions might consider such questions as:

  • What patterns do you see in children’s literature across time and in the present that are worth illuminating and can inform theory, policy, and practice?
  • What are some urgent, vital issues relating to children’s literature you are experiencing in your work, inside or outside of classroom spaces, right now? How are you working to navigate troubled waters in the spirit of making “good trouble”?
  • In what ways can children’s literature speak to and/or raise critical awareness about significant human concerns?
  • How might young readers be (re)centered in our understandings of children’s literature, as well as our teaching and research around it?
  • What are the ideological messages embedded in and emanating from children’s literature?

We are especially interested in illuminating scholarship that contributes to timely, important conversations in the field.

For any questions, please contact jcl@childrensliteratureassembly.org.

Fall 2027: Themed Issue: Exploring the ecologies of human experience with children’s literature (Submission Deadline: February 1, 2027)

Our Fall 2027 issue invites manuscript submissions that engage with the theme “Exploring the Ecologies of Human Experience with Children’s Literature.” Human beings are deeply connected to one another, just as they are connected to the physical, transcendental, and figurative places they inhabit and traverse. Children’s literature can reflect, reimagine, and foster thoughtful exploration of the vastness of human networks and of the complex (inter)relationships woven into diverse ecologies. These ecologies encompass the natural environment, including particular habitats or climates and the creatures that inhabit them, (natural) resources, specific places and spaces, the planet, and the physical universe. They also include the social and cultural systems of humanity and the forces that influence them, as well as the ecologies of the human psyche in relation to our flights of fancy, creativity, and imagination.

Submissions for this issue might consider such questions as:

How do students, teachers, and librarians invite the world into their schools and bring their school communities into the world with the help of children’s literature?
How are educators nurturing creative, embodied experiences with children’s literature?
In what ways do children’s books construct and reimagine the interconnectedness of human beings and the diverse ecologies (biological, social, linguistic, etc.) they inhabit?
How do young readers engage with such books?
How can such books foster ecological awareness and ethical understandings of interdependence among living systems?
How are educators utilizing children’s literature to foster ecoliteracy and environmental and/or community activism?
Our theme for the Journal of Children’s Literature Fall 2027 issue, “Exploring the Ecologies of Human Experience with Children’s Literature,” reflects the editorial team’s focus on expansive inclusivity, a framework that honors and welcomes a variety of topics, stances, approaches, orientations, and perspectives from those invested in children’s literature from empirical, theoretical, and pedagogical perspectives.

For any questions, please contact jcl@childrensliteratureassembly.org.