SLIDING MAG

We invite you to join us in exploring the vast world of biographical children’s literature and media in SLIDING’s first issue of 2026. 

EXPLORE THE FULL ISSUE

Highlights from the issue

• 

  Jan 9

  Out of The Pit: Reflections on ‘It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth’ (2023)

  Content Warning: This article discusses depression and suicidal ideation.  It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (2023) is an autobiographical comic by Zoe Thorogood that made her a 6-times nominee for an Eisner Award. In this review, I discuss the relevance in her depictions of mental health and selfhood within her autobiography. I have […]

• 

  Jan 7

  Imagining My Grandmother on Social Media Today

  This editorial explores biographical media as a lens for understanding identity, memory, and childhood. By linking family archives with digital narratives, it highlights how storytelling mediates cultural self-representation, empathy, and historical interpretation, emphasizing the evolving impact of digital archives on personal and collective memory. I have always been fascinated by people’s lives. Not as a […]

• 

  Jan 2

  Puppets, summery Christmas and critical comments from the south: 31 Minutos and its Calurosa Navidad

  Spending the festive season in the northern or southern hemisphere (or near the tropics) has its differences. A bright sun, water balloons and watermelons are part of a non-hegemonic characterisation of Christmas that 31 Minutos, a children-oriented puppet show from Chile, depicts in its special episode. Here we explore the idea of their very hot Christmas along with other festive…

• 

  Dec 24

  12 Days of Sliding: Day 12

  12 Days of Sliding Day 12

• 

  Dec 23

  12 Days of Sliding: Day 11

• 

  Jan 14

  Breaking the Waves: Child Agency and Film Literacy with Ne Zha 2

  This essay uses the Chinese animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 to explore how children read films as actively as they read books. Through concrete viewing activities – from using posters and trailers to analyzing sound, emotion, and “what if?” rewriting – it shows how families and educators can nurture children’s agency and critical film literacy in everyday settings.

• 

  Nov 27

  The Forest of Fear: Teaching Kids to Read Fear (Gently)

  Fear shows up all across children’s culture—from picturebooks to audio books and games. This piece argues that fear can be taught as a literacy, using the forest motif in folktales to model safe, critical, and inclusive ways in which children can name, regulate, and discuss intense feelings.

• 

  Oct 27

  The English Teacher of Pop: How Taylor Swift Turns Literature into Lyrics

  This article analyses how Swift uses literary reference (in The Fate of Ophelia and beyond), how she renders everyday emotions in lyrical economy, and how her work echoes the silenced women in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. In doing so, we see how Swift becomes a modern poetic interpreter — the English teacher of her audience, whose songs invite…