The books children read are where imagination, identity, and power first take shape.
LETIN UNIPD is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Padua dedicated to children's and young adult literature as a major field of scholarly inquiry.
We bring together expertise in literary history, visual culture, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, gender studies, multimodality, reading research, and cultural history to investigate how literature for the young has shaped, and continues to shape, imagination, literacy, social awareness, and educational practice.
Research in Focus
All Research Fields →Educational Intervention Program for Gender Awareness through Biographies and Biofictions for Young Readers. Ranked 7th of 526 projects in the national call, the highest-ranked proposal among Italian universities. BIBI investigates how biographical and biofictional narratives can foster gender equality and inclusion in educational contexts.
An international collaboration on ecocritical pathways to children's literature in teacher education. The project's findings are now a landmark volume with Springer Nature.
A critical examination of how hope is conceptualised in picturebooks from European borderlands, exploring representations of war, ecological crisis, and gender narratives. Supported by a 2025 Arqus grant for empirical research across Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine.
The Team
Full Profiles →
Scholarship in Practice
LETIN UNIPD extends its research into workshops, public events, and school collaborations, connecting the rigour of academic inquiry with the needs of educators, librarians, and cultural institutions.
This commitment to impact defines a distinctive feature of the group: the capacity to generate sustained dialogue between research, teaching, and the public sphere.
Recent Publications
Full list →Alongside its scientific production, LETIN UNIPD is committed to fostering scholarly exchange across generations, supporting emerging researchers, and promoting transnational dialogue in the field.
The group maintains active collaborations with universities, research centres, and cultural institutions in Italy and abroad, generating impact across academic, school, library, and community contexts.
Postgraduate Course in Children’s Literature
An advanced training programme connecting rigorous scholarship with educational and cultural practice, open to educators, librarians, researchers, and all those working with children’s books.