Children's experiences of co-creating texts: "Tiny Voices – Grand Narratives" as a case

Our paper addresses theoretical and methodological challenges when researching children's experiences of co-creating texts across generations, media and disciplines. The case study is the project "Tiny Voices – Grand Narratives" (2021-22) in which children aged 10-13 co-create narratives in different media in cooperation with professional authors and illustrators of children's literature, in the context of public libraries. The project relates to current discussions in children's literature studies and adjacent fields concerning the character of co-created texts, processes of co-creation, children as co-researchers, and their agency in that context (Ford Smith 2017, Deszcz-Tryhubczak 2016, Wesseling 2019). In our paper, we will focus on the conceptual and methodological consequences of combining elements of Marah Gubar's kinship model (Gubar 2016) with the methodological approach "Deep hanging out" suggested by cultural anthropologist Ben Walmsley (2018), which has been applied to a comparable project with children as co-producers in Scotland (Coban et al. 2020). On this background, we will discuss our preliminary findings concerning 1) children's and adults' experiences of processes of co-production, and 2) their view on the aesthetic and pedagogical qualities of co-produced children's literature across media, and 3) the consequences these preliminary findings may have for the development of the project.