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Part of
Emotion in Texts for Children and Young Adults: Moving stories
Edited by Karen Coats and Gretchen Papazian
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 13] 2023
► pp. 62–82

Chapter 3
Tengo Miedo

Evolving representations of fear in Colombia

Ivar Da Coll's Tengo Miedo [I am Afraid] (1989) was amongst the first picturebooks developed in Colombia. The picturebook dealt with naive fears of monsters that children might have at night, while it also reflected a publishing industry in its inception. In 2012, Ivar Da Coll published a new edition of Tengo Miedo. The illustrations are now metaphors for the fears caused by the country's internal war, violence, and natural disasters. This chapter examines the two editions of Tengo Miedo, comparing their image and text relationships, in order to analyze their social and historical contexts, as well as discuss the appropriateness of fear as a topic in books for young children.
Keywords: monsters, Colombia, peace, emotion, afraid, picturebook, war, fear, metaphors, peace-building, image-text relationship, violence, displacement, trauma, empathy, representation, conflict
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Tengo Miedo, two versions
  • Ivar Da Coll and Colombia's picturebook publishing industry
  • Tengo Miedo (1989), a picturebook of innocent fears
  • Tengo Miedo (2012), a reimagined picturebook
  • Two picturebooks with the same name: An analysis
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 6 January 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.13.03del
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