Shifting Geographies of Memory and Imagination: Transnational and Transgenerational Turns in David Almond’s <i>Paper Boat, Paper Bird</i>

By drawing on a multidisciplinary framework that spans authorship studies, cognitive studies, and children’s literature studies, this article explores the transnational and transgenerational nature of David Almond’s Paper Boat, Paper Bird (2022), a story based on an experience that Almond’s then seven-year-old daughter had during their trip to Japan. While research has been carried out in children’s literature studies on transnational memories being passed on from adults to children, memories with vectors from children to adults have not been explored as prominently. To approach the transnational and transgenerational turns in Paper Boat, Paper Bird, I make use of authorship studies to delve into how paratextual details, such as interviews and the afterword in Paper Boat, Paper Bird, function as forms of authorial intervention in our understandings of narratives. Then, I draw on cognitive studies to examine how a child’s memory witnessed by a parent can be described as an example of the observer perspective of memory. By examining these transnational and transgenerational turns, this article establishes why Almond shifts the locus of his imagination to another geographical region, while highlighting the importance of this shift being anchored in a child–adult memory.