Editorial

In this issue of Papers we publish essays based on a selection of conference papers at the Seventh International Conference of the Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research (ACLAR) held in Melbourne on 13-14 July, 2006. The cover of this issue replicates Kathryn James’s design for the conference programme, with its clever image of the ‘undercover child’ reading a comic. The theme of the conference emphasised newness: new texts, technologies, readings and readers, and the essays we present here traverse a variety of concepts and texts within this framework.