Åse Marie Ommundsen is Professor of Norwegian literature in the Faculty of Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet), Norway. She holds a doctorate in Scandinavian literature from the University of Oslo. Her interest in challenging picturebooks and picturebooks for adults has fostered publications in Norwegian, English, Danish, Persian, French, and Dutch as well as guest lectures and keynotes. She is the coeditor of Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education: International perspectives on language and literature learning (with Gunnar Haaland and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Routledge 2022), the editor of Looking Out and Looking In: National Identity in Picturebooks of the New Millennium (Novus 2013) and coeditor of two books in Norwegian. In 2013, she was awarded the Kari Skjønsberg Award for her research on children’s literature. She chairs the research group Challenging Picturebooks in Education.
ORCID: 0000-0001-5109-9766.
Gunnar Haaland is Professor of Religious Studies and Religious Education at NLA University College in Oslo and Adjunct Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oslo. He holds a doctorate in New Testament Studies from MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo (2006), contributed as a translator to the 2011 Bible translation of the Norwegian Bible Society, and was Barbro Osher Research Fellow in Memory of Krister Stendahl at the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem in 2010–2011. He has taught biblical studies, religious studies, religious education, and ethics for almost thirty years, mostly in teacher education programs, including fifteen years at Oslo Metropolitan University. He was cofounder of the research project “Challenging Picturebooks in Education” with Åse Marie Ommundsen (2014) and coeditor of Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education: International perspectives on language and literature learning with Åse Marie Ommundsen and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (Routledge 2022). His research interests and academic publications embrace ancient and current Judaism, Jewish–Christian relations, and receptions of the Bible in children’s bibles and picturebooks.
Eivind Karlsson is Associate Professor, lecturer at Oslo Metropolitan College. Editor of books about multiculturalism in the classroom and about food in children’s literature. Articles about children’s culture and children’s literature, in particular challenging picturebooks, and also articles about didactics in higher level teaching. Member of prize juries for Children’s literature and long-standing engagement in the annual Oslo Science Fair.
Colin Haines is an associate professor of English at Oslo Metropolitan University. He is the author of Shirley Jackson and Lesbian Gothic (published by Uppsala University in 2007). Since then, his research has focused on children’s and young adult literature as well as the Gothic. His most recent publication is “A Coming of AIDS Story: AIDS, Abjection, and Time in Abdi Nazemian’s Like a Love Story” (in The Routledge Companion to Gender and Childhood, 2025).
Åse Kristine Tveit is associated professor in Library and information science at Department of Archivistics, Library and Information science, Oslo Metropolitan University. She holds a PhD in the history of children’s libraries in Norway. Her research interests are primarily in children and reading, sociology of literature and children’s literature. Her publications include studies in library history, cultural policy and picture book reading. She chairs the research group Mediation of Culture and Literature at OsloMet.
ORCID: 0000-0001-6634-6109
Sabreen Selvik is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway (OsloMet). Her educational background is in the field of psychology and special needs education. She has several years prior work experience with children at refuges for abused women and at other institutions. She has written articles concerning children’s experiences of living at refuges and their experiences of schooling. Her research interests are in the fields of educational psychology, domestic violence and children, refuges for abused women, teacher-pupils’ interactions, conversing with children and children with special needs.
Marit Krogtoft is an Associate Professor at OsloMet – the metropolitan university. She has taught Norwegian language and literature in teacher education for 25 years, but the last three years taught Norwegian as a second language for international employees at OsloMet. After completing her PhD in 2019, she worked as an associate professor in pedagogy. Her doctoral thesis is about practical working methods in the Norwegian subject at lower secondary school, in line with the requirement from the white paper Stortingsmelding 22 in 2010/2011 (Ungdomstrinnsmeldinga) where the lower secondary school should be more practical and varied. She has taught both linguistic, literary and didactic subjects, explored and used Storyline and project work and published articles and book chapters. Her most recent publication is “Den naïve eksperten: kollektiv svarevne i rettleiing av studentar” (Scandinavian University Press 2025), where she is the second author together with Kåre Fuglseth.
Kari Mari Jonsmoen er professor ved lærerutdanningen ved OsloMet – storbyuniversitetet. Hun har toppkompetanse innen universitetspedagogikk og norskdidaktikk. Arbeids- og forskningsvirksomheten hennes handler i hovedsak om utvikling og videreutvikling av akademisk tekstkompetanse i studier og arbeidsliv. I tillegg har hun gjennomført studier av overgangen mellom videregående skole og høyere utdanning, samt arbeidshverdagen til universitetsansatte og lærere i grunnskolen. Med bakgrunn i egen og andres forskning har hun etablert en rekke tiltak for å sikre studentene et stødig studieløp, blant annet studieforberedende kurs, studieverksted, skrivementorer, skriveuka, språkmakkere og Norsk i sykepleie. Hun har vært sentral i etableringen av universitetets norskkurs for ansatte og deres partnere. Hun har publisert en rekke bøker og artikler; de fleste handler om skriving og norsk som andrespråk, mens noen også omhandler skjønnlitterære forfattere. Hun har vært norsklærer i videregående skole i ti år, og hun har hatt en kort periode som byråkrat, hvor hun arbeidet med å utforme kompetansepolitikk innen voksenopplæringsfeltet. Hun har undervist i norsk som andrespråk på alle nivåer.
Lillian Vikmoen er universitetslektor ved lærerutdanningen på OsloMet-storbyuniversitetet. Hun underviser på norskkurs for internasjonale studenter og ansatte. Hun har i over 20 år jobbet som lærer på norskkurs på alle nivåer, og har erfaring fra både universitet, høyskole og voksenopplæring. Hun er interessert i flerspråklighet, norsk som andrespråk og tredjespråk, og har undersøkt hvordan engelsk som andrespråk kan påvirke tilegnelsen av norsk som et tredjespråk hos innlærere som er i en tidlig fase i tilegnelsen av norsk.
Jeanette Helleberg Dybvik
Øystein Skundberg
Hilde Dybvik is an Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University. She teaches Norwegian at the Department of Early Childhood Education (ECE), both children’s language development, children’s culture and children’s literature. Her research interests include children’s literature, especially picturebooks, and children’s literature in the context of ECE. She has published articles on perceptions of children’s literature and reading practices in kindergarten, and also on picturebooks for the very youngest readers, the toddlers. She is the author of a textbook for ECE pre-service teachers Kommunikasjon, språk og tekst i barnehagen (2023).
Hilde Dybvik is also a literary critic of children’s literature, primarily picturebooks, and has published numerous reviews on www.barnebokkritikk.no. For three years, she served three years on the jury for children’s and young adult literature in the Brage Award (head juror for two years).
Mette Moe is an Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University where she teaches Norwegian literature and didactics at the Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education. Her research interests are children’s and young adult literature, literature didactics, explorative classroom talk and critical thinking.
She has a background teaching primary school as well as being a Norwegian teacher at High School level for many years. Mette is also a literary critic of children`s literature, primarily picturebooks, at www.barnebokkritikk.no