A “dear friend” and their adult: who are the modern children’s local history books and guidebooks talking to

Abstract

The article analyzes how authors and publishers construct the addressee in contemporary Russian children’s local history literature. The study draws on the theoretical concepts of the implied reader, paratext, dual address, and the mediation of reading. The empirical basis comprises the author’s collection of 62 children’s local history books published between 2003 and 2025 in various regions of Russia. The analysis of paratextual elements (cover, title, introductory texts, instructions), structural parameters (syntax, format, narrative structure), and contextual conditions (modes of use, physical parameters) reveals a persistent contradiction between the ostensible and the actual addressee. Despite formal markers of “childness” — age labeling, playful titles, design style — the book structurally presupposes the active participation of an adult mediator as an interpreter, a guide, and an organizer. Theoretically, the study refines the concept of dual address in non-fiction children’s literature. Unlike fiction, where the adult is implicitly present, in local history books the adult is brought into the paratext and structure as a
necessary mediating figure. The proposed concept of the “invoked adult” captures this mechanism and simultaneously points to the implicit pedagogical function embedded in the paratext of such publications.

Keywords: children’s local history literature, children’s guidebook, implied reader, paratext, dual address, mediation of reading, invoked adult, family tourism, non-fiction children’s literature