The metaphor of mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, within the context of reading, was conceptualised by Bishop (1990). Through this metaphor, she underscores how books as mirrors allow readers to reaffirm their identities (Botelho 2021), as it allows them to reflect on their own experiences and familiarities and see themselves in the books they read (Bishop 1990; Johnson et al. 2018). She further explains that as windows, books afford readers a glimpse into real or imagined, strange, or familiar lives of others, and finally as a glass sliding door, books offer readers the opportunity, metaphorically to enter the worlds created and recreated by authors (Bishop 1990; Botelho 2021; Johnson et al. 2018). This analogy emphasises the importance of diverse literature in promoting self-identity, empathy, and cross-cultural understanding for young children, and according to Harris (2007:153), this analogy is a ‘succinct metaphor for some of the primary purposes of sharing multicultural literature with children’. We deemed this sharing of multicultural literature important for the Grade 4 Saudi boys, who were the participants of this study, as we believed that it may widen their worldviews, enrich their personal growth and social consciousness, and their understanding of global issues. Similarly, we believed that exposure to and engagement with the real and imagined realities as presented in Journey to Jo’burg was important, as it may afford the participants a space to examine their own privileged realities and all that it affords, in comparison to those of marginalised communities.

This book could provide a metaphorical window into the lives of children elsewhere (Cahill, Ingram & Joo 2021). And the desperation of the characters in Journey to Jo’burg could also make them aware of the emotional and psychological impacts of injustice and poverty. This is important because the primary schooling years present a crucial period for shaping children’s understandings of equity and justice (Adams, Wilson & Patterson 2024), and the engagement with diverse, multicultural literature allows them to encounter possible societal issues in a safe space, as books in a way create a buffer since there is no direct personal risk for the reader (Husband 2019; Lysaker & Sedberry 2015; Witherell 2025). But it does afford the reader a window through which to view these issues, a mirror to see themselves in the text, and a glass sliding door to enter the experience, because engagement with these types of text allows young children to see themselves as agents of change who can build a more equitable and just world (Hayes & Francis 2024).

Much of the literature using Bishop’s metaphor of mirrors, windows, and glass sliding doors suggests the importance of diverse literature, where the readers can see their reality reflected in the story (Monoyiou & Symeonidou 2015). This is particularly important for minority groups who may have been overlooked in the children’s literature canon (Herb & Betts 2024). Children are more motivated to read and respond with empathy when they recognise themselves in the text (Cahill et al. 2021).

The call for more diverse, multicultural books in schools has gained momentum over the last few years, which may suggest a move towards more inclusive literature and literacy practices (Botelho 2021; Monoyiou & Symeonidou 2015). This is important because books have the ability to inform the formation of children’s views about the world, and by exposing them to diverse accounts, they may learn to foster an appreciation for people, cultures, realities, and experiences that are different from their own (Cahill et al. 2021; Monoyiou & Symeonidou 2015).

Diverse literature is also important as it challenges and encourages readers to critically think about societal norms, inequality, and issues related to justice (Chaudhary 2018; Herb & Betts 2024) which was particularly important for this study where we explored how Grade 4 learners from wealthy, privileged backgrounds responded to portrayals of injustice and poverty as presented in Journey to Jo’burg. We were interested to see how their privileged lived realities manifested in their responses in relation to socioeconomic disparities, empathy, and advocacy for social justice. Engagement with diverse, multicultural representations serves as a bridge which connects readers to different, real or imagined, realities - [thus different realities, real or imagined], fosters empathy (Colosimo 2024; Newstreet, Sarker & Shearer 2019) and promotes dialogue (Moreillon 2013; Ntoulia 2022).

The notion of empathy was important for this study, as we believe that when people view the world through an empathic lens, they can show a greater appreciation for differences, are more compassionate and understanding of the world, and in doing so, may advocate for social justice (Cahill et al. 2021). While we acknowledge that this is somewhat idealistic and at odds with Boler’s (1999) position that empathy also involves a call to responsibility, we also recognise that these were young boys embarking on their own reading trajectories and beginning to take up positions in the world.

Over the last few years, there have been calls for nurturing and fostering of empathy among young readers, which, according to Edlins and Dolamore (2018:302), is the ability to ‘recognize, understand, and respond to the feelings of another’. Diverse literature serves as a medium for readers to step into the different real or imagined realities as presented in the texts, encouraging them to understand and appreciate the feelings of others (Junker & Jacquemin 2017). When readers engage with narratives, not only do they learn about the triumphs and struggles of the characters but also reflect on their own emotions (Jarvis & Gouthro 2019) and, in this way, transact with the text (Rosenblatt 1994). A study conducted by Thompson and Lee (2014) showed that engagement with diverse literature fostered empathy and reduced prejudices. Similar results were found in a study conducted by Brown and Fogg (2017), but it also found that by taking an empathic position, readers experienced greater cultural sensitivity and social responsibility, that is, a desire to advocate for social justice.

This engagement with diverse literature is best utilised when young readers can talk about their interpretation of what they read and listen to those of others (Mart 2019). In this way they can clarify their thinking, take a moral stance, and further develop their capacity for empathy. Research conducted by Chambers (1993) noted that participants expressed that they did not know what they thought about books unless they could talk to their peers about it. Thus, in this way then, the conversation around the books becomes equally important as the book (Scheckle 2022). To facilitate this engagement around the text, we established a reading club.

Reading clubs, sometimes referred to as literacy circles (Daniels 2023) or book clubs (Jocius & Shealy 2017; Petrich 2015), are an empowering, communal literacy practice which centres the reader as an active agent in the process of meaning making from text. An important element within school-based reading clubs is the shift in agency from the teachers to the participants which was a deliberate motivating strategy informing reading club interactions (Scheckle 2022). This study adopted a stance that reading clubs, like literacy circles, focus on the transaction between the reader and the text, where the readers’ prior knowledge, experiences, emotions, and their standpoint in relation to what is read as well as their interactions with peers are at the forefront in relation to making meaning and responding to texts (Rosenblatt 2014). In this transactional nature of reading, Rosenblatt (2014) underscores the active agency of the reader in relation to what they respond to. This is referred to as the efferent-aesthetic continuum where, in the former, the reader focuses more on the literal meaning of the text and, in the latter part of the continuum, the reader focuses more on the emotions evoked from reading and the connections they choose to make (Rosenblatt 2014).

By focusing either on the nuances of literal text or moods and emotions evoked by the text, or somewhere in between, the reading becomes both a flexible and personalised experience for the reader as an individual and for the community of readers as a collective. This may help to facilitate introspection and personal growth. For this study, the continuum presented an opportunity for the Grade 4 Saudi boys as individuals and as a community of readers in the reading club, to reflect on both the literal and emotional layers as portrayed in Journey to Jo’burg which may have encouraged them to think more critically and compassionately about social issues (Jocius & Shealy 2017). Results from studies conducted by Clarke and Whitney (2009) and Herb and Betts (2024) found that engagement within in a reading club can support young readers to engage more deeply with the text as they explore multiple perspectives and get to reflect on personal values, especially in instances where injustice and inequality are portrayed in the texts.

This engagement can be empowering for the readers as they negotiate the meaning they ascribe to the text, and the meaning others in the community of readers ascribe to the text, which may lead to deepened understanding (Scheckle 2022). In this way, the conversation between the members of the reading club brings the text to life as meaning is negotiated and multiple viewpoints are shared (Petrich 2015). In this manner then, reading clubs empower the reader to critique the world, question taken-for-granted practices, and advocate for social change as they negotiate and renegotiate meaning (Jocius & Shealy 2017).

As a method for data generation, we established as reading club as a type of focus group discussion. Building on the ideas of Wildemuth (2016), we positioned this as a space where a group meets to discuss and comment on topics relevant to the subject of the research, drawing on prior knowledge and lived experiences. This group discussion format created a safe space where participant contributions were valued (Kromhout & Scheckle 2021) to highlight the individual perspectives of those involved. Although the participants were all emergent bilinguals–with English being highly developed for academic and transnational mobility– we adopted a model for talking about text as proposed by Chambers (1993), but adapted it for this study to stimulate discussions and support participants in their responses. We deemed this necessary not as remedial action but because we believed that emergent bilingualism does not imply complete mastery of language practice, especially for the reading club setting, which was a new way of engaging with texts for them. In this way, it functioned to scaffold and provide language frames that supported deeper comprehension and purposeful engagement.

The first level of discussion relates to sharing enthusiasm - singular which relates to participants sharing what the story was about, what they liked and disliked. The next level of discussion relates to sharing puzzles: at this level participants share what confused them about the text and where their peers try to clarify these confusions. The third level of discussion relates to sharing connections: at this level, participants share what emotions were evoked while reading and discussing the story. They also share if they made any personal connections to the text. The last level of discussions relates to sharing development where participants share what they would change about the story and why, or any personal actions that they may consider. Participants were of course not bound by this model for talking about text, but instead it provided a support to enter the conversation. The Chambers model also provided a scaffold for the learners to frame their responses and allowed them more agency to participate and share, especially the connections they made.

Ten participants assented to join the study and are distinguished by pseudonyms, namely Georgy (9 years old); Kai (10 years old); Pink Panther (10 years old); Greg Heffley I (10 years old); Greg Heffley II (9 years old); Captain Underpants I (9 years old); Captain Underpants II (11 years old), Spiderman (11 years old); Max (9 years old); and Harry Potter (10 years old). All pseudonyms were selected by the participants. Participants met for 12 weeks in a comfortable space in the school library to read and discuss books. Engagements were audio recorded and transcribed. During the first 6 weeks of the reading club, participants were allowed to choose and read any books they wanted to. This enabled them to become comfortable with the reading club space and to develop the practice of reading beyond academic purposes. Besides being motivating, choice in the books to read was a recognition of their agency as readers. In weeks 7–12, participants read and discussed Journey to Jo’burg, which is the focus of this article. In this way, a safe space had been created in which the learners had agency to choose books and develop a voice in response to books (Scheckle 2022).

Ethical clearance to conduct this study was obtained from Nelson Mandela University Research Ethics Committee (Human) (No. H18-EDU-ERE-024). Consent to conduct research at the school was granted by the school principal and the guardians of the participants. The participants themselves also signed assent forms. Pseudonyms were applied for the school and participants for confidentiality purposes.

During discussions, it appeared that the participants became aware that what appears to be commonplace for them was not necessarily the lived realities of others. In Chapter 1 we were introduced to Naledi and Tiro and their plan to travel to Jo’burg to find Mma because of their sick sister, Dineo. Many of the participants commented how unfortunate the family’s situation was. Kai noted that he felt, ‘sad for Naledi and Tiro’s family who are poor, they can’t even take sick Dineo to the hospital’. Pink Panther remarked how fortunate they were at Red Sea International School to have a medical doctor on site and if they felt unwell at home, they could just get into their cars and drive to the hospital, while Naledi’s family did not even have money to take Dineo to the hospital. These reflections reflect empathy and positions the participants to consider the experiences of others more thoughtfully. The story also notes that Naledi and Tiro had to walk for about 2 h daily to get to and from school to which many commented that they could not imagine walking so far every day and how fortunate they indeed are. Max commented that, ‘every morning, the driver waits for me and we have the perfect temperature in the car’. In this way, participants are possibly beginning to understand that people’s backgrounds shape their lives in many ways. Again, in Chapter 5 participants expressed how fortunate they were compared to some of the experiences Naledi and Tiro had to endure as made explicit in the text. Harry Potter commented that, ‘their father died, they were poor, they do not live with Mma and they walk for 2 h every day. We are lucky teacher’.

Harry Potter’s comment suggests an increased understanding of how his family’s economic situation positively affects his life and how Naledi and Tiro’s family’s situation affects theirs which has also led him and other participants to approach the family’s situation with empathy rather than judgement as found in Herb and Betts’s (2024) study. Conversations around privilege came about again when the participants read about Mma’s employer and where she lived.

Georgy commented that, ‘it almost sounds like our houses here in Jeddah; so the description provided a mirror of their own reality. Closely linked to their perceptions of privilege was that it helped foster an awareness of more social justice and global issues.

Participants appeared to show an increased awareness of concerns extending beyond their local circumstances. In Chapter 2, the author notes that black South Africans had to carry a ‘pass’ when moving about in South Africa. Many of the participants showed disdain for this with Max equating it to ‘being a prisoner in your own country’. Kai responded to this by saying that many countries have a ‘pass’ system and noted that, ‘like here in Jeddah, foreign people must carry their iqama’ (an iqama is an equivalent of a work visa). This seemed to provide a puzzle for the boys as Pink Panther countered this by stating that the pass and the iqama are not quite the same thing, as in Saudi an iqama is only issued to foreigners to show they have legal status in the country whereas in South Africa, ‘the people who were born there have to carry it’. This discernment showed that participants became more critical in their responses and were able to show more compassion, and in a way, take a moral stance in relation to injustices.

In Chapter 3, the text recounts that Naledi and Tiro were helped by a farm worker where they were given shelter for the night. The farm workers are described as living in sheds, which led to Harry Potter’s discomforting comment that ‘sheds are for tools and animals’. Georgy followed this up by commenting that ‘white people were so bad to black people’. Later in this chapter we read that the farmer carried a gun. Greg Heffley II responded to this stating that this reminded him of how ‘people in America can just buy guns and shoot anyone’. Greg Heffley II obviously thought that this was problematic and this response may suggest an increased awareness of social justice issues and a heightened understanding of policies and their implications. At the start of reading club engagements in week 10, participants were talking about how ‘freaked out’ they would be if aliens lived alongside us.

This prompted Pink Panther to comment that black South Africans who experienced apartheid were ‘like aliens in their own country because they were not free, they could only move where the pass allowed’. This comment again spoke to how reflective many of the participants were in their responses and to how they internalised the practices in the reading club by making connections, in this instance a topic of interest to them and the lived experiences of people in apartheid South Africa.

A desire for the well-being of others was also a concern for the participants. In Chapter 3 we encountered the farm worker who sneaked Naledi and Tiro onto the farm and allowed them to eat as many oranges as they wanted to have. Participants expressed their joy in this with Harry Potter commenting that, ‘now they will be full’ and Pink Panther cheering, ‘go Tiro, go’ when Tiro was described as over-indulging in the oranges because of his desperation to eat. The camaraderie and kindness shown by the farm worker appeared to have resonated with the participants. In relation to the truck driver giving Naledi and Tiro a lift, participants showed concern for the children as the truck driver did not take them directly to Mma in Parktown, Jo’burg. This presented the group with a puzzle which provoked a group discussion about the extent of the driver’s help. Max commented that the driver was ‘irresponsible for leaving the kids by themselves’. Georgy countered this by stating that the driver surely had a job to do and therefore could not take the kids directly to Mma. Max did not agree with this and interjected by saying, ‘What if it was you? What if you were Naledi and Tiro, would you not want the driver to take you where you must be?’ This concern for Naledi and Tiro’s well-being showed the participants’ awareness of social issues and people’s need to feel safe and cared for.

In Chapter 6 the participants encountered a not-so-friendly bus driver who scolded Naledi and Tiro for trying to board a ‘Whites-only’ bus. Participants commented on how frightened Naledi and Tiro must have been as they find themselves in an unfamiliar big city. Harry Potter commented that, ‘he should have been more kind to the kids because he understands what it is like for a black people because he is also black’. So, for Harry Potter the way in which the bus driver reacted lacked empathy and was devoid of care. Kai, however, felt that, in his own way, ‘the driver was looking out for them because maybe they can be arrested for getting on the bus’. This deep reflection from Kai shows a great deal of maturity and personal growth and echoes Denham’s (2024) observations of empathy for characters within stories. This discussion of multiple viewpoints and deep engagement with the text is an example of what Mart (2019) terms ‘quality talk’.

One of the most striking things about this study was some of the connections students made in relation to the text. At the beginning of a session, which usually began with the researcher reading a chapter and inviting the boys to comment, Pink Panther asked to share something that had worried him. In Chapter 1, Mma, Naledi’s mother, is introduced as a domestic worker who works for a white family in Jo’burg, far away from her own. In relation to this, Pink Panther stated that Mma reminded him of his own nanny from the Philippines who lived with them. He shared that he was now concerned that ‘maybe she is sad because she didn’t live with her children’, and in puzzlement added that ‘she doesn’t talk about them a lot’. This was met with silence by the group as the novel held a mirror up for them to look at their own realities differently. Later, in Chapter 6, we were introduced to the Madam, Mma’s boss, who did not treat her very kindly. This served as another point of reflection for the boys who shared that in hindsight: they too treated their family’s domestic workers in a similar way. Georgy went as far as saying he felt ‘a lot of shame’ because of how he had treated their domestic worker from time to time. This recognition also served as a call to action as evidenced when reading and discussing Chapter 11, where Georgy remarked, ‘I should treat my nanny better’. This, we believe, was a moment of personal growth for many of the participants as it reflected deep engagement (Spirovska 2019) as well as critical insights.