Reading beyond belief: a framework for interpreting family lived religion in realistic fictional picturebooks

Purpose This study aims to support teachers introducing books depicting minoritized religious cultural events, holidays and traditions in their classrooms using a four-part interpretive framework. Design/methodology/approach This study introduces and enacts a lived religion approach for interpreting realistic fictional children’s picturebooks with religious cultural dimensions, through literary interpretation of one picturebook, The Beautiful Lady: Our Lady of Guadalupe, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher and written by Pat Mora (2012). Findings This framework reveals the diverse ways that religious community insiders may communicate and express their religious practices and belongings in realistic fictional children’s picturebook stories, while also highlighting the role of the reader as an interlocutor who inevitably brings their own experiences with religion into narrative interpretation. Originality/value The authors propose a lived religion framework, involving four modes of paying attention to religious cultural identity markers in realistic fictional children’s literature, as an alternative to a more belief-centric model.