CHAPTER 3: PICTUREBOOKS

Importance of Illustration and Text

1. Sense making

2. Words or pictures

3. Synergy = word+ pictures   

stitching together the words and pictures to make meaning

4. Three stories: words/ pics/ union

1. Current cultural emphasis

2. Visual communication

3. Parallel storytelling  

Contemporary Picturebooks

1.A sense of humor     

2. Interanimating  Empower readers to know more. Picturebooks motivate new interpretations of their style  

3. Discrepant text lead to an open ending  (some pics leave the reader with a different reality and to create their own closure for the story p. 51

4. Alternate perspectives

Systems for Text and Illustration

1. Symmetrical interaction

2. Enhancing interaction 

3. Counterpointing interaction

4. Contradictory interaction

Literary Elements and the Picturebook

1.Character

1.Round character

2.Anthropomorphism

      3.Continuous narrative  

2.Plot

*Closed ending

*Open ending: 

  less solution/many gaps and uncertainties

lead to an open ending (some pics leave the reader with a different reality)

lead readers to create their own closure for the story.

 ( similar values in quite different cultures)

3.Theme

Theme creates an understanding about life,

human nature or elements of society

courage, perseverance, tolerance, peace, 

hope, love, trust …

èCurrent issues è one central theme

è Identity / Process of discovering who I am

4.Setting

We “see” setting through words as well as pictures.

These books are classic examples of integral setting: both 

author and illustrator integrate visual and word pictures for 

a setting that is closely interwoven with character, acter,

action, and theme.

Example book: Mailing May 

5.Point of view

First-person:  I 

The Polar Express

Dual: first & third-person narration in the text and illustration

Mirror

The Snowy Day 

Objective: description / Omniscient: he “thinks” / he “knows”

Omniscient: he “thinks” / he “knows”

6.Style and Tone

1.Style: size, shape, materials

2. Tone: overvall feeling

Tone in a picturebook is generally an 

     overall feeling, frequently an emotional response created through the story’s resolution. 

7.Peritextual Elements

1. Intertextuality: how books relate to on another, 

    forms the basis of our textsets.

2. Transtextuality: the connections within and 

    across texts.

3. Paratexts: has become valuable as one of may 

    ways to work with their increasingly visual 

    nature.

 4. Peritext: includes features such as the dust 

     jacket, covers, title pages, casings, and 

     endpapers.

Artistic Styles

Impressionism:

Abstract

Summary 

Illustrations è literary elements

Illustrations è experience / pleasure / meaning

◍Illustrations impact each of these literary elements in varying degrees, depending on the relationship of the words and pictures.

◍As we contemplate illustration, we see it as an extension of experience, an additional source of pleasure but also an integral part of constructing the meaning of increasingly savvy picturebooks.