The Language of Picture Books

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The Language of Picture Books

• English 305
• Dr. Roggenkamp

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What is a picture book?

• Different from an illustrated text or novel
  with pictures
• Book in which illustrations and text are equally
  balanced, equally important
• Words depend on the pictures to tell part of the
  story, and vice versa
• Neither element can stand alone
• Together, they complete the storycreate a third
  story between them

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Pictures not a universal language

• Different cultures read or interpret pictures
  differently
• Children learn to read pictures based on the
  culture in which they live
• Perry Nodelman, Words About Pictures
• Maria Nikolajeva Carole Scott, How Picturebooks
  Work

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Reading pictures a learned process

• Pictures wont mean anything to a child until
  child is old enough to develop an understanding
  of its own environment
• Children seem to teach themselves picture reading
  skills at very early age
• Contemporary culture FILLED with visual
  imageschildren learn visual literacy long before
  they learn verbal literacy

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Do adults lose ability to read pictures?

• We tend to read just the words
• Children (especially pre-literate children) both
  hear the words and read the illustrations at
  the same timeget a much fuller sense of the
  picture book

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Picture Book Milestones

• 1658, Orbis Sensualium Pictus (Johannes Amos
  Comenius) argued by some to be first picture book
• 1744, Little Pretty Pocket Book (John Newbery)
• Other didactic books like Struwwelpeter (1845)

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Victorian Illustrated Texts

• Genre really takes off late 19th
  centurypublishing/printing changes make
  extensive illustration more feasible
• Kate Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott, et al.
• Illustration becomes associated with books for
  children
• Childhood as joyous pleasurable illustrations
  as joyous pleasurable
• Image Illustration by Kate Greenaway

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Format and First Impressions

• Books physical format directs our response to
  that book before we even open it
• Cover, shape, size, feel in our hands, kind of
  paper used, etc.

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Format and First Impressions
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Elements in the BookSpace

• Way type is laid out, spaced on page
• Borderswhite border or not, shifting borders
  (e.g. Where the Wild Things Are)

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Elements in the BookColor

• Different hues associated with different
  moods/feelings
• Greenpeacefulness, blueserenity or sadness,
  redanger, yellowhappiness, etc.
• Shadesdegrees of brightness or darkness. Light
  usuallyhappier mood dark usuallymore intense
  mood
• Saturationrelative intensity of colors. More
  saturated colors seem more vibrant, less seem
  more gentle

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Color . . .
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Elements in the BookShape and Line

• Rounded shapes associated with softness
• Straight, angular lines associated with rigidity,
  tension, energy
• Can strongly affect mood of story

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Elements in the BookShape and Line
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Elements in the BookArtistic Medium and Style

• Collage, oils, pastel watercolors, black and
  white line drawing, woodcuts, etc.
• Realistic, abstract, surreal, impressionistic,
  etc.
• Stylethe effect of all the aspects of a work
  considered together, the way an illustration or a
  text seems distinct or even unique (Nodelman
  283).
• Examplestyle of Beatrix Potter gentle,
  unsaturated watercolors, tiny size, small animals
  in human situations

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Style affects storyHymans Red Riding Hood vs.
Marshalls Red Riding Hood
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Elements in the BookVisual Objects

• Symbolsuse of cross, flag, tree, etc.
• Cultural codese.g. darkevil and lightgood
  slumped headsadness and uplifted headhappiness
  wolfpredator and bunnygentle, happiness
• Picture books both depend on and teach such
  conventional assumptions (Nodelman 288).

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Cultural Codes
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Other elementslight and shadow
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Other elementssize of figures

• Figures in relation to each other
• Size of characters in relation to background

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Other elementsfocus (close up shot vs. long
shot)
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Other elementsway movement is suggested
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Literary Elements of Picture Book

• Plottension, action, conflict closed ending vs.
  open
• Characterizationfull, round characters vs. flat
  characters dynamic vs. static
• Setting
• Point of viewthrough whose eyes is story told?
  Is narrator a character, or outside the action?

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Literary Elements of Picture Book

• Themeeven simplest picture book can offer more
  complex theme or significant meaning
• Importance of friendship family, role of
  imagination, life coming out of death, etc.
• Toneserious and somber, light and joyful, etc.
• What mood provoked in reader?

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TextContextSubtext

• Text
• The words themselves
• But also the conventions that readers
  observesymbolism, characterizations, genre,
  narrative style, open vs. closed ending, etc.

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TextContextSubtext

• Context
• Historical context in which work was created
• How is the text in community with the era in
  which it was written/illustrated?

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TextContextSubtext

• Subtext
• Ways textual elements and context work together
  to create meanings that are not always obvious
• What is the books possible ideology?
• Example The Story of Babar