LLED7335e Reading Picturebooks Response 1

(Dr. K - Hope it's okay if I borrow a little of this blog space for another class!)  

There were many significant concepts from the reading. I thought the "Proclamation" summed a central one up pretty well, which is to respect the children these books are for! Seems obvious, but based on the readings, we adults have a habit of viewing children and their child-like perspectives from a deficit lens. However, "Children's books merit grown-up conversation” (Proclamation).

Picturebooks can also add complexity and nuance to text through the visual cues. Nodelman writes, “The pictures in picturebooks are almost always more complex, more detailed, more sophisticated than the texts are” (Nodelman 17). This seems especially true in graphic novels, of which there are many examples of gorgeous and conceptual artwork paired with simple and sometimes minimal text. In the Wondrous Wonders by Camille Jourdy, there are entire pages with no words at all and the narrative must be carried through the images, requiring the reader to switch gears and attune to something other than text to derive meaning. 

I also enjoyed the concept of postmodernism in picturebooks and immediately recognized some of my son’s (age 4) favorite titles to be among these. Serafini and Blasingame talk about the playful and self-referential nature of postmodern children’s books, writing “Self-referentiality is a literary concept by which the author breaks the traditional wall between the fictional world and the actual world of the reader by referring to oneself directly in the narrative” (Serafini and Blasingame 146). Breaking the fourth wall can be seen in my son’s favorite, Don’t Push the Button by Bill Cotter, where the monster, Larry, pleads directly with the viewer not to push the button we see on the page. The multimodality of this is a lot of fun with the reader getting to break into the story by physically interacting (pushing the button, shaking the book, etc). Indeed, Goldstone adds on to this, explaining how postmodern children’s books “may display an unusual degree of playfulness, bordering on the absurd with unusual twists and turns” (Goldstone 198), which is exactly what this text does that delights me and my son so much to read it again and again. 

Adding on to the multimodality of these texts, in an upper grades classroom like mine, graphic novels can do a lot of heavy lifting.  I have worked with them before and agree that graphic novels can add complexity and new layers for readers for readers to interact with. While often given the reputation of being “easy” they actually can increase complexity when students are taught to use them more explicitly. Moeller writes, “multimodal reading skills require the reader to engage with the particulars inherent in each mode and negotiate them simultaneously during the reading” (Moeller 710). Check out this no words page in The Wondrous Wonders: The reader has to switch to observing each panel to get what happens when the ponies attack the party. 

Picturebooks can also develop empathy and social activism and provide windows and mirrors that honor and extend children’s experiences. Wissman was very passionate about her idea of “reading radiantly” but overall I appreciated her points. She says, “to read radiantly also means to be open to books that may take us outside of ourselves, our own experiences, realities, and points of view” (Wissman 16). A good example of this is a book I have taught before called Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie. It has some postmodern qualities - The text is presented in one layer then characters with speech bubbles are adding on - the little sister character tags along and chimes in, adding another layer and a playfulness to the story. It provides a window and slice of life for a modern Native American kid and can spark meaningful conversations about identity, culture, and even the meaning behind names. 

This page is a great example of that where we can see Thunder Boy sharing his love of his culture and his sister chiming in with her speech bubble to suggest his new name. So many great conversations can follow about culture, identity, and names. 

With all of these concepts in mind, I am excited to push for taking graphic novels and “children’s books” (in our library they label that section “everybody books, which I love), to take other areas of instruction to a higher level. Even talking about the features of postmodernism and having kids seek out their own examples would be an appropriate and challenging activity for 6th graders, plus allow them to delight in some beautiful books and worlds for a while.

References

Alexie, S. (2016). Thunder Boy Jr. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Cotter, B. (2015). Don't Push the Button! Sourcebooks, Incorporated.

Goldstone, B. (2004). The Postmodern Picture Book.

Johnston, A., & Frazee, M. (2011). Why We’re Still In Love With Picture Books.

Jourdy, C. (2022). The Wondrous Wonders (M. Kane, Trans.). First Second.

Moeller, R. (2016). A Question of Legitimacy Graphic Novel Reading as Real Reading. 

Nodelman, P. (2010). Picturebook Narratives and the Project of Children's Literature. In T. Colomer, B. Kümmerling-Meibauer, & C. Silva-Díaz (Eds.), New Directions in Picturebook Research (pp. 11-26). Taylor & Francis.

Sarafini, F., & Blasingame, J. (2012). The Changing Face of the Novel.

Wissman, Wissman, K.K. (2019). Reading Radiantly: Embracing the Power of 

Picturebooks to Cultivate the Social Imagination. Bookbird: A Journal of 

International Children's Literature 57(1), 14-25. 

https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2019.0002.