Reading and Reinterpreting Picture Books on Children’s Television: Implications for Young Children’s Narrative Literacy

Bookaboo is a television programme aiming to promote literacy and reading among young children. In each episode, a celebrity reads a book to Bookaboo, a dog who plays the drums in a rock band, in order to help him overcome stage fright. Using the episode featuring the picture book (Cowell and Layton in That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, 2006) as a case study, this article explores how this type of adaptation of picture books transforms the original narrative, with implications for children’s developing narrative literacy. Taking a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this study investigates the changes in meaning which result from the employment of semiotic resources such as animation, sound, and camera movement in the representation of the book on the television show. We argue that the deployment of such resources can subtly reshape the meanings expressed through the modes of language and images in the original picture book, potentially affecting the child viewer’s engagement with the narrative. Examining the use of these resources in the picture book’s televisual representation is thus an important first step towards developing frameworks for evaluating the ability of television programmes that incorporate picture book reading to support children’s literacy.     

The (Untold) Drama of the Turning Page: The Role of Page Breaks in Understanding Picture Books

While scholars have recognized the importance of page breaks in both the construction and comprehension of narrative within picture books, there has previously been limited research that focused directly on how children discuss and make sense of these spaces in the text. Yet, because of their nature as dramatic gaps in the narrative, page breaks offer unique and exciting opportunities to understand how children make meaning of picture books (Sipe in Storytime: young children’s literary understanding in the classroom, Teachers College Press, New York, 2008). This study explores how explicitly inviting young children to discuss page breaks offers insights into how these spaces function within the children’s readings. Drawing on transcribed audio-recordings of a series of read-aloud sessions held with a group of children ages five to eight, the analysis focused on coding themes within the children’s talk around page breaks in picture books. Specifically, the children referenced the role of page breaks as aesthetic choices; the utilization of page breaks to comprehend word/picture relationships; and the negotiation of these gaps in the story as they worked construct a cohesive understanding of the narrative. Overall, the data represents the rich possibilities for educators to include explicit talk around page breaks during picture book read-alouds as a pathway toward better understanding children’s sense-making of these texts.     

Evoking the World of Poetic Nonfiction Picture Books

An increasingly prevalent and accessible form of hybrid nonfiction picture books blends factual information with poetry or poetic devices to create literary nonfiction. This important form of hybrid text has been sparsely examined. This article addresses three questions about poetic nonfiction picture books: first, how might we categorize picture books that represent this hybrid text?; second, by what criteria might we evaluate the quality of these books?; third, based in Rosenblatt’s concept of reader’s stance, how might we read these books? The author develops a typology of six categories along a continuum from poetry to narrative or expository prose. He examines well-established criteria in the fields of picture books, children’s nonfiction, and poetry that can apply to poetic nonfiction picture books. He argues that in the best of these books, the poetry or poetic devices are synergistic with the content and raise the overall reading experience. The author also argues that, depending where along the continuum each of these books is located, a reader’s stance moves along the continuum of efferent to aesthetic experience. All these books demand a dynamic and recursive reading process. He suggests ways to work with teachers to teach deep readings of these books.     

‘Girls can like boy toys’: junior primary school children's understandings of feminist picture books

Few studies have examined children's understandings of feminist picture books, and thus their potential usefulness for disrupting dominant discourses and providing alternate storylines. This article draws on research conducted in Australia with a class of 6- and 7-year-olds, examining students’ responses to four feminist picture books. The students provided diverse responses to the books, at times reflecting what I viewed as the (feminist) messages of the books and sometimes picking up on other themes or (re)interpreting them as supporting dominant gender discourses. The challenges to understanding the books in straightforward ways related both to the books themselves as well as the gender discourses available to the students. This article argues that there are three key challenges to the feminist potential of these books: a reliance on categories of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’, children's lack of identification with book characters, and the influence of intertextual knowledge.     

Pictures in Books for Children at Key Stage 1: an analysis

The Department of Education and Science (DES) provided a graded list of books for pupils at Key Stage 1. These books tend to include pictures. Pictures have the potential to offer information which might be difficult to provide briefly or meaningfully in simple language. The pictures of the books on the DES booklist were analysed in order to gauge some aspects of their potential. It was found that, while most might serve as a second line of communication to facilitate the construction of meaning, they also fell into two distinct groups, one of ‘picture’ books and one of ‘word’ books. Writers and illustrators and those who select and grade books for young children might consider the attributes of word and picture together so that there is a smoother progression from one group to the other.     

Reverberating chords: implications of storied nostalgia for borderland discourses in pre-service teacher identity

The research that is the subject of this paper set out to interrogate pre-service teachers’ responses to issues of national identity, ideology, and representation in contemporary multicultural Canadian picture books. While the research focused on whether and how the literature could serve to inform and broaden pre-service teachers’ conceptualizations of diversity, we retrospectively decided to re-visit the focus group and interview data to know which of the 70 picture books had most engaged the teachers and why. We critically consider the implications of teachers’ attachments for social justice education and teachers’ cultivation of a critical, ‘borderlands’ discourse aware of self and open to others. The research suggests that a significant source of teacher knowledge and thinking is lodged in teachers’ personal memories of childhood texts, called touchstones. Touchstones were a place from which teachers implicitly began; certain stories struck particular chords, chords largely attributable to childhood memories. Most intertextual connections were personal, with some tangential to the text. While touchstones performed different functions depending on the subject position of the pre-service teachers, they pointed to the existence of an underlying position of teacher as nostalgic subject. Given the importance of this subject position for teachers’ responses to picture books, we explore critical reconceptualizations of nostalgia that can support the development of borderland discourses. We suggest that pre-service teachers need to be invited to individually and collectively examine their responses to both old and new touchstone stories. More nuanced research also needs to be conducted on the role of nostalgia in teacher formation, how it influences teacher practice, and how to best design teacher education courses to foster ‘borderland discourses’ related to the storying of teacher identity, especially with respect to popular ‘collectibles’ and core teaching texts like picture books.     

时光的裹挟与挽留——从图画书的叙事艺术论图画书的时间化特征

图画书中的时间是一种独立的个体存在,时间化是图画书的重要特征。在作品叙事过程中,情节设置、空间位移等方式推动了图画书的时间进程,细节、意蕴、画面效果等方式延滞了图画书的阅读时间。这种叙事特点增强了图画书的张力,提供给读者更广阔的理解想象空间。推动与挽留是各种叙事因素作用于图画书独立时间段的方式,使图画书叙事具有独特的审美价值和接受效果。     

The Picture of Madness–Visual Narratives of Female Mental Illness in Contemporary Children’s Literature

This article analyses a selection of contemporary children’s visual texts (for economy and specificity ‘contemporary’ is taken to mean the current century), covering a cross-section of age demographics to better understand how the texts depict female characters suffering with mental illness. It examines these primary texts not only to see how such characters are represented but also to see whether they either bolster or challenge the idea of the female being viewed as the male's ‘Other’. A brief historical and cultural contextualisation of the relationship between mentally ill females and the male-centric profession of modern psychiatry is followed by a close analysis of four primary texts, analysing visual narratives of mentally ill female characters in two picture books, an illustrated book and a graphic novel, noting how contemporary visual depictions contrast with early ideas and images supporting the nineteenth-century feminisation of madness. The conclusion is that, from the limited selection of texts analysed, contemporary children’s visual texts represent a clear contrast to the historical image of the frail and winsome madwoman. The findings are that they do not uphold the image of the female madwoman as Other.     

论无字图画书的叙事策略

无字图画书叙事的完成必须借助特殊的叙事策略.无字图画书的叙事策略包括图画聚焦叙事策略和图画情节完成叙事策略.图画聚焦叙事策略分为图画自身强化聚焦和标题聚焦两种类型.图画情节完成叙事策略要求情节因果链完整和短促.     

知青叙事里的“他者”和“局外人”——以张承志和《黑骏马》中的白音宝力格为例

知青叙事中塑造了许多“他者”和“局外人”形象,尤以作家张承志和其作《黑骏马》中的主人公白音宝力格最为明显。通过文本细读法,从“自我书写的‘他者’——找寻存在的‘局外人’——‘他者’和‘局外人’的精神复归”的过程来分析张承志的经历和展示《黑骏马》中的白音宝力格的情感经历,研究知青叙事里的“他者”和“局外人”形象,对于重返知青叙事、理解张承志作品的生命意识和人性关怀具有重要意义。     

Two daddy tigers and a baby tiger: promoting understandings about same gender parented families using picture books

There is a small body of work examining how picture books can be used with young children and their families to develop understandings of contemporary issues including diversity and practices towards inclusion. This article describes a study in one New Zealand kindergarten that explored teachers’ interpretations of children’s responses to a selection of picture books featuring same gender parented families. The research sought to go beyond traditional understandings of families and the dominant discourse of heteronormativity. Findings show that despite children reportedly being open to the possibilities of non-traditional families in their setting, and their play, teachers appeared hesitant to ask probing questions or fully engage with children’s thinking, or their own, to explore understandings in this area. Nevertheless, this research demonstrates that taking tentative steps towards making an alternative discourse available through the proactive use of curriculum resources does not have to be ‘difficult’ or ‘dangerous’. In inclusive educational settings, lesbian and gay headed families can be affirmed, and children can be supported to construct understandings about ‘family’ outside of normative boundaries.     

Popular histories: ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ in information books for children

UK government policy has increasingly emphasized the importance of learning in the home; and commercial publishers have not been slow to respond. There is now a growing market in popular information books targeted at parents and children. This article provides an analytical case-study of four such books on a common historical theme: ancient Rome. It addresses three main issues. First, it considers the epistemology or historiography of these texts, particularly in relation to their use of sources and their implicit view of what history (as a subject) is. Second, it discusses the pedagogic style of the texts, as reflected in their mode of address to the reader and their use of narrative and expository language. Finally, it considers the balance between ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ and the implications of using popular cultural genres as a means of representing the past.     

Choreography of Characters: Movement and Posture in Illustrated Texts for Children

This paper begins with the premise that very often, in analysing or just talking about illustrated books, one uses the word ‘movement’, or ‘motion’, to express the characteristics of a picture or a series of them. In the research literature, remarks on movement link with the dynamics of a story, depicting action, alternating situations, and the liveliness and diversity of the book as a whole. In regard to both pictures and texts, however, the concept of movement remains rather abstract and vague; we mostly talk about an illusion, whose origin is difficult to express precisely. This article discusses the concept of movement first in the broader sense and then seeks an alternative viewpoint on analysing movement in illustrated children’s literature. It particularly emphasises movement in relation to the characters, inspired by ideas from modern dance. Examples are drawn from the illustrations and texts of the Moomin books by Finnish artist and author Tove Jansson.     

Constructing impairment and disability in school reading schemes

This paper examines the cultural construction of disability detailed within school reading schemes. The study by the employment of proto-text analysis followed the ‘reading journeys’ that a four- and five-year-old child experienced during the course of one academic year. The study examined 61 reading books that contained 2199 illustrations, 100 photographs and 1006 pages of text. The major finding of the research is that the reading schemes contained a limited construction of disability and one that was contextualised within medical deficit and narrative prosthesis. The research concludes that school reading schemes are potentially acting as a Trojan horse to introduce a page thin hegemonic that inculcates young children into the systems of dominance and ‘ableist’ agendas which are seemingly replete in our society.     

Limitations of language: developing arts‐based creative narrative in stories of teachers’ identities

This paper is based on a multidimensional study employing a heuristic methodology termed ‘creative narrative’ that combines arts‐based methods with narrative inquiry. Six female teachers’ narratives of identity are explored through artistic, visual images to illuminate if and how they story ‘unconscious’. The creative narratives, illuminated through a multi‐layered extract from one creative narrative, illustrate various ways in which the participants imputed meaning and power to tacit and non‐conscious influences which were emotionally potent but previously hidden from themselves and others and that continued to affect their professional identities. The paper argues that such unconscious or non‐conscious dimensions to teachers’ lives are crucial to the experience and exercise of professional identity and yet are largely absent from our understandings and outside the capture of narrative inquiry as it is presently conceptualized. Narrative inquiry should strive to extend its theoretical boundaries and incorporate non‐verbal arts‐based research methods in order to go beyond the limits of language and capture the meaning of lived experience in more holistic ways.     

Narrative analysis: exploring experiences of observational drawing and dyspraxia

Narrative analysis offers a powerful and accessible means of understanding the ways in which individuals experience learning across a range of educational sites. Drawing on a recent study that explored ‘dyspraxic’ pupils' experiences of drawing from observation, this paper offers an insight into the potential that narrative analysis has for enhancing our understanding of the ways in which individuals experience complex contexts for learning, where the fields of art education, ‘special’ education and inclusion intersect. I argue here that a narrative approach can enhance our understanding of pupils' experiences of learning by a capacity to resist the compartmentalization of experience. The ‘natural’ drive to use narrative as an interpretive procedure for explaining departures from the ‘norm’ is also discussed, with the concepts of ‘breach and exception’ offering a useful frame for exploring the spaces between centres of practice in art education and the potentially ‘de-centred’ ‘dyspraxic’ learner.     

Do Worlds Have Corners? When Children’s Picture Books Invite Philosophical Questions

In this article, we want to present and analyse the picture book The World has no Corners (2006/1999) by the Norwegian author and illustrator Svein Nyhus. The book represents a new trend in Norwegian picture books for children by inviting the readers into a world of thinking and wondering about existential topics such as life and death, growing up and getting old, God, children’s relationship to nature, etc. The picture book does not give clear answers to the questions that are raised, but has a potential for exploratory dialogues between child and adult readers. In our analyses of verbal text and images—and the relation between these—we build on social semiotic theory by Halliday, Kress and van Leeuwen, reception theory by Eco and Iser, and aesthetic theory represented by Dewey and Rorty. Through analyses of some selected spreads, we want to show both the framework keeping the readers inside the text, and the indeterminacies inviting the readers to wonder and speculate about the questions raised. We also want to draw attention towards a special way of co-reading of the spreads. Compared with the process of reading picture books where the adults often confirm or correct the child readers’ way of putting their interpretation into spoken language, the co-reading between children and adults in this picture book seems to be rather existential and poetic as well as democratic. We will shed light upon this reading process, as we consider it as a way of the readers fortifying themselves into the world.     

The effect of narrative cues on infants' imitation from television and picture books

Infants can imitate a novel action sequence from television and picture books, yet there has been no direct comparison of infants' imitation from the 2 types of media. Varying the narrative cues available during the demonstration and test, the current experiments measured 18- and 24-month-olds' imitation from television and picture books. Infants imitated from both media types when full narrative cues (Experiment 1; N = 76) or empty, meaningless narration (Experiment 2; N = 135) accompanied the demonstrations, but they imitated more from television than books. In Experiment 3 (N = 27), infants imitated from a book based on narration alone, without the presence of pictures. These results are discussed in relation to age-related changes in cognitive flexibility and infants' emerging symbolic understanding.     

Baby Bear or Mrs Bear? Young English Bengali‐speaking children's responses to narrative picture books at school

This article presents findings from a one‐year study of several Bengali‐speaking children aged 5–6 years, in their first year of the English school system. The investigation centres on exploration of the children's responses, principally to the visual text, of a selection of narrative picture books used in their school. The aim was to collect children's responses to characters and visual features, and to see what narratives the children made from the picture books. The children, some of whom were relatively experienced viewers and narrators of picture‐book stories, produced varied responses to character and décor. The article suggests that the books formed a bridge between the known and the culturally unfamiliar, giving the children access to an understanding of scenes from types of homes other than their own. The author asserts the need to welcome children's versions of stories and their interpretation of pictures, and to allow them the opportunity to re‐read picture books many times.     

Narrative inquiry into (re)imagining alternative schools: a case study of Kevin Gonzales

Although there are many alternative schools that strive for the successful education of their students, negative images of alternative schools persist. While some alternative schools are viewed as ‘idealistic havens’, many are viewed as ‘dumping grounds’ or ‘juvenile detention centers’. Employing narrative inquiry, this article interrogates how a student, Kevin Gonzales, experiences his alternative education and raises questions about the role of alternative schools. Kevin Gonzales’s story is presented in a literary form of biographical journal to provide a ‘metaphoric loft’ that helps us imagine other students like Kevin. This, in turn, provokes us to examine our current educational practice and (re)imagines ways in which alternative education can provide the best possible educational experiences for disenfranchised students who are increasingly underserved by the public education system.