HUNT, Peter (edited by) 1999.

Hunt, Peter: Introduction: The World of Children’s

Literature Studies, 1–14.; Lesnik-Oberstein, Karín: Essentials: What is Children’s
Literature?
What is Childhood?, 15–29; Nodelman, Perry: Decoding the Images: Illustration and
Picture Books, 69–80. = Understatnding Children’s Literature, London–New
York, Routledge.
KIBÉDI VARGA Áron 1998. A műfajok multimedialitása, 161–176.; Szöveg és
illusztráció: A „Kis Hercegˮ ürügyén 152–160. = Szavak, világok: Esszék,
tanulmányok, Pécs, Jelenkor.
NIKOLAJEVA, Maria and SCOTT, Carole 2000. The Dinamycs of Picturebooks
Communication = Children's Literature in Education, December 2000, Volume 31,
Issue 4, 225–239.
NIKOLAJEVA, Maria and SCOTT, Carole 2006. How Picturebooks Work, New York–
London, Routledge.
RHEDIN, Ulla 2003. Reading guide for Where the Wilde Things Are by Maurice
Sendak,
Stockholm, The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
SALISBURY, Martin–STILES, Morag 2012. Children’s Picturebooks (The art of visual
storytelling), London, Laurence King Publishing Ltd.
STANTON, Joseph 1998. The Important Books: Appreciating the Children's Picture
Book as
gyermekkönyvek írójával = Jó Pajtás, 1984/1–2., január 12., 24.
használatok, Különnyomat, Szeged, Szegedi Tudományegyetem Kommunikáció- és
Médiatudományi Tanszék, 421–432.
Bader 1976, 1
A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and
a commercial product; a social, cultural, historical document; and foremost,
an experience for the child. As an art form, it hinges on the interdependence
of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and
on the drama of the turning of the page. On its own terms its possibilities
are limitless.
(Bader 1976, 1)

Translating Picturebooks
All in all,
a picturebook is a multimodal entity formed by the verbal, the visual, and
the aural. You cannot exclude any part of it without losing the general idea.
That is why we spell picturebook as one word.
In order to introduce these diverse perspectives, we have classified pic-
turebook definitions into six different categories, presented in Figure 1. The
categories are based on Bosch Andreu’s (2007) insightful classification of

The Picturebook as a Type of Book

A picturebook definition can focus simply on the book as an object;
that is, a commercial item and an object with certain physical characteris-
tics.
discuss its length.

Billman (2002, 48) describes the picturebook as a book that usually contains
32 pages. Sipe (2008b, 15) notes that the format of the picturebook “also
includes the dust jacket, front and back covers, front and endpapers, and
title and dedication pages.
In a foreword to Perry Nodelman’s
(2005, 128) article, Peter Hunt calls picturebooks “children’s literature’s
one genuinely original contribution to literature in general.” Even though
picturebooks are often called a genre (Goldstone 1999, 26; Stanton 1998, 2;
Trifonas 2002, 182; Yang and Yang 2011, 19), others maintain that this is
not the case. For instance, Vardell (2014, 42) asserts that picturebooks “may
be of any genre, including history, fantasy, nonfiction, and poetry.”

The Picturebook as Words and Images

Bosch Andreu’s first subcategory includes defi nitions which simply state that a
picturebook includes both modes. Curiously enough, finding an English-language
example for this
subcategory was quite challenging. In fact, the only example of such a
18 Picturebook Characteristics and Production
definition was found on the English Wikipedia, which provides the follow-
ing definition: “A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a
book format, most often aimed at young children” (Wikipedia, April 2017).

Arizpe and Styles

(2003, 22) describe picturebooks as “books in which the story depends on the
interaction between written text and image.” Pantaleo (2014, 15) defines them
as books in which “the total effect depends on the text, the illustrations, and
the reciprocity between these two sign systems.”
Some definitions emphasize that together the two modes produce new
meanings—meanings not present in either mode alone. Nodelman (1988,
199) suggests that the overall effect of words and images is more than the
sum of their parts. Building on Nodelman, Sipe (1998, 98–99) describes
word–image interaction as synergistic: together they produce a new entity
that is greater than what either would produce alone. Arizpe and Styles
(2003, 22), on the other hand, emphasize that the combination of words
and images does not equate to a predetermined meaning but, instead, it
“creates layers of meaning, open to different interpretations.” Arizpe és Styles (2003,
22) viszont azt hangsúlyozzák, hogy a szavak kombinációja és képek kombinációja
nem egyenlő egy előre meghatározott jelentéssel, hanem ehelyett "különböző
értelmezésekre nyitott jelentésrétegeket hoz létre".

This may be done, for instance, by underlying the fact that

a picturebook contains more images than verbal text (even though quantify-
ing these two in practice might be easier said than done). The Cambridge
Dictionary defines the picturebook as “a book, especially for young chil-
dren, that has a lot of pictures and not many words” (Cambridge). Nodel-
man defines picturebooks as books “intended for young children which
communicate information or tell stories through a series of many pictures
combined with relatively slight texts or no texts at all” (1988, vii).
Lynch-Brown and Tomlinson
describe them as “profusely illustrated books” in which the illustrations
are “essential to the enjoyment and understanding of the story” (1999, 68).
“that essentially provides the child with a visual experience” (ALSC)
Instead of defining a picturebook
per se, this approach defines a multimodal text and mentions picturebooks
as an example of such texts. In his discussion of picturebooks, Serafini
(2012, 3) defines a multimodal text as “a text that draws on a variety or
multiplicity of modes, for example painting, photography, written language,
diagrams and visual design elements.” Moya Guijarro and Pinar Sanz
(2008, 1602) define multimodality as “the use of several semiotic modes and
their combination within a socio-cultural domain which results in a semiotic
product or event,” and go on to affirm that the definition “works quite well
for the analysis and interpretation of picturebooks.”
Kiefer (1982, 14)
describes picturebooks as art objects which depend upon “a succession of
pages to convey a message.” Nodelman’s (1988, vii) definition, featured
above, described them as books that “tell stories through a series of many
pictures.”
Bader, too, acknowledges “the drama of the turning
of the page” (1976, 1).

The Picturebook as Performance for an Audience

Translating picturebooks and translating for children also involves the per-
formance of the story: reading aloud. Some picturebook definitions empha-
size the reading situation—that picturebooks often require a performance
by an adult for a child.
Sezzi: “The picture book is [. . .] meant to be read aloud by an adult, who
dramatizes the story in the course of reading” (2010, 197). Nikolajeva
highlights the aloud-reader’s versatile role in the process of reading the
book, describing the aloud-reader as “simultaneously a performer, like
an actor in theatre or film, and a receiver or co-receiver, a co-reader”
(2002, 85). – szerintem ez kevesebb szövegben működik – a kezdő olvasó nálunk
arious picturebook definitions empha-
size the child audience as the principal receiver of these books. Nodelman
makes a strong point in favor of this argument (see also Nodelman’s defini-
tion [1988, vii] quoted above):
The picturebook is, I believe, the one form of literature invented specifically for
audiences of children—and despite recent claims for a growing adult audience
for more sophisticated books, the picturebook remains firmly connected to the
idea of an implied child-reader/viewer.
(Nodelman 2010, 11)
Beckett:
Picturebooks offer a unique opportunity for a collaborative or shared reading
experience between children and adults, since they empower the two audiences
more equally than other narrative forms.
(2012, 2)

The Effect of Picturebooks on the Audience

Arizpe and Styles also define

their object of study as an art form in its own right as opposed to the simple
pairing of verbal text and images: they define picturebooks as works of art
in which both verbal text and images have been “created with a conscious
aesthetic intention” (2003, 22).
Many of these definitions assert that it is

the combination of the visual and verbal narratives that makes picture-

book art exceptional. In the words of Nikolajeva, “the unique character of

picturebooks as an art form derives from their combination of two levels

of communication, the verbal and the visual” (2002, 85). Nodelman, too,

discusses how the combination of the two modes makes picturebooks

“unlike any other form of verbal or visual art” (1988, vii). This perspective

into picturebooks emphasizes the role of the picturebook translator as a

co-artist, as producing a work of art.

Peter Hunt viszont úgy látja, hogy a képeskönyv műfaja tulajdonképpen egy

paradoxon. Egyrészt mint a gyermekirodalom igazán eredeti, az irodalom egészéhez való

hozzájárulásaként tekintenek rá; egy „polifónikusˮ formáról van szó, mely sokféle kódot,

stílust és szöveges eszközt használ és abszorbeál, s amely gyakran a konvenciók határait is

feszegeti. Másrészt a kisgyermekek tartományának tekintik a képeskönyvet, és ezért az

minden komoly kritikai figyelem alatt áll (HUNT szerk. 1999: 69).
Martin Salisbury és Morag Styles Children’s Picturebooks c. könyvében pedig arra

hívja fel a figyelmet, hogy a képeskönyv egy viszonylag új forma, mintegy százharminc éve

létezik tulajdonképpen (legalábbis angolszász nyelvterületen).

A mai képeskönyvet a szekvenciális képsoraik és a velük párhuzamosan megjelenő,

jelentést közvetítő kevés szó sajátságos használata alapján lehet definiálni. Szemben az

illusztrált könyvvel, ahol a képek kiemelnek, díszítenek és kiegészítenek, a képeskönyvekben

a vizuális szöveg gyakorta sokkal nagyobb narratív felelősséget hordoz. Legtöbb esetben a

jelentés a szó és a kép kölcsönhatásán keresztül bontakozik ki, s egyiknek sem lenne értelme,

ha egymástól függetlenül tapasztalnánk meg őket.

Salisbury és Styles a gyermekeknek való képeskönyvet művészeti formaként éli meg

tulajdonképpen, mely nagyobb figyelmet érdemelne szerintük, egyrészt mint művészet,

másrészt mint irodalom – vagyis (ahogyan igen taló kifejezéssel élnek): mint „vizuálisˮ

irodalom (SALISBURY–STYLES 2012: 7).

Maria Nikolajeva és Carole Scott szerint a képeskönyv mint művészi forma sajátságos

jellege a kommunikáció két szintjén alapul, a vizuálison és a verbálison. A képeskönyvek

tehát kétfajta, egyrészt ikonikus, másrészt konvencionális jelek útján közölnek valamit. A

How Picturebooks Work c. kötetük bevezetőjében a két szerző továbbá a képeskönyvek

képeit komplex ikonikus jeleknek tartja, míg a szavakat komplex konvencionális jeleknek.

Az ilyen képek funkciója, hogy leírjanak és ábrázoljanak, míg az ilyenfajta szavaké, hogy

elsősorban narrativáljanak. A konvencionális jelek sokszor lineárisak, míg az ikonikusak nem

azok. A két funkció közt fennálló feszültség korlátlan lehetőséget teremt a kép és a szöveg

közötti kapcsolatra a képeskönyvekben (NIKOLAJEVA–SCOTT 2006: 1)

Sokféle mai, aktuális megközelítési módja létezik a képeskönyvnek. Túlsúlyban

vannak azok, akik csupán oktatási-nevelési eszköznek vélik. Mások a művészettörténet

tárgyaként tartják számon, a képeskönyvet pusztán a vizuálitás szintjén szemlélik. Néha úgy

tekintenek a képeskönyvre mint a gyermeki olvasmány szerves részére, viszont ez az

irodalmi megközelítés gyakran figyelmen kívül hagyja pont a vizuális aspektust, a képeket

csak másodlagosnak tartja. Nikolajeva és Scott néhány fontos, az illusztrációkutatás terén

úttörő munkára is felhívja figyelmünket (például Joseph Schwarcz, Jane Doonan, Perry

Nodelman, William Moebius könyveire), melyek közelebb visznek bennünket a

képeskönyvek illusztrációinak megfejtéséhez. Azonban szerintük még mindig híján vagyunk

egy olyan eszköznek, mellyel dekódolhatnánk a képeskönyvek specifikus „szövegétˮ, azt a

szöveget tehát, melyet a verbális és vizuális információk együttesen hoznak létre (uo.: 2–4

Nikolajeva

Introduction

The unique character of picturebooks as an art form is based on the combina-

tion of two levels of communication, the visual and the verbal. Making use of

semiotic terminology we can say that picturebooks communicate by means

of two separate sets of signs, the iconic and the conventional.

Iconic, or representational, signs are those in which the signifier and the

signified are related by common qualities; that is, where the sign is a direct

representation of its signified. A picture of a printer on a computer’s com-

mand menu is an icon, a direct representation of the printer. In most cases, we

do not need special knowledge to understand a simple icon.

Conventional signs have no direct relationship with the object signified.

The word print in a menu only conveys a meaning if we possess the code; that

is, we must know what letters stand for, put letters together to produce words,

and understand what the words stand for. Conventional signs are based on an

agreement among the bearers of a particular language, both the spoken lan-

guage and communications, such as gestures, dress code, or emblems. For

anyone outside the given community, conventional signs do not carry any

meaning, or, at best, the meaning is ambivalent.

Pictures in picturebooks are complex iconic signs, and words in picture-

books are complex conventional signs; however, the basic relationship

between the two levels is the same. T

We find a number of approaches to picturebooks among the existing

studies. A predominant focus is the consideration of picturebooks as educa-

tional vehicles, including aspects such as socialization and language acquisi-

tion.

picturebooks are examined in

connection with developmental psychology and their therapeutic effect on

the child reader.

Another line of inquiry examines picturebooks as objects for art history

and discusses topics such as design and technique.

A number of historical and international surveys focus on thematic and

stylistic diversity; for instance, Bettina Hürlimann’s Picture-Book World

(1968), Barbara Bader’s American Picturebooks: From Noah’s Ark to the

Beast Within (1976), or William Feaver’s When We Were Young. Two Cen-

turies of Children’s Book Illustrations (1977). 8

However, Barbara Bader’s six hundred-page volume on the history of Ameri-

can picturebooks has certainly contributed to theoretical thinking, for

instance by discussing openings (also called doublespreads) rather than sin-

gle pages in picturebooks.

This is in fact the

way picturebooks are often treated in general surveys of children’s literature,

in reviews, academic papers, and conference presentations

Concentrating on pictures are Joseph Schwarcz’s pioneer book Ways of

the Illustrator (1982), with the subtitle “Visual Communication in Children’s

Literature,” 11 and Jane Doonan’s Looking at Pictures in Picture Books

(1993). 12 These works offer an important counterbalance to many studies of

picturebooks where pictures are ignored or treated as mere decorations.

In fact, in

neither book does Schwarcz make any distinction between picturebooks

proper and illustrated books, and both books include illustrated children’s

novels that are primarily text.

Perry Nodelman’s comprehensive work Words about Pictures (1988)15

repeatedly states that the meaning in a picturebook is revealed only through

the interaction of words and pictures, but on the whole, the focus is primarily

on the visual aspects. Also, despite the subtitle of the book, “The Narrative

Art of Children’s Picture Books,” most of his discussion does not explore the
purely narrative aspects, but rather examines individual communicative ele-

ments of the visual text, such as color, shape, the position of objects in rela-

tion to each other, or the depiction of movement. Thus the book emphasizes

extracting information from particular pictures rather than extracting a mean-

ing out of the interaction of picture and words.

Nodelman’s book provides an excellent grammar for

reading and understanding pictures in picturebooks, which, because of their

sequential nature, need a very different approach from that which views pic-

tures as individual works of art. A similar comprehensive grammar is to be

found in William Moebius’s classic essay “Introduction to Picturebook

Codes” (1986).

Together, Schwarcz, Moebius, Nodelman and Doonan introduce enough

tools to decode pictures in picturebooks. But we still lack tools for decoding

the specific “text” of picturebooks, the text created by the interaction of ver-

bal and visual information

tance of the counterpoint of text and image in picturebooks, Peter Hunt (of

England) and Clare Bradford (of Australia), although neither has as yet pro-

duced a whole book on the topic. In his thirteen-page chapter in Criticism,

Theory and Children’s Literature, Hunt draws our attention to the obvious

lack of metalanguage for discussing the complexity of modern picturebooks,17

while Bradford regards the complex text/image interaction as a part of the gen-

eral “postmodern” trend in contemporary literature for young readers. 18

eter Hunt, Criticism, Theory, and Children’s Literature (London: Black-

well, 1991): 175–188.

18. Clare Bradford, “The Picture Book: Some Postmodern Tensions,” Papers:

Explorations in Children’s Literature 4 (1993) 3: 10–14; “Along the Road to Learn:

Children and Adults in the Picture Books of John Burningham,” Children’s Literature

in Education 25 (1994) 4: 203–211.

Lawrence R. Sipe, “How Picture Books Work: A Semiotically Framed The-

ory of Text–Picture Relationships,” Children’s Literature in Education 29 (1998) 2:

97–108

As in most Peirce-inspired models, Sipe’s interpretation favors the schematic

and abstrac

Jens Thiele calls for a syntax of pic-

turebook language, for working tools and concepts necessary to read and

understand what he calls “new” picturebooks, that is, picturebooks based on

complex interrelations between word and image. Several scholars in the vol-

ume emphasize this interrelationship and make some comments regarding

specific traits of picturebook narrative, such as movement from left to right,

linear development, framing, simultaneous succession and the use of point

of view.

In summary, a number of scholars, notably Baumgärtner, Thiele, Hunt,

Bradford, Hallberg, and Rhedin, problematize the relationship between word
and image and investigate the ironic counterpoint of the verbal and visual text
that has become prominent in contemporary picturebooks. But what we still
lack and need is a consistent and flexible terminology, a comprehensive inter-
national metalanguage, and a system of categories describing the variety of
text/image interactions

schwarz eleje kell

Joanne Golden, in her chapter on visual-verbal narrative, discusses sev-

eral types of interaction:

(a) the text and pictures are symmetrical (creating a redundancy)

(b) the text depends on pictures for clarification

(c) illustration enhances, elaborates text

(d) the text carries primary narrative, illustration is selective

(e) the illustration carries primary narrative, the text is selective32

Like Rhedin’s classification, Golden’s is an excellent starting point, but we

believe that the spectrum is wider, and that we need more categories to

describe the variety of relationships between words and pictures. For instance, between categories
(b) and (c), different degrees of “dependence”

and “enhancement” can be observed, as well as different natures of depen-

dence and/or enhancement.

Gondom Nikolajeváékkal – teljesen jó, hogy általános tipizálást adtak az összes gyerekkönyvre

Janikovszky/Boribon

symmetrical picturebook

(two mutually redundant narratives)

complementary picturebook

(words and pictures filling each other’s gaps)

“expanding” or “enhancing” picturebook

(visual narrative supports verbal narrative,

verbal narrative depends on visual narrative)

“counterpointing” picturebook

(two mutually dependent narratives)

“sylleptic” picturebook (with or without words)

(two or more narratives independent of each other)

szimmetrikus képeskönyv

(két, egymásnak ellentmondó elbeszélés)

komplementer képeskönyv

(a szavak és a képek kitöltik egymás hézagait)

"bővítő" vagy "fokozó" képeskönyv

(a vizuális elbeszélés támogatja a verbális elbeszélést,

a verbális narratíva függ a vizuális narratívától)

"ellenpontozó" képeskönyv

(két egymástól függő elbeszélés)

"szileptikus" képeskönyv (szavakkal vagy szavak nélkül)

(két vagy több, egymástól független elbeszélés)

Most picturebooks match Kristin Hallberg’s inventive notion of icono-

text and her definition of a picturebook as a book with at least one picture on

each spread. 35

the words tell us exactly the

same story as the one we can “read” from the pictures.

However, the words tell us exactly the

same story as the one we can “read” from the pictures. Naturally, the words

draw our attention to some details in the pictures, but they leave very little, if

anything, to the imagination.

The vast majority of picturebooks seemingly fall into this category, and

can be labeled symmetrical, consonant, or complementary works. Among

them are many of the so-called classics and award-winners, which are out-

standing in their themes, styles, exciting designs, or educational values:

Babar (1931) books, by Jean de Brunhoff, Curious George (1941), by H. A.

Rey, The Little House (1942), by Virginia Lee Burton, Bread and Jam for

Frances (1964), by Russell and Lillian Hoban, Sylvester and the Magic Peb-

ble (1969), by William Steig, or Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), by Arnold

Lobel, to name only a few. We say “seemingly” since at closer examination

most of these books have at least some interesting counterpoint details, as we

will show in later chapters

However, as soon as words and

images provide alternative information or contradict each other in some way,

we have a variety of readings and interpretations.

Pat Hutchins’s Rosie’s Walk (1968) is often used to exemplify words and

pictures telling two completely different stories. 38 John Burningham’s Come

Away from the Water, Shirley (1977) and Time to Get Out of the Bath, Shirley

(1978) are two more favorites.39

The same duality is the narrative principle of Satoshi Kitamura’s Lily

Takes A Walk (1987).

David McKee’s I Hate My Teddy Bear (1982) is still another often-

discussed example of a book where pictures make the reader aware of things

happening around the oblivious protagonists

In Babette Cole’s Princess Smartypants (1986; most often analyzed for

its feministic implication rather than its fascinating text–picture relationship),

orest,” “put her pony through its paces,” “take her Mother, the Queen, shop-

ping,” and “retrieve her magic ring from the goldfish pond.” The pictures

show why the unfortunate suitors cannot accomplish the tasks:

When the last suitor arrives, the words

state only that he accomplishes all the tasks, while the pictures show exactly

how he manages it, with a great deal of humor and inventiveness in details.

The verbal story ends, after the princess has got rid of her successful but still

unwanted suitor, by stating that she “lived happily ever after,”

Thus

while the story the pictures tell is not radically different from the one told by

words,

The protagonist/narrator seems to be either totally unaware of

the peculiar nature of his mother, or he deliberately avoids mentioning any

revealing details. He says, for instance: “The trouble with mum is the hats she

wears . . .”
He says, for instance: “The trouble with mum is the hats she

wears . . .” a statement many young readers can easily relate to. The picture,

however, discloses more than the words.

Introduction
Postmodernism and Picturebooks

Sylvia Pantaleo and Lawrence R. Sipe

Indeed, two

of the postmodern characteristics identified by Goldstone, “greater power

given to the reader/viewer encouraging cocreation with the author or artist”

and “nonlinearity” (“Whaz Up” 363), are most evident in the picturebooks

discussed in this book

Postmodern fiction is “interested in the nature of fic-

tion and the processes of storytelling, and it employs metafictive devices. . . .

Lewis described five strategies or devices evident in post-

modern picturebooks (and novels): boundary breaking, excess, indetermi-

nacy, parody, and performance (94–98).

To Anstey and Bull, contemporary

postmodern picturebooks exhibit the following characteristics: “variations in

design and layout,” “variations in the grammar of the author and illustrator,”

indeterminacy, contesting discourses, intertextuality, and multiple meanings

and audiences (336–338).

Coles and Hall wrote about the breaking down of barriers, the playfulness

and the “self-conscious, self-referential posture and style of postmodernism”

(112). They explained how the “playfulness, parody, pastiche, and irony, as

well as doubling, intertextuality and other metafictive devices” evident in

postmodern texts are also exhibited in children’s “cultural diet” of movies,

television shows, computer and video games (112).

The features of contemporary postmodern picturebooks identified by Wat-

son are similar to those listed above

1. blurring the distinctions between popular and “high” culture, the

categories of traditional literary genres, and the boundaries among

author, narrator, and reader

2. subversion of literary traditions and conventions and undermining

the traditional distinction between the story and the outside “real”

world

3. intertextuality (present in all texts) is made explicit and manifold,

often taking the form of pastiche, a wry, layered blend of texts from

many sources

4. multiplicity of meanings, so that there are multiple pathways through

the narrative, a high degree of ambiguity, and nonresolution or open-

ended endings

5. playfulness, in which readers are invited to treat the text as a semiotic

playground

6. self-referentiality, which refuses to allow readers to have a vicarious

lived-through experience, offering instead a metafictive stance by

drawing attention to the text as a text rather than as a secondary

world (Benton

With all of these varying (though related) perspectives, it is difficult to

say with certainty the specific characteristics that are necessary in order for

a picturebook to be classified as postmodern.

However, if we did so, we

would be creating a binary (postmodern—not postmodern) that is actually

antithetical to the spirit of postmodernism itself. Therefore, we propose that,

given the multiplicity of characteristics we discussed above, it makes more

sense to think of picturebooks as located along a continuum of postmodern-

ism. If a book exhibits one or two of the characteristics or qualities, we could

say it expresses a few attributes of the postmodern picturebook. If a selection

of literature has many of the characteristics or qualities, we would be more

likely to classify it as truly postmodern.

For example, in our view, a book

that expresses virtually all of the qualities discussed above is The Stinky

Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Scieszka

Postmodern picturebooks are not,

of course, the only new types of texts that have arisen in that past fifteen to

twenty years. In today’s society, most readers are familiar with hypertext,

comfortable with all manner of digital formats, and understand the Internet

as a multiplicity of (sometimes contradictory) texts that layer onto each other.

In his study of the effects of popular culture, Johnson noted that, “multiple

threading is the most acclaimed structural convention of modern television

programming” (65).

Barbara Kiefer begins the book with an appropriate historical contextualiza-

tion of picturebooks, tracing the development of postmodern characteristics

and speculating on what lies ahead in the development of this protean and

ever-changing art form

He argues that many derivative

picturebooks often result from truly innovative work; that the whole concept

of postmodern picturebooks deserves critical examination; and wonders if

the postmodern picturebook has a long and rich future, or whether it will

disappear into an artistic void.

1 What is a Picturebook, Anyway?

The Evolution of Form and Substance

Through the Postmodern Era and

Beyond

Barbara Kiefer

Various scholars have explored the essence of the modern picturebook.

In her historical study of American children’s picturebooks that focused

mainly on the twentieth century, Barbara Bader provided an expansive

defi nition

Nodelman also suggests that the relationship between pictures and text

is always an ironic one; that is, “the words tell us what the pictures do
not show, and the pictures show us what the words do not tell us” (222)

Nikolajeva and Scott underscore the dual quality of images and words

when they state, “The unique character of picturebooks as an art form is

based on a combination of two levels of communication, the visual and

the verbal” (1).

Illustrator Uri Shulevitz emphasizes the primacy of the visual art in pic-

turebooks. He argues “A true picturebook tells a story mainly or entirely

with pictures. When words are used they have an auxiliary role” (15)

Marantz sees the picturebook as unique art form and argues, “picture-

books are not literature, that is, word dominated things, but rather a form

of visual art. The picturebook must be experienced as a visual/ verbal entity

if its potential values are to be realized” (151)

Sipe also argues that “visual texts are on an equal footing with

verbal texts” in this process (107)

All these definitions seem to recognize the picturebook as an art form or

object rather than utilitarian object. Suzanne Langer has argued that the

arts—literature, music, drama, dance, pictorial art—evolved out of their

unique potential to express meaning that discursive language is not capable

of on its own

If we accept this idea of the picturebook as one in which participants

engage both intellectual and emotional resources with a visual/verbal art

form, I believe we can trace the fi rst picturebooks back thousands of years.

Rock paintings in the Chauvet Pont de Arc caves in southern France date

back at least thirty thousand years, and similar paintings have been found

throughout the world. Although the cave paintings do not resemble today’s

picturebook, they may represent a similar aesthetic process. Using the

products of technology available (there was of course no paper, no written

alphabet, no printing presses or book binderies), an artist created a visual

form that was probably shared with an audience in some ritualistic way,

accompanied by a story told or by chants sung

As a result of the development of written systems around 4100–3800 BCE,

we begin to fi nd objects that more closely resemble today’s picturebooks

and we can understand their form, function, and audience more precisely.

The fi rst objects that had the attributes associated with a modern picture-

book emerged in Egypt around 2700 BCE

These papyruses, especially those referred to as the Book of the Dead,

combined pictorial image and verbal story. On many of these scrolls, the

pictorial images are predominant while the words are part of the overall

composition and are pleasingly balanced and integrated with the images

Around the fi rst century CE a new technological invention, the codex,

changed the picturebook into the form we still have today.

affected book production as profoundly

and permanently as did the invention of printing in the mid-fi fteenth
century” (12)

The codex also allowed a wider range of style and media to be used in the

illustrations. Since layers of paint would crack when rolled and unrolled,

rolled scrolls were executed mostly with line drawings

The codex form and the parchment

page made possible the use of rich colors, including gold, for illustrations.

It should be noted that following the development of the codex, today’s

picturebooks evolved out of the European traditions. However, the combi-
nation of image and idea developed in other cultures as well, from China
to South America to the Middle East.

Therefore, although the decorative forms of Islamic art might influence

Western traditions, the art of pictorial story telling was nurtured by soci-
etal and cultural norms of European cultures

For some time styles of book illustration developed in two major Euro-

pean centers. In the Byzantine Empire, books relied on Greco-Roman style,

which gradually merged into the stylistic, uniform pictorial symbols of

early Christian art. During this same time, book illustration in England

and Ireland evolved in an independent school, called insular. These insular

manuscripts reflected styles and motifs of Celtic art that survived in the

British Isles through the fi rst millennium

Books of Hours began to be used for private devotions of the
wealthy. Along with biblical passages and devotions, these books always
included calendars to mark important religious days throughout the year.
It became a tradition to divide the calendar into the twelve months of the
year and to illustrate each month with a scene of secular life. Pictures of
the patrons who commissioned these books were often included in Books
of Hours thus freeing the illustrator to move beyond previously prescribed
styles and subject matters. Illustrated versions of the Apocalypse also
became popular and gave even more freedom to the imagination of the
artist

The British Library owns a Bible

Pauperum that is remarkably similar to a picturebook of today. The book

is unusual fi rst for its presentation. Rather than the typical vertical ori-

entation of medieval manuscripts which resulted from the folded gather-

ings of parchment, the Kings V is horizontal, the result of gluing three

pieces of parchment together. Only the right-hand half of each double-

page spread is illustrated as if to focus viewer’s attention on a single mes-

sage.

The central section holds the largest painting, a depiction of a major

scene from the life of Christ. Taking up about two-thirds of the central
section, the picture is framed by a rectangular, decorated border. Flowing
banners on three sides carry important ideas pertaining to the picture,
accompanied by smaller faces of important saints. Underneath the paint-
ings a paragraph of explication is printed in three different colors. The
left and right sections of the page also contain brief colored paragraphs of
text and bordered biblical scenes. T

his trend led to the illustration of many more secular texts—histories,

epic poems, and romances—and to the expansion of book production to

a secular commercial enterprise

Because they were created by hand,

picturebooks reached a small adult audience of the clergy and upper classes
who could afford to commission and purchase them

The great revolution in book production, however, came with

the invention of the printing press with movable type during the 1450s.

This
invention signaled the end of the hand-illuminated book and the beginning
of picturebook making as a commercial rather than a purely aesthetic pro-
cess.
Among the titles of these fi rst mass-produced books

are Boccaccio’s Decameron and Aesop’s fables

Caxton’s Mirrour of the World,

an illustrated encyclopedia, was printed in 1481. Its simple woodcut pic-

tures set within the longer printed text is typical of book design and illus-

tration that followed the advent of movable type for many years

Although children of the upper classes

may have seen illuminated manuscripts and enjoyed their beauty they were
not considered a group apart, separate from adults in entertainments or
other artifacts of culture as they are today.

However as the infant mortality rate

began to improve and as the middle classes began to own books, the interest
in educating children grew. Books began to be created specifically for their
use—alphabet books, catechisms, and so on. Because these were books of
instruction they included many pictures

he first children’s pic-

turebook is generally accepted to be the Orbis Pictus, an alphabet book

intended to “entice witty children.” Published in 1658, by John Amos Come-

nius as Orbis Sensualium Pictus, (The Visible World in Pictures), it might

more accurately be called the first basal reader because Comenius’s aim was

to teach, not to entertain.

By the 1700s, however, ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and of philoso-

phers such as John Locke began to influence the types of picturebooks that
were created for children.

The changing view of childhood and the

continuing success of chapbooks and collections of fairy tales and fables

convinced British publisher John Newbery to print books for children,

solely for their amusement. His A Little Pretty Pocket Book, published in

1744, opened the way for today’s literature for children—picturebooks and

other books that were aesthetic objects rather than educational ones.

Although very fi ne

black-and-white prints were created using these processes, the most accom-
plished print artists rarely created illustrations in books for children.

As printing techniques improved, illustrated newspapers and magazines

became popular and began to attract talented artists such as Edward Lear,

John Tenniel, Richard Doyle, and Habblot “Phiz” Brown.

Magazines such

as Punch, which fi rst appeared in 1849, were meant to provide satirical and

political comment and in turn allowed the artists to be playful rather than

formal in depiction.

Through the end of the nineteenth century the subject matter children’s

picturebooks continued to center on were nursery rhymes, folktales, and

songs. The illustrations, although delightful, were accompaniments to the

texts, not integral to the picturebook as an art object. However during

this time we can notice more attention being paid to the holistic nature of

book design. For example, illustrator Richard Doyle created twenty-two

engravings for John Ruskin’s fifty-eight-page The King of the Golden River

or The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria, fi rst published in 1851. In addi-

tion to the illustrations, Doyle created a remarkable title page to reflect the

book’s content and theme.

Aside from studio experiments

like the colored etchings of William Blake, color had to be added to prints

by hand, using brush or stencil. The credit for achieving color reproduc-

tion for a large market must go to publisher Edmund Evans. By the 1860s,

Evans, an artist himself, made a real effort to refi ne the process of color

printing.

With this attention to detail, Evans enlisted accomplished artists like

Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway to create works especially for children.

In their books, often collections of nursery rhymes or songs, we see a real

interaction between pictures and words in addition to pleasing color repro-

duction and total book design.

Of the three illustrators, Caldecott’s lively and

humorous art raised his status above Crane’s highly decorative and Green-

away’s preciousness, so that he is considered by many to be the father of

the modern picturebook

1927, Clever Bill was written and illustrated by English artist William

Nicholson and was followed in 1928 by American illustrator Wanda Gag’s

Millions of Cats. These stories were told with very little text and relied

heavily on the illustrations to convey meaning, a format that predominates

in children’s picturebooks through much of the twentieth century. Their

publication marked a new era of picturebook publishing

For this

reason, many books were done in black and white or in only two or three

colors well into midcentury. Even so, illustrators like Virginia Lee Burton,

Wanda Gag, Clement Hurd, Robert McCloskey, Esphyr Slobodkina, Lyn

Ward, and Leonard Weisgard produced picturebooks that are still in print

today, and serve as examples of innovative techniques and vibrant imagina-

tion.

For the greater part of the twentieth century the content of picturebooks

was shaped by societal beliefs about the needs of an audience of young

children. Simple stories that reflected notions of child development were

created for this (mostly white) audience along with alphabet and counting

books, concept books, and traditional tales. This focus on young children

began to change in the 1960s as the Vietnam War opened up previously

taboo topics and as the civil rights movement called for an expansion of

cultural experiences depicted in picturebooks. Artists such as Raymond

Briggs and Maurice Sendak began to manipulate format and to push con-

tent beyond the protective walls of childhood innocence

his simplification of process seems to have attracted more and

more artists who have discovered the picturebook as a challenging medium

for their talents and who seem to be more interested in the possibilities of

visual storytelling rather than in providing entertainment to an audience

of young children. Thus changing technology, societal, and cultural norms

have brought us into a new century and a postmodern era

See, for example, Alderson, Bader, Kiefer, McCloud, Moebius, Nodelman,

Sipe, and others.

Kiefer, Barbara. The Potential of Picturebooks: From Visual Literacy to Aesthetic

Understanding. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 199

Alderson, Brian. Sing a Song of Sixpence: The English Picture Book Tradition and

Randolph Caldecott. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Moebius, William. “Introduction to Picturebook Codes.” Word & Image 2.2

(1986): 141–152

Sipe, Lawrence R. “How Picturebooks Work: A Semiotically Framed Theory of

Text-Picture Relationships.” Children’s Literature in Education 29 (1998):

97–108.

Moebius, William. “Introduction to Picturebook Codes.” Word & Image 2.2

(1986): 141–152.
242

file:///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/roxburgh1983.pdf

Plot can be defined as the dynamic, sequential element in narrative literature. Insofar as character, or
any other element in narrative, becomes dynamic, it is a part of the plot. Spatial art, which presents
its materials simultaneously, or in a random order, has no plot; but a succession of similar pictures
which can be arranged in a meaningful order (like Hogarth's "Rake's Progress") begins to have a plot
because it begins to have a dynamic sequential existence. The images on a strip of motion-picture
film are an extreme development of this plot-potential in spatial form

One and Inseparable: Interdependent Storytelling in Picture

Storybooks
In most picture storybooks, the stories are told twice, once through text1 and once through
illustration. The reader2 can comprehend such stories either through the words or through
the pictures. Vandergrift called these books "twice-told tales

Since both the texts and the illustrations of twice-told tales tell the same stories
simultaneously, they employ parallel storytelling.

Conversely, there exists a subset of picture storybooks for which the reader must consider
both forms of media concurrently in order to comprehend the books' stories. Books belonging
to this category employ interdependent storytelling.3
This paper presents a model and explicated examples of the major categories and
subcategories of interdependent storytelling and a discussion of the role of interdependent
storytelling in children's literary, artistic, and intellectual development.

The difference between twice-told tales and interdependent tales lies in the interplay
between text and illustration that occurs in any picture storybook. Sipe called this interplay
"synergy" (98-99)

Synergy reveals a more meaningful story than the mere summation of the story that the text
tells plus the story that the illustrations tell.
In interdependent tales, synergy plays the primary storytelling role, and without considering
the synergy between words and pictures, a reader cannot discern the book's story.
Numerous examples of interdependent tales are presented in the next section of this pape

From the 1960s onwards picture-book makers such as Maurice Sendak, Phillipe Dupasquier,
Shirley Hughes and Raymond Briggs began to exploit and transform all that the comic strip
had to offer" (191).
Another possible explanation for the increase in interdependent tales is the historic increase
in the role of illustration as storyteller. Spaulding explained that, In the early days of picture
books, the pictures were not given narrative responsibility. True, the illustrations were always
important in giving a book its flavor, but it was rare for anything important to the
understanding of the story to be presented only in the picture

Martin Salisbury with Morag Styles

But in the case of picturebooks, words and pictures combine to deliver the overall meaning of
the book; neither of them necessarily makes much sense on its own but they work in unison. And
the most satisfying picturebooks create a dynamic relationship between words and pictures.
Often this duality can be in the form of a playful dance, where images and words can appear to
flirt with and contradict each other. Increasingly, the boundaries between word and image are
being challenged, as the words themselves become pictorial elements and the outcome as a
whole is ‘visual text’.
Nodelman argued that placing words and pictures ‘into relationship with each other inevitably
changes the meaning of both’, so that they are ‘more than just a sum of their parts’. He believed
it was the ‘unique rhythm of pictures and words working together that distinguishes
picturebooks from all other forms of both visual and verbal art’. He also claimed that ‘words can
make pictures into rich narrative resources – but only because they communicate so differently
from pictures that they change the meaning of pictures. For the same reason, also, pictures can
change the narrative thrust of words.’
Nikolajeva and Scott use the term ‘complementary’ for picturebooks where the images reflect
and expand what is in the written text or where each fills the other’s gaps.
Counterpoint and duet Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott use the term ‘counterpoint’ when words
and pictures tell different stories and provide ‘alternative information or contradict each other in
some way’, resulting in several possible readings.3 Philip Pullman, who is an expert on comics and
graphic novels, as well as a well-respected fantasy author, talks about counterpoint as ‘the potential
possessed by words and pictures in combination to “show different things happening at the same
time”’.
 és kibővített korpuszon vizsgálják a korábbi definíciókat, és az eredetileg a különös kép-
szöveg viszonyon alapuló művek . Kategorizálásuk alapján a különböző meghatározások
rendszerint úgy utalnak a picturebookra mint

I) könyvtípusra (mint könyvtárgy és mint irodalom),

II) kép és szöveg együttesére (mindkét médium megjelenik bennük; a médiumok
egységet alkotnak bennük; a médiumok új jelentést hoznak létre bennük;
multimodalitás jellemzi őket)
III) szekvenciákra épülő forma
IV) előadás a közönség számára (gyerekek számára; kettős közönség számára)
V) mint a közönségre gyakorolt hatás (ideológia és értékek; pedagógiai potenciál;
szórakozás/örömforrás)
VI) művészet.

Ehhez képest a későbbiekben – valószínűleg éppen a képszövegekben rejlő lehetőségek

okán – a picturebook kategóriájába sorolt írások száma szaporodni kezdett, a picturebook
definíciója ismét általános fogalommá vált, különösen azután, hogy megjelent a
postmodern picturebook (sőt a postmodernisque picturebook) fogalma.

képszövegcsoportot megnevezze és elkülönítse azoktól a művektől, melyekben kép és

szöveg egyaránt fontos, de harmonikus viszonyt képvisel.1

Összességében úgy látom,

a) A gyere
b)

1
Hogy egyetlen életműből hozzak példát: Marék Veronika Öcsi és Bátyó sorozata eredetileg szöveg nélküli
képregényként jelent meg a Kisdobosban. A későbbi könyvformátumú kiadásban – érzésem szerint a
feltételezett olvasói és kiadói elvárásnak megfelelően – rövid dialógusok kísérik a képekben előadott
történeteket. A szöveg ebben az esetben majdhogynem díszítő funkció szorul: a vizuális jelek önmagukban is
alkalmasak arra, hogy bemutassák a narratívát, hiszen ez volt az eredeti céljuk. A Boribon- és a Kippkopp-
sorozata klasszikus képeskönyv, melyben a képek alapján nem feltétlenül tudnánk összeállítani a cselekményt,
ugyanakkor a szöveg is igényli a képek támogatását (pl. hangulat, szereplőábrázolás stb. okán). A kék kerítésben
azonban a cselekmény jelentős része nem a narrátori szólamból, hanem az intraikonikus szövegből derül ki,
mely legalább annyira a képhez tartozik, mint a szöveghez. A Coffi, Pocak, Parprika pedig az emotikon egyik
nagyon korai alkalmazása, ráadásul félig-meddig a játékkönyvek hagyományából építkezik, így a vizuális
médium nélkül nem állná meg a helyét. Utóbbi kettőt a speciálisabb szövegcsoportba sorolnám.