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Join this online tutorial to learn about the history of illustrated books for children and explore the relationship between visual elements and words in picturebooks. The session will cover preparation for TMA5 and options 1 and 2. Don't miss out on this informative session!
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Welcome to Online Tutorial 5 The session will start at 6.30pm. You can set your audio levels by using the audio set-up button in the above left hand corner. • You can also write messages in the chat area to the left. • To speak, make sure that the microphone symbol next to MAIN ROOM (1) is switched on. To do this press the TALK button in the audio and video box. I don’t use the video option, so you don’t need to have this switched on. • Also if you want to speak press the button with the hand on it, so that I can see that you want to speak. This session will cover: Preparation for TMA5 • The history of illustrated books for children • Defining ‘illustrated books’, ‘picture books’, ‘picture books’ and ‘postmodern picture books’ • Thinking about the relationship between the visual elements and the words in picturebooks – Moebius analysis of Graphic Codes • TMA5, Option 1: ‘Coercively normalizing’ or ‘innovative’? Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park. • TMA5, Option 2: Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism: why use animals in children’s literature? Susie Wood Wednesday 8thMarch 2017
The history of illustrated books for children: 18th and 19th centuries What do you notice about these examples of illustration in children’s books during the 18th, and 19th centuries? Newbery’s A Little, Pretty Pocketbook (1744); Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter (1845); Sir John Tenniel’s illustration of Alice in Wonderland (1865); Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers (1884)
The history of illustrated books for children: 20th and 21st centuries What do you notice about these examples of illustration in children’s books during the 20th century? Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902); Alfie Gets in First by Shirley Hughes (; Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963); Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne (1999).
Defining ‘illustrated books’, ‘picture books’, ‘picture books’ and ‘postmodern picture books’ Can you match up the following terms with the correct definition (taken from Study Guide, p.210 and p.235) and an example from the texts below? C. ‘Pictures enhance the book aesthetically but add nothing or little to the actual story.’ 1. Illustrated Book B. A term to describe the experimental texts that have been produced in the last 30 years that play with words, images, the reader and with the book itself 2. Picture Book D. ‘The words and images essentially show the same information or the same parts of the story.’ 3. Picturebook A. Words and images ‘cannot be disentangled without significantly affecting the meaning’ 4. Postmodern Picturebook
Thinking about the relationship between the visual elements and the words in picturebooks – Moebius analysis of Graphic Codes • In Moebius’ essay on Picturebook Codes, he argues that, because studying picturebooks is a new academic discipline, scholars and academics need new ways of looking at and understanding the relationship between the visual and the verbal in picturebooks. He identifies the following codes that might help to interpret the meanings of visual information in picturebooks: • Position and size (p.316) • Perspective (p.317); • Line and capillarity (p.318); • Colour (p.319). Moebius developed his codes in part from a study of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ by Maurice Sendak.
Thinking about the relationship between the visual elements and the words in picturebooks – Where the Wild Things Are? What does the visual image suggest in this picture?
Thinking about the relationship between the visual elements and the words in picturebooks – Where the Wild Things Are? ‘The best picturebooks can and do portray the intangible and invisible, ideas and concepts, such as love, responsibility, a truth beyond the individual , ideas that escape easy definition in words or pictures.’ (Moebius, 2009, p.314)
Preparation for TMA5, Option 1: Is Children’s literature generally ‘Innovative’ or ‘Coercively normalizing’? • The guidance on this question points you to the source of the phrase ‘coercively normalising’ – Reynolds’ essay ‘Transformative Energies’ in Maybin and Watson, 2009, pp.102-3: • ‘As she [Rose] sees it, children’s fiction has tended to be regarded as a cultural safe-house which preserves an ideal of the innocent child dating back to Locke and Rousseau. Rose maintains that adults need this image of the child – she pointedly does not claim that this is how children are or how they read – to keep a sense of themselves intact. According to The Case of Peter Pan, children’s literature reassures and stabilises adults by refusing to disturb their views of childhood at the levels of language, content … and form: these comprise the barriers around children’s literature to which she refers and result, she claims in an aesthetic of childhood innocence that she feels dictates what children’s literature is and does. • On the basis of a very limited sample of material, she [Rose]comes to the conclusion that because it is specifically addressed to and works to secure an audience of children. the child in children’s literature plays a central role in an ‘impossible’ collective fantasy about childhood. Moreover because this image is imbibed by children during the primary stages of language acquisition, with all that entails for the development of self and social understanding, it persists into adulthood…’ • ‘According to The Case of Peter Pan, this cycle stifles innovation… • Rose’s argument is that the primary function of children’s literature is to secure the child in culture; it is coercively normalising. To show how it does this, she identifies a number of demands that shape what writing for children’s literature should do and not do: there should be no disturbance at the level of language, no challenge to our (adults) sexuality, no threat to our status as critics, and no question of our relation to the child’
Preparation for TMA5, Option 1: Is Children’s literature generally ‘Innovative’ or ‘Coercively normalizing’? • Reynold’s alternative view: • But Rose’s argument sits uneasily with evidence both from within children’s literature and from other aspects of Western culture. As Art Historian, Anne Higonnet demonstrates in ‘Picture of Innocence’ (1998), images of children and childhood have become deeply conflicted, with the entrenched but essentially residual allegiance to the innocent child (Higonnet, like Rose, associates this image with Locke, Rousseau, and the Romantics) giving way to what she terms the ‘knowing’ child in the course of the 20th century. Rose overlooks the ambivalent nature of many images of childhood, including in children’s literature, past and present. • … However, many writers – and particularly writers for children – have specifically acknowledged the way fictions encountered in childhood inspired them to think in new ways and to break free from prevailing views of childhood.’
Preparation for TMA5, Option 1: Is Children’s literature generally ‘Innovative’ or ‘Coercively normalizing’? • In what ways can children’s books be ‘innovative’? • Experiment with new forms, new narrative structures or ways of writing; • Experiment with new subject matter – previously not seen in books for children: • Experiment with the way that the child is portrayed within the text and their relationship to adults Do you agree with Rose that children’s literature is dominated by an idea of childhood as innocent and that this ‘stifles innovation? Or Do you think that children’s literature is innovative and experimental? Can you think of any examples from the books that you have encountered on the course to date that support your view?
TMA5 Option 1 Discuss the evidence for regarding for regarding each of Voices In The Park and Peter Rabbit as both (a) innovative (b) ‘coercively normalising’. • This is a debate question asking you to look at 2 sides of an argument and come to an assessment of the evidence. • You will need to explain the terms ‘coercively normalising’ and innovative – you might want to briefly consider how these apply to children’s literature generally, but your focus should be on the two set books for block 5 as these are what the question is asking you to look at. • Whether you discuss each book separately or consider them both together and look at one side of the argument at a time, is up to you. Either approach could work – but when you are planning your essay, think about what would be the best way for you to approach it in order to do justice to your overall argument.
TMA5 Option 1 Discuss the evidence for regarding for regarding each of Voices In The Park and Peter Rabbit as both (a) innovative (b) ‘coercively normalising’. Some of the sources, beside the Study Guide, that might particularly help you with this question are: Peter Rabbit: Mackey, M. (2009) ‘Peter Rabbit: Potter’s Story’ in Montgomery, H. and Watson, N. J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 87-95. Scott, C. (2009) ‘Perspective and Point of View in The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ in Montgomery, H. and Watson, N.J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 100-113. Voices in the Park Goldstone, B. (2009) ‘Postmodern Experiments’ in Maybin, J. and Watson, N. J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Approaches and Territories. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 320-29. The section on ‘Voices in the Park: Density of Meaning and Intertextuality’ in Jane Doonan’s essay ‘Drawing Out Ideas’ provides useful further reading. See also Sandra Beckett’s essay on ‘Parodic Play’ Some more general reading on how children read and respond to picture books can be found in the articles What’s in “the gap”? A glance down the central concept of picturebook theory by Beauvais and Harris, P. (2005) 'At the interface between reader and text: devices in children's picturebooks that mediate reader expectations and interpretations', (both available under Study Resources: Block 5 on the EA300 Module website) NB This is not an exhaustive list, there are other materials that may provide useful ideas
TMA5 Option 2: Discuss some of the ways in which animals feature in illustrated books, picture books and picturebooks for children, and what they suggest about constructions of childhood. • This is asking for a discussion of the ways in which authors use animals in children’s stories, these might include: • Observation of animals • Anthropomorphism – the attribution of human characteristics to animals • Zoomorphism - the shaping of something in animal form e.g. art that portrays humans as non-human animals • You will need to explain the terms illustrated books, picture books and picturebooks (perhaps also postmodern picturebooks) as they relate to the books that you have chosen to discuss – but don’t spend too long on stand-alone definitions of these terms. • Think about how both the way that animals feature and the format of the book suggest constructions of childhood e.g. as we discussed with regard to the previous question, do they suggest an idea of childhood innocence (a protection from the real world) or of the ‘knowing child) • The question is deliberately open to allow you to choose the texts that you want to discuss and how you want to approach your argument. You could choose to look at one book at a time or approach your answer thematically.
TMA5 Option 2: Discuss some of the ways in which animals feature in illustrated books, picture books and picturebooks for children, and what they suggest about constructions of childhood. • Some of the sources, beside the Study Guide, that might particularly help you with this question are: • Hollindale, P. (2009) ‘Aesop in the Shadows’ in Montgomery, H. and Watson, N. J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 96 -99. • Scott, C. (2009) ‘Perspective and Point of View in The Tale of Peter Rabbit’ in Montgomery, H. and Watson, N.J. (eds) Children’s Literature: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 100-113. • Styles, M. and Arizpe, E. (2001) 'A gorilla with '"Grandpa's eyes": how children interpret visual texts.' Children's Literature in Education, 32(4), pp. 261-281 • Golden C. (1990) Beatrix Potter: Naturalist Artist Woman's Art Journal , Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1990) , pp. 16-20 (available under Study Resources: Block 5 on the EA300 Module website) • Jane Doonan’s essay ‘Drawing Out Ideas’ (available under Study Resources: Block 5 on the EA300 Module website) provides useful further reading. See also Sandra Beckett’s essay on ‘Parodic Play’ • NB This is not an exhaustive list, there are other materials that may provide useful ideas
