Childrens Picture Book Stories - Essay Example

Analyzing a picture book Name: Course: Date: Children’s picture book stories often have significant educational texts. This is because they provide important lessons which are useful to the young minds of the readers who are mainly children. In addition, picture book stories offer powerful ideological tools as social function of naturalizing childhood, home and family values (Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001). In this particular picture book, the content of this picture book is about multiculturalism. In the picture, I seek to encourage kids to understand that all culture as well as race are beautiful. Given that it is difficult to draw pictures and show facial expressions and feelings, I tried to make use of bright colours to portray happy characters in my pictures. As well, I changed the characters size to indicate feelings. For instance, when the snail was lonely and upset, I drew it hiding on a tree. But a happy snail was drawn shiny and bigger having bright colours. Use of such different and bright colours was aimed at capturing children’s attention. In addition, use of animals and insects in picture books not only creates a secure feeling to people with racial inflictions, but also appeals to many children as different races are used in telling the story. It is such little details that catch the attention of children. In this picture book, the drawing of a happy snail at the end was aimed at making children to learn that one can achieve everything they desire if they work hard. According to (Arizpe and Styles 2003: 7), different stories in the picture books are meant to give more material for children to read. Image – text relation There are several images and text relations in this picture book. On page 6, I introduce the story of the book by writing, ‘in this garden, everyone was living so happily. The birds were singing, butterflies were dancing and the ladybugs were having a tan under the sun’. This first text is counter relation. In this relation, the author either chooses pictures or text to convey the narrative. According to Anstey and Bull (2000), pictures and words give totally different stories. However, the interaction scenery is fundamentally different. Whereas pictures and words contradict one another, the visual story is more exciting and complicated as compared to the verbal narrative (Arizpe and Styles 2003). The verbal introduction of the story comprises of a single sentence that has twenty five words. On the other hand, the pictures introduce the story by showing the butterfly, the ladybird and the bird all happy. In Children Reading pictures book, words tell the same story as one set of images but contradicting completely to the other pictures story. The pictures in this book comprise of a wordless narrative. Sometimes words do not mention all pictures. The picture book is based on a very beautiful garden. In this garden everything existed in harmony. The book shows the garden with beautiful grass and plenty of sunshine. In the morning the birds would sing and the ladybugs tan in the sun and the butterfly beautifully dance. The image created here is that of a perfect environment According to Shatford (2008), a picture book pictures enable the reader as well as the listener to be aware of things that are taking place around the unaware protagonists. In this book, there is a picture of the snail hiding on page 9. The garden has a snail that always hid and grieves about his slowness. He would observe the other animals and just wish that it was fast like them. All day he was hiding behind a tree and would grieve inside his house and dream to be colorful and fast like the other animals. The picture book portrays snail being lonely by hiding behind the tree maybe because he is ashamed to be seen by the other animals. As the story ends, the snail, slimy Sammy is seen being excited that finally his dream were coming true. He yelled in happiness’ come on, what are we waiting for? Hurry up let’s go! The story is targeting the children. It is used to explore the aspect of multiculturalism. Today’s world is a fast paced world and everyone is ever moving hence meeting new cultures. It is important that the young generation accepts others generation and seek to share ideas. Social networking have been a global phenomenon that keeping everyone in touch with the world, and in the process making friends far and wide, children need to be taught how to accept one another despite our cultural differences. Analysis and evaluation of the final picture book The picture book is not only drawing people’s attention deliberately to the fact that the visual narrative is not only complementary, but also significantly richer than the usual straightforward story told by words (Gleeson 1999: 10). Children are always in a position to examine the text and illustrations in direct relation to their aural outcomes. Perhaps a difference to keep in mind is that which divides the children who can read from the child who cannot. Even without reading skills, words and letters can be shaped and sized so as to indicate certain qualities that are visual as opposed to linguistic. The relationship that exists between reader and the text is quite unique. By arranging words in a sensible and cohesive way the text capture the reader’s attention creating a relationship. The reader infuses intellectual and emotional meanings into the pattern of verbal symbols. If images are combined with words the meaning is channeled further as one not only reads the text visualizing but also creates more clear images in the mind out of the images (Jackson & McGillis, 2008). It’s important to point out that when discussing about images, it means pictures not illustrations. Children’s mind is set to capture the minor details out of a picture that the adults mind will often overlook. The picture book is intended to create multiculturalism among children. The use of animal and insect characters is meant to ensure that no race or ethnic group felt left out. In addition, animal characters are the easiest way to pass a message to children. The language used in the picture book is quite plan and simple. The reason is obvious that it is intended for young minds that haven’t developed linguistically yet. However there is use of few vocabularies as it as intends to educate the young mind. The wording used is very minimal since the picture pass more information and emotions that words can’t. According to Bang (2001), pictures are used to express the non-written works in books. According to Lewis (2001, p. 76), the views of full length of characters in a bigger context do not give the same effect to the reader. The choice of characters in the picture book is worth noting. The singing bird signifies that everything in the garden was so perfect. It also brings out an image of a sunrise morning when birds sing to wake everyone up. The dancing of the butterfly is used to show there was plenty of food. In the natural environment the butterflies aren’t seen in dry spell when there is nothing to feed on. Then the snail is slow as explained. Power, involvement or detachment (horizontal angle) Whitehurst et al (1988, p. 555) states that when viewers are positioned by the choice of vertical angle, it makes them to recognize the relations of power. The depicted characters are believed to exhibit power when readers and viewers are compelled to look up to those participants from a lower angle. The color schemes used is simple and easy to associate with. The skies are blue to show there was plenty of sunshine. The landscape is represented by color green meaning there was enough rainfall. The color pass more intense message as it transforms the reader from his position to the garden. The reader becomes part of the garden. While design the picture book there was a problem on how to show emotional, however by use of different colors the emotions associated with those colors were felt. To pass on different emotions the size of the characters has been consider. To show that the snail is feeling lonely it has been drawn hiding behind a tree and in small size. The beautiful butterfly that is dancing is flapping its wings to show joy. To pass the message that everything in the garden was fine the ladybug is shown to lying on a life enjoying the beautiful sunshine. The singing bird is perched on a tree. The pictures wish to create both exciting but formative interaction with the reader. According to Anstey & Bull (2000), the reader should enjoy reading the picture book while at the same time grasping the important lesson. It is also intended that no particular culture will feel offended. As the language used is simple and plain to understand as the reader should be able to understand. Conclusion In conclusion everything in the picture book is all connected to bring out the idea of multiculturalism. The ladybug, the butterfly, the bird, the snail, and the caterpillar represent the human diversity. Each of the animals or insect represents different cultures. The important thing is that all do coexist in peace. There exist a very influential relationship between picture and words as they intend to interpret each other. This message is then conveyed to the reader in more than one way, as the pictures and the rich text tend to raise emotions in the message. All aspects about picture book have been achieved. A whole plot of the story has been developed while intertwining it with sub-plots. List of references Anstey M. & Bull, G. (2000) Reading the Visual: Written and Illustrated Children's Literature, South Melbourne: Cengage Learning. Arizpe, E. & M. Styles (2003) Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts, London: RoutledgeFalmer. Bang, M. (2001) Picture This: How Pictures Work, Chronicle Books, San Francisco. Gleeson, L. (1999) Writing Hannah: On Writing for Children, Hale Iremonger, Adelaide. Jackson, A., K. Coates & R. McGillis (eds) (2008) The Gothic in Children’s Literature: Haunting the Borders, New York: Routledge. Kress, G. & T. van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: the Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd ed., London: Routledge. Lewis, D. (2001) Reading Contemporary Picture Books: Picturing Texts, London: Routledge. Nikolajeva, M. & C. Scott (2001) How Picture Books Work, New York: Garland. Shatford, S. (2008). Analyzing the Subject of a Picture: A Theoretical Approach, Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, vol. 6, no.3, October, pp. 39-62. Whitehurst et al. (1988). Accelerating language development through picture book reading, American Psychological Association, vol. 24, no. 4, July, pp. 552-559. Read More