Picturebook Research

Based on a keynote address delivered at the 2017 Child and the Book conference in Valencia on interdisciplinary links between children's literature and the arts, this essay draws on its author's experience first as a children's literature scholar focused on picture books and then as a volunteer guide and docent for school tours in art museums. It explores how visits to art museums might be enriched by thinking about the art in them in the ways in which we think about the art in children's picture books-as images illuminated by a context of nearby images and the verbal language they appear in connection with. After an exploration of common assumptions about how to look at art in museums and a consideration of the ways in which our knowledge of picture books might influence our interactions with that art, the essay also briefly considers how museum art might influence our understanding and appreciation of picture books. Resumen Basado en la conferencia plenaria pronunciada en 2017 en el congreso en Valencia The Child and the Book sobre vínculos interdisciplinares entre la literatura infantil y las artes, este artículo utiliza la experiencia del autor como guía voluntario y docente para visitas escolares a museos artísticos. Explora cómo las visitas a museos de arte pueden ser enriquecidas pensando acerca del arte que contienen de la manera en la que pensamos sobre el arte en los álbumes para niños y niñas – como imágenes iluminadas por un contexto de imágenes cercanas y por el lenguaje verbal que aparece en conexión con ellas. Tras una exploración de las asunciones habituales sobre cómo mirar el arte en los museos y una consideración sobre las maneras en las que nuestro conocimiento de los álbumes puede influir nuestras interacciones sobre este arte, el ensayo considera también brevemente cómo el arte de los museos puede influir nuestra comprensión y apreciación de los álbumes. Resum Basat en la conferencia plenària pronunciada el 2017 al congrés a València The Child and the Book sobre vincles interdisciplinaris entre la literatura infantil i les arts, aquest article utilitza l'experiència de l'autor com a guia voluntari i com a docent per a visites escolars a museus artístics. Explora com les visites a museus d'art poden ser enriquides tot pensant sobre l'art que hi contenen de la manera en la que pensem sobre l'art en els àlbums per a infants – com a imatges il·luminades per un context d'imatges properes i pel llenguatge verbal que apareix en connexió amb elles. Després d'una exploració de les assumpcions habituals sobre com mirar l'art als museus i una consideració sobre les maneres en les quals el nostre coneixement dels àlbums pot influir les nostres interaccions sobre aquest art, l'assaig considera també breument com l'art dels museus pot influir la nostra comprensió i apreciació dels àlbums.

Campagnaro M (2017). Il cacciatore di pieghe. Figure e tendenze della
letteratura per l'infanzia contemporanea. LECCE:Pensa MultiMedia, ISBN: 978-88-6760-513-2

Quando si definisce un libro per bambini “semplice”, implicitamente o esplicitamente, si lascia intendere che la trama ha una sola “piega” e si escludono, di fatto, possibili rimandi in termini di ulteriorità di senso, di mistero, di altrove da esplorare. In un libro “semplice” vi è gran poco da svelare perché la trama è liscia, lineare, dispiegata, senza increspature o incuneamenti. I saggi raccolti in questo volume tentano di dimostrare, invece, che le opere di letteratura per l’infanzia si caratterizzano proprio per una molteplicità di “pieghe”: non solo con riferimento alla caratterizzazione dei temi, dei personaggi, delle ambientazioni o delle avventure di una storia per l’infanzia o per l’adolescenza, ma, soprattutto, per la presenza di intrecci narrativi nei cui anfratti si celano alcune fra le “pieghe” più suggestive, ovvero quelle dell’anima e della coscienza.
Il volume, che si articola trasversalmente, sia rispetto all’età dei destinatari (infanzia e adolescenza) sia rispetto ai generi narrativi (fiaba, racconti classici, romanzi contemporanei, albi illustrati), è suddiviso in due parti: la prima è dedicata alla fiaba; la seconda affronta figure e tematiche legate ad altre forme della letteratura per l’infanzia. In entrambi i casi, si indagano le “pieghe” nei libri per ragazzi, quali metafore che accolgono e rilanciano la categoria pedagogica della complessità.

This article examines the history of the translation into Japanese of perhaps the most quintessentially American children's author – Theodor Geisel or ‘Dr. Seuss’. As this article argues, there have been several waves of translation, but at all times larger ideological currents have played a big role in determining which books were translated and how. This article pays attention to the ways that the choice of text and translation style reflect larger ideas at work within society. For instance, the Japanese version of The 500 hats of Bartholemew Cubbins, translated by Ōmori Takeo in 1949, was published during the postwar SCAP Occupation, an era in which Dr. Seuss’ liberal, anti-imperialist story held special resonance for the Japanese population. Later, during the 1970s, the prominent translator Watanabe Shigeo translated a dozen Seuss works, but in ways that modify the messages in order to better match the zeitgeist of the era in which he was working. The newest translations have been spearheaded by the feminist poet Itō Hiromi, who has translated Seuss in ways that decenter and destabilize the male privilege implied in the original texts, thus carrying his liberal agenda in a new direction appropriate for our contemporary moment.

This essay is based on a historical corpus of Bruno Munari's picturebooks (from the Forties to the Eighties) in which content, shape, color, texture, material and graphic design transform his works into verbal, visual and tactile narratives, which are vital to children's reading pleasure and development. In an era when children were chided to "please don't touch", Munari groundbreakingly designed picturebooks in which touch became a key sense for reading and understanding. The purpose of this article is to examine methodically and in detail how Munari's picturebooks work and to identify the narrative mechanisms that are able to offer children tactility and a fulfilling reading experience. After a short introduction and an overview of the key role books and education play in Munari's oeuvre, a detailed analysis will look more deeply into the three narrative mechanisms designed by Munari for his picturebooks. The body of this analysis is divided into three parts, each dedicated to explaining one of the three narrative mechanisms that transforms the book page into a stage of everyday life, an active agent and a challenge of limits. The main findings of this investigation will reveal that Munari's picturebooks open up imaginary worlds in everyday settings that draw the reader into the action and push them to be challenged by limits rather than bow to them, even those books published to be understood and handled by toddlers.

Questo saggio analizza un corpus storico di albi illustrati di Bruno Munari (dagli anni Quaranta agli anni Ottanta) in cui contenuto, forma, colore, consistenza, materiale, grafica e design trasformano le opere in narrazioni verbali, visive e tattili, vitali per il piacere della lettura e lo sviluppo cognitivo delle bambine e dei bambini. In un periodo storico in cui l'infanzia veniva redarguita a "non toccare", Munari rivoluzio-na e innova la progettazione dell'albo illustrato, eleggendo il tatto a "senso" chiave nella lettura e nella fruizione del libro. Il saggio analizza in modo approfondito e metodico i meccanismi narrativi di albi, capaci di promuovere la valenza educativa della tattilità e della lettura quali esperienze gratificanti. Dopo l'introduzione e l'inquadramento storico-culturale rispetto al ruolo giocato dall'educazione e dai libri nel lavoro di Munari, il contributo si sofferma sul funzionamento di tre meccanismi narrativi presenti nei libri per l'infanzia dell'artista e designer milanese. Il primo meccanismo eleva la pagina a "palcoscenico" della quotidianità; il secondo meccanismo trasforma la pagina di un libro in un "agente attivo" e, infine, nel terzo meccanismo il piccolo lettore viene catapultato in esperienze di lettura che sfidano il senso del limite. L'analisi rivelerà come e perché questi libri, che mettono al centro del progetto editoriale la sfida intellettuale, anche nelle esperienze editoriali per i piccolissimi, siano in grado, ancora oggi, di alimenta-re l'immaginario di bambine e bambini.

Simms Taback’s picturebook Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (1999) is analysed in terms of its realistic and fictional elements and their sophisticated relationship. The visual and verbal strata of the picturebook establish a dialogue which makes it multidimensional and metafictive. A range of metafictive devices is identified and explained at the levels of the book paratexts, the narrative itself, and its specific cultural background. The picturebook incorporates various cultural, literary, and factual details, mostly as intraiconic texts. Therefore, intertextuality is one of the most prominent features of the picturebook. A seemingly simple story adopted from a Yiddish folk song turns into a thoroughly metafictive piece, which questions the reality of fiction and the fictionality of reality. As such, it enables Simms the author and Joseph the character to meet and initiate a dialogue on crucial literary and cultural issues, inviting the reader to participate.

This article examines the use of maps in the works of Czech author-illustrator Peter Sís in order to consider the role that cartography plays in the construction of four of his biographical picturebooks.  The profusion of maps found in Sís’s biographical picturebooks expresses an understanding that the exploration of identity is intimately linked with the exploration of the spaces in which that identity is formed. Here, I will show that the maps also represent three basic functions: first, Sís uses maps to situate the reader in a specific time and place; second, maps are elements that initiate adventure; third, the profusion of maps, combined with other textual elements, raises a question that runs through all of Sís’s work regarding the limits of representations of reality. In order to prove this hypothesis, the article presents a walk through the pages of the four chosen picturebooks, which describes and analyzes the different types of maps that the author uses.


Key words
Biography, Mapping, Maps, Fiction, Picturebooks, Peter Sís

Das Modell besteht aus sechs eng miteinander verbundenen Dimensionen: 1. Im Fokus der paratextuellen und materiellen Dimension stehen der Paratext des Bilderbuchs, also alles, was den eigentlichen Text umschließt, sowie die materiellen Eigenheiten des Mediums Buch. 2. Die verbale Dimension geht auf die Parameter der sprachlichen Gestaltung ein. 3. Die bildliche Dimension umfasst alle Aspekte der visuellen Gestaltung und des Designs. 4. In der intermodalen Dimension wird das wechselseitige Verhältnis von Bild und Schrifttext erfasst. 5. Die narrative Dimension enthält erzähltextanalytische Kategorien auf der Ebene der histoire (Was wird erzählt?) und des discours (Wie wird erzählt?), die im Bilderbuch mithilfe von bildlichen als auch verbalen Codes bzw. in ihrem Zusammenspiel realisiert werden. 6. Die kontextuelle Dimension geht auf intertextuelle und extratextuelle Bezüge ein, die für das Verstehen und die Interpretation eines Bilderbuchs notwendig sind.

La puissance des États-Unis donne à ses révolutions culturelles des résonances qui traversent l'Atlantique comme on enjambe une mare à crevettes. Si Maurice Sendak fut le porte-drapeau, pour la littérature jeunesse, de la révolution éducative des années 1960, quels furent et sont les combats de ses continuateurs ? Anne Chassagnol et Celeste Rhoads dégagent les lignes de force d'une édition américaine qui nous précède sur la question de la représentation de la diversité et sur un chamboulement critique. À toute fin utile…

RESUMO
Capítulo de livro editado por Maria Zilda da Cunha e André Luiz Ming Garcia. O objetivo central do presente escrito é levantar um panorama histórico das publicações coreanas endereçadas à infância que mesclam palavras e imagens, as quais datam da virada entre os anos 1980 e 1990 e alcançam seu ápice nas duas primeiras décadas do século XXI. Além disso, propomo-nos elencar alguns nomes e títulos que marcam momentos decisivos nesse percurso qualitativo e expansivo – dentro e fora da Coreia, indo além das limitações linguísticas.

ABSTRACT
Book chapter within the book edited by Maria Zilda da Cunha and André Luiz Ming Garcia. The main goal of this writing is to raise a historical panorama of Korean publications addressed to children that puts words and images in relation, which have its starting point from the turn between the 1980s and 1990s and reach its peak in the first two decades of the 21st century. Furthermore, we propose to list some names and titles that mark decisive moments in this qualitative and expansive journey - inside and outside Korea, going beyond linguistic limitations.

This article first presents a brief review of the history, meaning, and function of literary theory, and then proceeds to elaborate on the charming and slippery stance of children’s literature theory and criticism. The impact of “reading other ways” on the philosophical self-deconstruction of theory constructors’ practices is also dealt with. To illustrate the application of theory in practice, i.e., to reach a critical reading based on Roderick McGillis’ eclectic approach that encompasses best methodologies, the story of “The Sun in the Sky and the Sun in my Stomach” written by Morteza Khosronejad which deals with understanding the essential concepts of decentration and time is initially inspected from a mythological/archetypal perspective with a focus on the concepts of relativity and decent ration. Taking intertexuality theory into account, the researcher attempts to explore this philosophical-literary story from other angles to reveal the reason and the way it appeals to the reader’s interest. The outcome is reaching a spectrum of diverse meanings accomplished by analyzing the text through perspectives of different theories.

Keywords: DECENTRATION, INTERTEXUALITY, THE SUN IN THE SKY AND THE SUN IN MY STOMACH, MYTHOLOGICAL, ARCHETYPAL PERSPECTIVE, READING OTHER WAYS, TIME, MORTEZA KHOSRONEJAD, RELATIVITY, LITERARY THEORY

هدف این جستار، دیگرخوانیِ یکی از کتابهای مجموعه ی  10 جلدی داستانهای فکری،  نوشته ی مرتضی خسرونژاد و نشان‌دادنِ توانِ دیگرخوانی در بررسیِ آثار ادبیات کودک و آشکار کردنِ ارزشهایِ ادبی موجود در اثر بررسیده است. برای دستیابی به این هدف، پس از مروری کوتاه بر پیشینه، معنا و کارکردِ نظریه ی ادبی، به افسون وارگی و لغزندگیِ موقعیتِ نقد و نظریه ی ادبیات کودک نیز به اهمیتِ دیگرخوانی در خویش بنیان فکنیِ فلسفیِ کار «نظریه سازان»، می‌پردازیم. آنگاه برای نشان دادن کاربرد نظریه در عمل، که همان رسیدن به خوانش انتقادی است، از روش پیشنهادی رادریک مگیلیس، یعنی گلچین روشها بهره می گیریم. نخست از دیدگاه اسطوره‌‌ای/کهن‌الگویی (و در همان حال با تأکید بر مفهومهای نسبیت و تمرکززدایی) به قصه ی «خورشید توی آسمان و خورشید توی دل من» که به شناختِ دو مفهومِ بنیادیِ تمرکززدایی و زمان می‌پردازد، می‌نگریم. سپس با نگاه به نظریه ی بینامتنیت می کوشیم از زاویه ای دیگر این قصه‌ی فلسفی- ادبی را بررسیم و چراییِ و چه سانیِ لذّت آوری اش را واکاویم. برآیندِ کار دستیابی به طیفهای معناییِ گوناگون در اثر نگاه به متن از چشم‌اندازهای چند نظریه و آگاهی بر لغزنده بودن معناسازی و معنایابی در ادبیات است.

کلیدواژگان
بینامتنیت ، تمرکززدایی، خورشید توی آسمان و خورشید توی دل من، دیدگاه اسطوره‌‌ای/ کهن‌الگویی، دیگرخوانی، زمان، مرتضی خسرونژاد، نسبیت، نظریه ی ادبی