MATCHING LOOKS: NEW APPROACHES TO THE BOOK-ALBUM (ON PAPER)

ISBN 9788460810285
VV.AA. , AUTHOR-EDITOR

THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING CHILDREN'S BOOKS: CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF VISUAL STORYTELLING (ON PAPER)
ISBN 9788498015904
MARTIN SALISBURY , BLUME, 2014

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THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING CHILDREN'S BOOKS: CONCEPT AND

PRACTICE OF VISUAL STORYTELLING (ON PAPER)
ISBN 9788498015904
MARTIN SALISBURY , BLUME, 2014
BOOK DATA
 No. of pages: 192 pages.
 Binding: Softcover
 Publisher: BLUME
 Language: SPANISH
 ISBN: 9788498015904
 626 book of Fine Arts
BOOK SUMMARY
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The only work available on the market on illustrated children's books aimed specifically at students. It brings together necessary
practical and theoretical information and includes specific cases from renowned illustrators who put the theory in its context.
Basic and solid knowledge of the children's book industry as well as a broad vision of the art of illustrated books with an
international focus. Useful for beginners and experts, writers and artists, teachers and students, lovers of words and images, for
anyone interested in the production, marketing and consumption of illustrated books. Children's illustrated books are the first
ones we all come into contact with, and they represent an important, dynamic and constantly evolving sector within the
publishing industry. What does it take for an illustrated children's book to be well received? This volume not only analyzes the
history and evolution of the illustrated book, but also all aspects of this type of publication: from formation to the interaction
between words and images on a page, from the use of old and new methods of printing to the editorial process and the
demands of this industry in the 21st century. Today, the picture book is defined by its particular use of sequential images,
usually associated with a small number of words, to convey meaning. Unlike the traditional illustrated book, in which images
enhance, decorate and amplify, in today's illustrated book the visual text assumes almost all narrative responsibility.

With the purpose of including the theory and practice of children's book illustration in an accessible and in-depth
way, the book The Art of Illustrating Children's Books is presented. Concept and practice of visual storytelling .
Reading the work in its entirety allows us to confirm this letter of introduction, since it becomes an interesting
contribution that, thanks to the accessibility of the content, generates an interesting text for a wide audience. It
presents a diversity of thematic cores that address everything from the history of the emergence of the illustrated
book to the publishing industry aimed at children, passing through the figure of the illustrator, children's visual
literacy and how they respond to texts, the relationship between word and image and the difficult themes that
children's literature presents. Each of these entries represents short, rigorous chapters, exquisitely illustrated with
examples that help to understand what is being said, and that end up creating an informative, concise and highly
documented book on a topic as extensive as the art of illustrating children's books. The extensive scope and the
informative desire make it a good initial resource for the training of future professionals in the field of children's
literature.
Accustomed as we are to an unattainable current publication of illustrated books for children, the current leads us
to read how critics and theorists analyze them and it is difficult to stop to remember or know the origin of so much
relatively recent production of a genre that becomes for children one of the most important accesses to culture. In
this sense, in the first chapter of the book we can discover works and authors that mark the beginning and
evolution of the genre. The entries to these authors are small touches that generate doors for the deeper discovery
of these influences. The first chapter also generates interest in the key role of publishers in the proliferation of
illustrated children's books at the end of the 19th century and how they explain the tensions they experienced
between public taste, commercial potential and artistic integrity. Tensions that are still current. Also relevant is the
passage through the emergence of the first series of children's books, as well as the appearance of the first
authors who explore the genre and the different techniques and thematic approaches to which they lean.
From the 3rd chapter (The illustrated book and the child) it is worth highlighting the clear resonances of the work
of one of the authors, Morag Styles, with Evelyn Arizpe in Reading Images (2004), as well as ongoing research by
some students. It is interesting to read fragments of children's conversations around literary texts that, without
doing any specific analysis of the reading response, offer nuclei around which students collectively construct
meaning.
One of the interesting contributions is the beginning of the 4th chapter, in which we find the section on “theorizing
about illustrated books” where we can follow the description of the interests of relevant theorists such as Perry
Nodelman, Margaret Meek, Lawrence Sipe or Jane Doonan. , among others. As in other parts of the book, the
approach to these authors generates possibilities of expanding readings depending on the interests of each reader.
Thinking about the teaching of literature in the classroom, the last chapter is knowledge that any teacher who has
the task of training literary readers may be interested in because it takes a simple, but very diverse, tour of the
editing process, an element that is usually ignored. in any educational intervention around literary texts and that,
when made available to students, generates interest and the possibility of expanding interpretation and reading
responses.
From chapters 5 and 2, “The Art of the Picture Book Maker” and “Suitable for Children?” A final section stands out,
which we also find in most other chapters, which are titled “practical examples”, in which the authors choose to
focus and offer analysis and voice of authors, editors or experts in order to exemplify what is explained in the
chapter with interesting concretions and very complementary to each other.
In general, the book also highlights a very personal choice on the part of the authors in the selection of the titles,
illustrators and personalities cited, which for them constitute a historical journey with quality examples. The
anglophone perspective also stands out, making some of the works unknown to a non-English reader. In this
sense, taking into account the careful edition of the book, it is a shame that the examples that are also published
in Spanish do not have this version in the interior images of the books as well as in some titles that only have the
English version, when Spanish exists. However, the book, as a whole, represents an approach to children's
literature from the perspective of illustration, including theory and practice, with a very careful and well-illustrated
edition and with a very pleasant and easy-to-read result.

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MATCHING LOOKS: NEW APPROACHES TO THE BOOK-ALBUM (ON PAPER)

ISBN 9788460810285
VV.AA. , AUTHOR-EDITOR
BOOK DATA
 Binding: Hardcover
  Publisher: AUTHOR-EDITOR
 Language: SPANISH
 ISBN: 9788460810285
 11339 early childhood education books
BOOK SUMMARY
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The Book Bank and the Gretel portal (Research Group on children's and youth literature and literary education of
the Autonomous University of Barcelona) presents the work Crossing of Looks: New Approaches to the Book-Album
edited by Teresa Colomer, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and María Cecilia Silva-Díaz.

“This book brings together writings by specialists from eleven different countries and represents a representative
range of the diversity of paths recently opened by research in this emerging field (Book-album). The works analyze
very different aspects, they do so from multiple approaches that are interrelated and address themes that connect
with some of the main trends in the reflection of the human and social sciences on current culture, written culture,
childhood, learning, multimodal forms of communication or artistic interpretation. The work is offered, therefore,
as a crossroads of views that enrich the perception of the cultural, cognitive and aesthetic aspects of the book-
album and that place the reader on the most promising lines of the new criticism."

Within the group of works that are considered “children's and youth literature”, the album book is one of the most
sophisticated and innovative copies since it extends an exceptional invitation to the reader to participate in a
complex game between word and image. If you accept the invitation, the reader must attend to the various
semiotic elements offered by the author/illustrator, create bridges and fill gaps in an interactive and recursive work
of meaning construction. But what happens when an album book has no words, that is, when, apparently, the
game happens only with the images? How does the reader manage to reconstruct the story captured without the
support of a written text? This essay will address these questions, in the first instance, from reflecting on the
relationship between the word and the image that defines the album book and the “implicit reader” [i] and, in the
second instance, from what we know about the reading process through studies with “real” readers.
From the beginning, it should be noted that this essay is based on the conviction that the album book, with or
without words, can be one of the best “teachers” for developing visual competence. This visual competence is
understood here as the potential to understand an image in depth and appreciate it more consciously and perhaps
critically, through an active engagement with an interpretive process that in turn increases and enriches this
competence. Therefore, the more encounters a reader has with album books, the more capable he or she will be
of understanding them and extending this understanding to other texts, both visual and written (of course if the
forewarned intervention of a mediator – parent is added to the reading). , teacher, reading promoter - meetings
can be much more beneficial). When the album book presents only images, the reader's engagement must
increase as they must look more carefully, reflect more deeply and collaborate more closely with the illustrator,
thus learning something more about the creative process and the craft. of the artist and the writer.
The album book: a unique genre
Like other types of literature for children and young people, a critical school has emerged around the album book
that incorporates ideas from literary theory “for adults” but extends these theories to a literature that is
differentiated by the characteristics of the intended reader. In other words, the fact that it is an adult who writes
for children, rather than a child writing for children (just as it is adults who write literature for adults), is what
defines children's literature and therefore Therefore, it requires a particular analytical perspective. This perspective
has highlighted the literary potential of children's and youth literature, since in addition to addressing a broad
theme, experimental and playful styles are frequent that even encompass complex rhetorical resources such as
irony and parody. Regarding the album book, this criticism is truly unique since this type of literature has no
equivalent in “adult” literature and also presents some of the most innovative and varied forms thanks to the
multiple possibilities of interaction between words and images. images (it is true that the graphic novel and the
comic present some of these characteristics but they are genres with very particular qualities, such as the use of
vignettes, balloons or speech bubbles and onomatopoeia).
It should be remembered that there are many books with illustrations, but not all of them are defined as album
books. In an album book, the text and image are not only interdependent, but in the dynamics of their relationship
there are gaps that invite the reader to use their imagination. The best authors leave spaces through which they
challenge readers to think, to go from the expected to the unexpected, from the literal to the metaphorical. In
English, it is increasingly common to see the compound word “picturebook” because it reflects the idea of a
comprehensive artifact that is distinguished from a “picture book” (two words), that is, a book with images. The
Spanish term, “book album,” manages to capture something of this entire essence: it is a book (words) but also an
album (images). One of the most cited definitions in English, by Barbara Bader, captures this essence very well
(although it still splits the English term into two words):
An album book is text, illustrations, total design; It is a work of manufacture and a commercial product; social,
cultural, historical document and, above all, it is an experience for children. As an artistic manifestation, it balances
at the point of interdependence between images and words, in the simultaneous unfolding of two found pages and
in the drama of turning the page. [ii]
The expert critics in children's and young people's literature who have contributed the most to elucidating this
definition, explaining in detail how the album book works are Perry Nodelman (1988), Maria Nikolajeva and Carole
Scott (2001) and David Lewis (2001). His observations help to understand the playful, ironic, allusive and
sometimes ambiguous nature of the album book, the various forms of interdependence between text and image
and its capacity to create meanings in an alternative language. They also help to understand how they construct
the reader. Nodelman's argument highlights that this has not only educational but socio-cultural consequences: "As
artifacts of our own culture, album books require and help build readers and viewers who will take their place in
that culture." [iii]
Nodelman continues with an analysis of the characteristics of the implicit reader of an album book: he is a child
with knowledge about the conventions of a book, the narrative and the world and, when actively involved in the
deciphering process, he is able to find the meaning of the signs presented as the creator intended. Of course, only
an “ideal” reader will be able to concretize all the signs, but creators often offer “clues” and other support so that a
“real” reader can find meanings, even beyond those the creator has imagined. As Nodelman suggests, both images
and written text are the result of social, historical and ideological contexts (and the place of the child and the
concept of “childhood” within these contexts) and the responses of any reader or viewer, to any literary or artistic
work, are informed by previous experiences that include experiences and expectations of literate practices. In the
album book, attractive images and captivating words revise and extend these experiences and knowledge through
the new ideas and sensations raised by the exploration of visual language, intertextual and cultural links, and the
emotions that accompany them.
At this point in the discussion about the album book, doubt often arises regarding children's ability to understand
the games, allusions and literary devices of the most complex books. The research that has been carried out on
the reading response to the album book [iv] has shown us that children bring a certain visual competence to their
reading and that, with the support of the mediator or through frequent encounters with the texts, they can
understand sophisticated elements. We forget that they are surrounded by a visual world and participate in visual
practices – whether through media, video games and digital networks – that involve deciphering and creating
meanings through the image. The best album books are those that teach the reader through pleasure and playful
interaction, and despite not having the terminology to describe them, children quickly learn how these resources
work. These album books reflect the author/illustrator's respect for his reader and are distinguished from those
that infantilize them through sentimental and moralizing stories and simplistic and childish drawings.

The absence of words and the implicit reader

But let's get back to the question, what happens when there are no words and just a series of pages with images?
A “wordless album book” can be defined as a narrative where the visual image carries the weight of meaning and
where the absence of words is not a simple artifice, but is relevant and consistent with the story and the theme.
[v] According to this description, the reader encounters not only the images but also the spaces of the absent
words and this will have a crucial impact on their process of looking, reading and creating meanings. On the part of
the authors/illustrators of these books, the decision not to include written text is not one that has been taken
lightly; In fact, it is a decision that involves much more work on their part because they cannot take advantage of
certain facilities that language offers, such as communicating the characters' thoughts and emotions more directly.
In addition, they have to ensure that the invitation to the reader is supported by visual resources such as colors,
line, perspective and page design, along with some “clues” that help build the story.
The “wordless” album book began to appear more frequently from the mid-20th century onwards, and in the last
two decades, prominent artists have experimented with this format. Several of them have won awards for their
works, for example Raymund Briggs, Mitsumasa Anno, Quentin Blake, Tord Nygren, Istvan Banyai, Juan Gedovius,
Shaun Tan, Suzy Lee, Chris Rashka, Barbara Lehman, Béatrice Rodriguez and Jerry Pinkney. Gabriel Pacheco, a
renowned Mexican illustrator and recipient of several awards and mentions, [vi] and Magdalena Armstrong Olea,
winner of the XIV Illustrated Album Contest A la Orilla del Viento, have made recent forays into the field of the
“wordless book album.” These two examples are enough to show how the talent of its creators has produced
works that are different in terms of visual resources and techniques but that manage to open playful spaces where
the reader can share the art of counting without words.
The Witch and the Scarecrow , by Pacheco, offers the reader a suggestive repertoire of sumptuous blue and gray
tones that, together with the textures, perspective and shapes, invite the reader to enter a mysterious and
evocative environment, where the encounter between an eccentric witch and a lonely scarecrow. The illustrator
places small clues in the images – a bird, a red leaf, a scarf – to indicate the construction of a story but also leaves
gaps and questions that we have to fill with our imagination: why is that witch different? Where do the other
witches go? Why did the scarecrow's transformation happen? What is the bird doing with the red leaf in its beak?
Did the witch catch up with her companions or did she decide to change direction?

Rag and Rat , by Armstrong Olea, presents a strong contrast with Pacheco's book both in the format, the colors
and the fine pencil line as in the multitude of details that frame the comings and goings of the characters. Even the
words in the title are made up of objects that add to the meaning of the story. You have to look carefully to find
the games and jokes and to “read” the emotions of the characters, one of whom does not even have a face.
Despite the obvious triumph against the cats, questions also arise: what is the relationship between the rat and the
character with the cloth on his face? what happened to the cockroach? Will the cats return?
However, even today there are those who have never seen a “wordless album book” and are surprised that they
exist. Perhaps one of the reasons these books are not better known or popular is that some parents and teachers
consider them only for very young children who cannot read (and therefore do not need written text). If you
believe that the purpose of a book is to teach reading, what use is a book without words? What can children learn?
Furthermore, how is it possible to read it, if there is nothing to “read”? It is ironic, therefore, that some teachers,
researchers and other educational professionals use them to support the development of language and other skills,
for example, to learn a new language or with children with some form of disability. [vii] Furthermore, as Bosch and
Duran point out, “If we understand reading as a form of decoding and interpreting signs, wordless albums are also
read.” [viii]
Of course, it is almost impossible to find an album book that does not have some words: on the cover (title and
author's name), on the back cover or in the images themselves, incorporated in the name of a store, a street or a
billboard (in Pacheco's book, the sound of the witch's unicycle is translated into the written word “Scritch”). This is
why in English they are sometimes known as “nearly wordless picturebooks”. In Spanish the term “book album
without words” is used and sometimes also “image reading” and the Italians use a term in English, “silent books”.
This idea of the “silent” or “mute” book suggests that it is the reader who has to provide the “voice.” Just as the
creator of the work requires all his skill as an artist and storyteller to offer us a story, the reader has to use all his
narrative, visual and even dramatic skills to give that voice to the visual text.
Think like readers and creators
The research [ix] that has been carried out on the reading response to the “wordless book album” helps to
illuminate both the nature of this type of works and this reading process. There is usually an initial surprise at the
lack of the written word, but any concern about this absence tends to quickly disappear as the reader realizes the
freedom that this absence offers – and begins to enjoy its creative possibilities. Of course, the reader's skill in
weaving the story will depend on his or her literary practices, his previous experience with album books, with or
without words, and also on the mediation provided.
Although every album book requires a certain degree of co-authorship, the “wordless album book” is perhaps the
most demanding format and the reader's participation must therefore be much more active. The reader's prior
knowledge and cultural background, as well as their sensations and emotions, must enter this process. The
process is guided by the questions “what does it make me feel?” and “what makes me think?” The level of
complexity of the visual elements, for example chronological order, will determine the sophistication necessary for
the co-creator role. This means a different, slower and more concentrated reading pace and probably several re-
readings. Since verbal language is absent, the reader has to use the tools provided by the unique semiotic system,
this means attending to the elements that offer connotative meanings in artistic language. It involves paying more
attention to graphic elements, looking for clues and distinguishing links that seem to be most significant, making
connections between sequences on the page and within a page, and drawing on intertextual experiences. It means
creating hypotheses through expectations and predictions and constantly reviewing them. It requires identifying
relationships between characters and inferring emotional states. By playing a more autonomous role, the reader
also has to trust himself more and take more risks but also tolerate ambiguities. Nières-Chevrel's summary of
reading a “wordless album book,” Anne Brouillard's L' Orage , can be applied to almost any album book in this
format: “The book demands your full attention.” on the part of the reader; who must face the enigmas, build
hypotheses about the relationship between images and accept that he cannot understand everything.” [x]
In a recent investigation, Visual Journeys , [xi] we obtained evidence of this process. In this project, carried out in
four international contexts – Glasgow, Barcelona, Arizona and Bologna – immigrant children between 10 and 12
years old from various countries read two “wordless album books”: Flotsam ( Floating ) by David Wiesner (2006)
and The Arrival ( Emigrants ) by Shaun Tan (2006). At first it seemed strange to them that there were no words
but they soon realized that their reading would have to be different and that the information to put together the
story would have to come from the images and therefore, they dedicated themselves to looking at them carefully.
In addition to discussing the works of Wienser and Tan and responding through a series of visual strategies [xii]
we had conversations with the children about the nature of a “wordless album book” and what it implied for the
reading process. One of the guys in Glasgow, Ali (originally from Afghanistan) told us that words were not
necessary because the images “go straight to your brain”. In almost all contexts of the study, children mentioned
the words “think,” “guess,” and “imagine.” They maintained that the author's intention was to make them “think
more.” They referred to the need to look carefully and take time to reflect. Another similar comment across
contexts was the idea of “making your own words or story,” thus reflecting their perception of the active
participation demanded by visual text. Readers' responses also showed that by encountering only the images they
felt that they were allowed a wider margin of interpretation and that the responsibility of the narrative voice was
delegated to them. They began to participate in a more active but also playful way, both physically and verbally,
making up for the missing words through monologues and dialogues, with their own voice, with gestures and
dramatic movements.
My intention in this brief essay is to show the potential of the “wordless album book” to support the visual
competence of its readers and stimulate their participation as creators, not only of texts but of possible worlds.
They can even encourage reflection on the reading activity itself and on the changes that new digital texts require.
This can be achieved with children of all ages as long as the invitation extended is open, flexible and respectful of
the reading activity. In the case of our research with immigrant children, we opened spaces to value and expand
reading experiences and the intervention of mediators helped in this process.
However, for historical reasons that have to do with learning and the forms of power that tend to be reproduced in
school, the written word is considered to have more weight and authority than the image. We are used to
depending on the word to give validity to our interpretation of a text. We were able to verify this in our research,
especially when at the end of the study, Claude (a boy in Glasgow originally from the Congo) asked the
researchers to bring him the version of Emigrants “with the words” to verify the reading of the images made by the
group of students. This is exactly what Shaun Tan says about:
There is no guide to interpreting the images, which can be very liberating. Words have an amazing gravitational
pull on our attention and how we interpret the images that accompany them, like the captions under a photo in
the press. Without words, an image can invite much more of the reader's attention than would otherwise reach the
nearest sentence and allow it to rule their imagination. (my translation) [xiii]
The experience lived through the “wordless album book” can support the development of a child in a significant
way, not only as a reader but also as a human being because it provides a flexible space in which to imagine,
reflect and grow in their understanding. both of the word and the image, as well as of himself and others. Echoing
many of the other participating readers in Visual Journeys , Hassan (in Glasgow, originally from Somalia)
concluded: “(the author) is trying to get you to think for yourself what the words should be.”
Bibliography
Arizpe, E. (2010) “Minority Voices Create Words for Wordless Picturebooks.” Paper presented at the 32nd
International Board on Books for Children and Young People IBBY Congress, Santiago de Compostela.
http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=1066
Arizpe, E. (2013) Meaning-making from Wordless (or Nearly Wordless) Picturebooks: What Educational Research
Expects and What Readers Have to Say, Cambridge Journal of Education 43 (2). 163-176
Arizpe, E. and Styles, M. (2004) Reading images: children interpret visual texts , Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Económica.
Arizpe, E., Colomer, T. and Martínez-Roldán, C. (in press). Visual Journeys through Wordless Narratives: An
international inquiry with immigrant children and The Arrival . Bloomsbury Academic.
Bosch, E. and Duran, T. (2009). UFO : an album without words that we all read differently. AILIJ Research
Yearbook of Children's and Young People's Literature , 7 (2), 39-52.
Crawford, P. TO. and Hade, D. d. (2000). Inside the picture, outside the frame: Semiotics and the reading of
wordless picture books. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 5 (1), 66-80
Iser, Wolfgang. 1987. The act of reading . Taurus.
Lewis, D. Reading contemporary picturebooks. Picturing texts . London: Routledge Falmer, 2001.
Nikolajeva, M. and Scott, C. (2001). How Picturebooks Work . London: Garland.
Nières-Chevrel, I. (2010). The narrative power of images: The case of L'Orage (The storm) by Anne Brouillard. In
T. Colomer, B. Kümmerling-Meibauer and C. Silva-Díaz (Eds.) Crossing of glances: New approaches to the album
book . Book Bank – Gretel.
Nodelman, P. (1988). Words about pictures. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Nodelman, P. (2000). 'Pleasure and Genre: Speculations on the Characteristics of Children's Fiction'. Children's
Literature , 28 (1), 1-14.
Pantaleo, S. (2005), 'Young children engage with the metafiction in picture books'. The Australian Journal of
Language and Literacy , 28 (1) 19-37.
Pantaleo, S. (2007). “How could that be?”: Reading Banyai's Zoom and Re-Zoom . Language Arts, 84 (3), 222-233.
Sipe, L. (2008) Storytime: Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom , New York, Teachers College
Press.
Tan, S. (2009). Silent Voices: Illustration and visual narrative. Colin Simpson Memorial Lecture.
http://www.asauthors.org/lib/images/ColinSimpson/2009/Colin_Simpson_2009_Shaun_Tan.pdf

[i] Iser 1987.

[ii] Bader 1976, cited in Arizpe and Styles 2004, p.43.
[iii] Nodelman 2000, p.41.
[iv] For example Arizpe and Styles 2004, Sipe 2008 and Pantaleo 2005.
[v] Nières-Chevrel 2010, p. 143.
[vi] http://gabriel-pacheco.blogspot.co.uk/
[vii] Some bibliographical references can be found in Arizpe 2013
[viii] Bosch and Duran 2009, p. 40.
[ix] For example: Crawford and Hade 2000; Pantaleo 2007; Bosch and Duran 2009; Arizpe, Colomer and Martínez-
Roldán (in press).
[x] Nières-Chevrel 2010, p. 143.
[xi] Arizpe, Colomer and Martínez-Roldán (in press).
[xii] Arizpe 2010.
[xiii] Tan 2009.
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