“Picture books are more than just illustrated storybooks, with the written text, fonts, and illustrations all part of the story.” (Lewis, 2001). Picture books have deeper meanings behind the text and illustrations. The combination of the written and visual language contributes to the development of ideas and characters that can be related to society and personal experiences of the reader. In this essay I am going to discuss language features (written and visual), and ideas in relation to Melu, written by Kyle Mewburn, and illustrated by Ali Teo and John O’Reilly.
Melu is a picture book about a mule named Melu who lives with his herd in the sun-baked hills on an island surrounded by a glittering green sea and lush green grass. For generations the herd of mules have been clip-clopping around the sun-baked hills. However, Melu is different. When the herd clips, Melu clops. When they clop, Melu clips. Melu dreams of leaving the herd and venturing down to the glittering green sea and the lush green grass. Eventually he does, despite the disapproval from the herd. Melu comes across some obstacles, where his new friends, Goat and Bull help him. Together Melu, Goat and Bull journey together to the lush fields and the sea. Melu won the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Choice Award.
Kyle Mewburn has used certain written language features to help develop the characters in the story. He combines alliteration, onomatopoeia and repetition to give an identity to characters. Throughout the story, Mewburn refers to the mules clip-clopping, Melu clop-clipping, Goat clit-clattering and Bull stomp-stamping. Combining these features helps to create an identity for the characters in the story and adds humour to their forms of travel. “Characters can ...
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... that engage children with appealing written and visual features are able to convey the ideas more effectively because the audience is able to engage at a deeper level. Melu is exceptional in this regard, which is a contributing factor to it winning the 2013 New Zealand Post Children’s Choice Award. The reasons that I have stated in this essay support this statement, “Picture books are more than just illustrated storybooks, with the written text, fonts, and illustrations all part of the story.” (Lewis, 2001).
References:
Anstey, M. & Bull, G. (2000). Reading the visual. Marrickville, New South Wales: Harcourt Australia.
Blakeney-Williams, M. (2011). Tuning into the Children’s Choice book award: an analysis of four picture books. Reading Forum NZ. Vol 26, no 3, 38-45.
Lewis, D. (2001). Reading contemporary picture books: Picturing text. New York: Routledge Farmer.
In conclusion, critical evaluation of what makes a book good or bad depends on the selection criteria and agenda of those making the evaluation. The prizes have been criticised through the years and the selection committees have risen to this by changing the selection process, even if this change has been slow. Children’s Literature is in flux due to the ever-changing ideas and perceptions of childhood. Children’s books seen as prestigious today may become, like Blyton, unpalatable to the critics of tomorrow.
All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy, is, among other things, an exploration of its main character, John Grady Cole. The author chooses words carefully and sparingly when creating dialogue for Cole. In doing so, McCarthy creates poetic effects and rich meaning from limited verbiage. This novelist lets his readers get to know his main character largely through dialogue instead of through direct description. In this way, readers find the techniques used by McCarthy similar to those used by Ernest Hemingway in many of his books and short stories. Like the dialogue of Hemingway's protagonists, Cole's speech is sparse, but it is indicative of a great deal of meaning.
Both "Spotted Horses" and "Mule in the Yard" are very entertaining stories by William Faulkner. Despite their common theme of animal chase, setting, and character, a more powerful story is found within "Spotted Horses". While "Mule in the Yard" is well written and full of comedy, it does not delve as deeply as "Spotted Horses" does. "Spotted Horses" proves broader in scope due to it's in depth narration style which provides particularly effective humor and development of characters.
After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?
Sullivan, C. W., III. "J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: The Magic of Words." Touchstones: Reflections on the Best in Children's Literature. Children's Literature Association, 1985. 253-260. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski and Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 8. Detroit: Gale, 2000. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.
John Grady is not your average cowboy. All the Pretty Horses is not your typical coming-of-age story. This is an honest tale. Cormac McCarthy follows John Grady as he embarks on his journey of self-discovery across the border. Armed with a few pesos in his pocket, a strong horse and a friend at his side, John Grady thinks he’s ready to take on the Wild West of Mexico. At their final steps in America, a stranger, aged thirteen, joins our heroes. This unexpected variable named Blevins challenges John Grady, testing his character and pushing him to uncomfortable limits. The dynamic of their relationship reveals John Grady’s capacity to care for others as he shelters this kid from the hardships of reality and the foolhardiness of youth. The journey into Mexico demonstrates his readiness to be recognized as a man, but when the critical moment arrives, John Grady’s will fails to meet unforeseen demands. His inability to speak at this crucial juncture acts as a mirror for self-reflection, returning him to the beginning.
Rose, G (2001) Visual Methodologies, An introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials London: Sage Publications
Whalley, J. (2009) ‘Texts and Pictures: A History’ in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University, pp.299-310
It is very easy to agree with Moebius statement that ‘good’ picture books contain some form of invisible and intangible concepts that keeps the reader returning. In Voices in the Park it is very easy to see Moebius idea due to the ability of technology to create detailed and complex books. In contrast, Potter has produced a book that more subtle in showing this relying not on technology like Voices in the Park but working within severe limitations. Blending page turns, text, colour to create understandable concepts. Goodman comments that some would argue that these elements in pictures interfere with and detract from the text, and thus undermine the confidence of the reader. An extrapolation of this idea is that preconceived ideas and pictures of another spoil the reader’s entrance to literacy.
Piper’s use of imagery in this way gives the opportunity for the reader to experience “first hand” the power of words, and inspires the reader to be free from the fear of writing.
“All the Pretty Horses”, a novel written by Cormac McCarthy tells the tale about a man and his friend travelling the plains of Mexico after leaving their homes in Texas. As the novel’s name alludes to, horses are a central theme in the story as they represent manhood and freedom when John Grady, the protagonist, and his friend Rawlins get thrown in jail. McCarthy’s novel became critically-acclaimed which gained him more recognition, as well as a movie adaptation directed by Billy Bob Thornton. Even though Thornton’s adaption has the basics of the novel’s story it does not appropriately grasps its depth. While Thornton’s version stays faithful to the dialogue from the book’s included scenes it does fall short by having an erratic pace, having
The title of Cormac McCarthy's novel, All the Pretty Horses, reflects the significance and variance of roles that horses play in this coming-of-age story, as they relate to John Grady. The horse, which was the social foundation of Western American culture until the mid-20th century, is described as an economical and practical asset to the boys. However, McCarthy also describes horses' abstract qualities using idyllic and impassioned diction, depicting them as animals of a highly advanced spiritual nature, similar to humans in some ways. John Grady has an intimate relationship with all horses and understands the world of horses extraordinarily well. On his journey, he learns that the world of men is very different from that of horses and is forced to rethink the relationship between humans and horses. John discovers that his preconceived notions about men and human society are false; he finds that they do not live in a romantic world as he had supposed. Therefore, the title McCarthy has chosen is ironic and epitomizes the change that John experiences. McCarthy uses the title to represent John's initial perspective on the world, which is refuted through John's later experiences.
Children’s literature is supposed to help a child grow socially; classic children’s literature skews this social development into something inappropriate and unnecessary for today’s society by exhibiting poor morals and rewarding bad behavior.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park were published at either end of the twentieth century, a period which witnessed the creation of the modern picturebook for children. They are both extremely prestigious examples of picturebooks of their type, the one very traditional, the other surrealist and postmodern. The definition of ‘picturebook’ used here is Bader’s: ‘an art form [which] 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’ (Bader, quoted in Montgomery, 2009, p. 211). In contrast with a simple illustrated book, the picturebook can use all of the technology available to it to produce an indistinguishable whole, the meaning and value of which is dependent on the interplay between all or any of these aspects. Moebius’s claim that they can ‘portray the intangible and invisible[. ], ideas that escape easy definition in pictures or words’ is particularly relevant to these two works.
What this course in visual literacy has taught me, is that the term “Visual Literacy” can be altered depending on the individual person’s sense of vision. James Elkins comes the closest to the best description of visual literacy, “Understanding how people perceive objects”. Interpret what they see and what they learn from them.” What happens when the artist or viewer has a different sense of vision? Looking at three different cases in Oliver Sacks An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales, “The Case of the Colorblind Painter”, “To See and Not See”, and “Prodigies”, our understanding of “Visual Literacy” is altered....