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"These books made me really curious". How visual explorations shape the young readers' taste
Abstract
There are two ways in which a text may be illustrated: an artist can use a literal, descriptive, denotative mode, or a symbolic, implied, connotative mode. In the denotative mode, an artist’s illustrations are a direct and literal imitation of the “text” reality, while in the connotative mode, ideas and concepts are not directly signified but are implied by the associations or meanings that are suggested or evoked. In this latter mode the artist uses metaphors and similes to illustrate a text, thus introducing additional meaning and requiring that readers must draw on previous experiences in order to interpret and draw meaning from the text. This chapter will look at some young readers’ responses to a selection of picturebooks using these two types of illustrative styles. It focuses in particular on Capitan Omicidio (Captain Murderer), a version of Charles Perrault’s Blue Beard written by Charles Dickens and illustrated by Fabian Negrin.
... Several qualitative studies have examined how children engage with picturebooks (Arizpe & Styles 2002, 2016Kiefer 1995;Maderazo et al. 2010Maderazo et al. , 2012Pantaleo 2008Pantaleo , 2014Pantaleo , 2017Sipe 2008a). According to Campagnaro (2015): ...
Background: Given the ongoing literacy crisis in South Africa, there is a need for teachers, as well as teacher education programmes, to explore various means to enable learners to develop reading comprehension. This study sought to examine the intricacies of a series of small group literacy activities that hinged on the in-depth and repeated engagement with a contemporary picturebook. Furthermore, it aims to evaluate whether children can develop an affinity for these books.Aim: The aim of the study was to explore the ways young readers engage with a contemporary picturebook by way of their oral and painted responses.Setting: The study was a qualitative case study, which took place at an urban public school in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg.Methods: The research design followed that of a case study. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews during two paired readings, as well as a focus group discussion (FGD). Additional data were collected through children’s painted artefacts and their subsequent individual interviews on these paintings.Results: The findings indicate that learners initially had superficial verbal engagements with the picturebook, which was complemented by more creative responses on further readings. Another finding was that the facilitation by the researcher and the interaction with peers improved the learners’ depth of engagement. Lastly, the learners’ initial basic descriptions of what was visible was complemented by a more nuanced appreciation of the aesthetic features of the picturebook.Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is concluded that full depth of picturebooks and their affordances in classroom literacy programmes be introduced in detail to pre-service and in-service teachers in order to foster rich and meaningful reading experiences for learners.Contributions: This research functions to contribute to the limited body of literature surrounding children’s reading experiences of picturebooks and overall learning specifically in South Africa.
... Having a two-father family contributes to develop gender schemas, i.e., children reading this book will be open to diff erent gender portrayals and family models, as the one presented in the story (Campagnaro, 2015;Coats, 2018;Soler Quiles, 2015). In addition, these books can contribute to sex-role socialization, as the following study made by Weitzman et al. (1972Weitzman et al. ( , p.1126) makes clear: ...
This paper offers a multimodal analysis of the main characteristics of the compositional metafunction in the picturebook with a two-father family Me, Daddy & Dad (2017). The purpose of the analysis is to observe how textual meanings are created. The main tools of the grammar of visual design applied to picturebooks will be used for the analysis, following the model proposed by Painter et al. (2013Painter, C., Martin, J., & Unsworth, L. (2013). Reading visual narratives. Image analysis of children’s picture books. Equinox.). The main ideas of the said grammar will be illustrated with a description of images from the picturebook to deconstruct the relationship between the written text and the visual, the types of written and visual themes, the layout, the framing, and the focus. The analysis shows that both fathers take care of the child and do things at home, such as cooking. Consequently, two-father families are promoted and presented in an egalitarian way. However, the analysis shows that there are not open expressions of affection between the characters because, although the two fathers, Daddy and Dad, appear sometimes together, there is hardly any contact between them or between them and the child.
Keywords:
children’s picturebooks; multimodality; visual/verbal modes; critical discourse analysis
... En general, los libros álbum para niños influyen en la construcción de ideología y valores (Soler Quiles, 2015). Las principales características visuales de los personajes contribuyen a la forma en que los niños perciben la masculinidad (Campagnaro, 2015). En este sentido, las historias analizadas no son sexistas (Adler, 1993), ya que los hombres representados realizan tareas tradicionalmente asociadas a la mujer, como cocinar, coser, limpiar o cuidar a los niños. ...
Esta obra colectiva, profundiza en historias que promueven la inclusión social de familias homoparentales integradas por niño/as y dos padres o dos madres, así como historias que reflejan a personajes masculinos y femeninos que bien rompen con estereotipos de género, o bien no se adaptan a los estereotipos masculinos o femeninos que se espera de ello/as. Partiendo de este planteamiento, se identifican las estrategias verbales y visuales, intertextuales y sinergias intermodales de las que se sirven autores e ilustradores para crear discursos progresivos e inclusivos desde un enfoque semiótico, multimodal y literario
... Sex-role socialization is one of the areas where picture books can contribute. They help children create an affective-sexual relationship; they also help children establish their gender schemas by observing the different gender portrayals present in the visuals of the picture books they read (Campagnaro, 2015;Coats, 2018;Soler Quiles, 2015). ...
This study attempts to carry out an analysis of the compositional and interpersonal metafunctions of the picture book Stella brings the family (2015). The analytical tools employed in this study are based on the model for reading visual narratives proposed by Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013) and on Kress and van Leeuwen’s Visual Social Semiotics (2021), which are useful models for the analysis of multimodal texts. The compositional and interpersonal analysis intends to deepen the deconstruction of meaning in the picture book and how the characters express affection. The compositional analysis reveals that the visual and the written text are complementary and that the different focus groups highlight the characters. The types of themes and the layout foreground the protagonist Stella. In addition, from an interpersonal perspective, the analysis reveals that Stella has more physical contact with one of her fathers, which suggests that Stella has a closer relationship with him. The compositional and interpersonal meanings contribute to establishing a close connection with readers so that they identify with Stella’s problem of not having a mother to celebrate Mother’s Day.
... Having a two-father family contributes to develop gender schemas, i.e., children reading this book will be open to different gender portrayals and family models, as the one presented in the story (Campagnaro, 2015;Coats, 2018;Soler Quiles, 2015). In addition, these books can contribute to sex-role socialization, as the following study made by Weitzman et al. (1972Weitzman et al. ( , p.1126 The comparison of the verbal and the visual within the compositional metafunction shows that both modes contribute to the construction of meaning, although the illustrations are essential in the narration of the stories. ...
This paper offers a multimodal analysis of the main characteristics of the compositional metafunction in the picturebook with a two-father family Me, Daddy & Dad (2017). The purpose of the analysis is to observe how textual meanings are created. The main tools of the grammar of visual design applied to picturebooks will be used for the analysis, following the model proposed by Painter et al. (2013). The main ideas of the said grammar will be illustrated with a description of images from the picturebook to deconstruct the relationship between the written text and the visual, the types of written and visual themes, the layout, the framing, and the focus. The analysis shows that both fathers take care of the child and do things at home, such as cooking. Consequently, two-father families are promoted and presented in an egalitarian way. However, the analysis shows that there are not open expressions of affection between the characters because, although the two fathers, Daddy and Dad, appear sometimes together, there is hardly any contact between them or between them and the child.
... This picturebook contributes to the normalization of two-men families, because the child emphasises that the two dads can do what other fathers do, no matter that they are blue. Consequently, this book contributes to the broadening of children's gender schemas (Campagnaro 2015;Soler Quiles 2015;Coats 2018). This will have an effect on their ideology and on their socialization because children will see different family patterns, in this case two-men families, as natural as traditional woman-man families. ...
This paper aims to explore the linguistic and visual choices used by the writer and the illustrator in order to create meaning in the fantasy picturebook One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads (1994), written by Johnny Valentine and illustrated by Melody Sarecky, which features a gay family. The analytical tools employed in this study to deconstruct meanings in the said picturebook are Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) Visual Social Semiotics and Painter et al.'s (2013) model to read visual narratives in children's picturebooks. The analysis concentrates on the textual and compositional metafunctions in order to observe the intersemiotic relationship between verbal and visual meanings and their realizations through various linguistic and visual modes. The methodology is qualitative-descriptive. One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads reveals that both visuals and written text narrate the story, although it is the visual that is given a predominant role on the page due to its size, the location of the characters and the frames. The analysis shows that this is a picturebook in which having two fathers is represented as non-normalized, although they perform their family duties as they are expected to because they do the same things that other fathers do.
... The first stage consists in helping young readers, especially those with a limited visual culture, to understand and use their perceptive sensitivity by means of a more conscious and interactive reading of images in their picturebooks. Any cognitive numbness can be countered (in the second stage) by presenting children with less descriptive and referential picturebooks ( Campagnaro 2015 ), and opting to read picturebooks in which the images are more challenging, further removed from the more commonplace visual themes. Take the case of I cinque malfatti (The Five Misfits, 2014 ), by Beatrice Alemagna, where the theme of a topsy-turvy world along with the topics of diversity and self-acceptance that permeate the whole story also emerges metaphorically in the visual narrative (see the upside-down character in Figure 4.4 , bottom left). ...
Chapter 4. - Campagnaro M. (2021) Picturebooks and aesthetic literacy in early childhood education. In Å.M. Ommundsen, G. Haaland & B. Kümmerling-Meibauer (Eds.), Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education. International Perspectives on Language and Literature Learning (pp. 79-98). Oxon/New York: Routledge. -
In their everyday lives, children are immersed in a world of images. They grow up interacting with images and visual screens long before they learn to read. In toddlers, visual precedes verbal alphabetization. They learn to look at and recognize people, animals, and objects long before they learn to name them. What is more, their assiduous use of digital devices forges their way of looking at the world – a way in which the main route via which they receive information relies on images, certainly not words. If this awareness is combined with a literary, iconographic, aesthetic, and sociocultural expertise, this way of gaining knowledge in childhood can generate effective educational outcomes. Children’s literature can contribute to the training of this expertise, particularly as regards iconic narration and aesthetic sensitivity. Aesthetic sensitivity is “present when people begin to engage in sustained questioning about art, particularly in terms of different sorts of awareness regarding qualities of the objects being considered” (Rostankowski 1994: 117). A promising field in children’s literature research concerns the study of the nature and elements of aesthetic experiences in picturebooks. Which reading experiences are aesthetic and why? When do children have them? There is ample evidence that children have aesthetic experiences (Muelder Eaton 1994). Reading different kinds of picturebooks enables young readers to develop a sophisticated visual competence and aesthetic literacy, as shown by several recent studies (Arizpe and Style 2003; Beckett 2018; Campagnaro and Dallari 2013; Druker and Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015; Evans 2015; Kümmerling-Meibauer 2014). Seen from this point of view, picturebooks can be a relevant resource in the design of aesthetic education schemes, they can help to reflect upon aesthetic experiences, and they can be “instrumental in drawing students into more rewarding productive activity” (Muelder Eaton 1994: 20).
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how a more articulate and critical relationship with aesthetics through picturebooks may foster a highly-formative educational experience and to present a working model that attempts to develop aesthetic literacy in early childhood. This chapter is divided into five parts. The first part deals with the topic of visual prejudice in education and some of the reasons why visual narratives are penalized at school. The second part describes a study, “Come and Meet Bruno Munari,” conducted at a nursery school with children from 27 to 39 months old. It focuses on the importance of promoting projects of aesthetic literacy right from early infancy, drawing on the materiality of books, and book-objects in particular. The third part presents an educational and methodological proposal that could prove useful for constructing pathways of aesthetic sensitivity with young readers. This involves using picturebooks that emphasize both the aesthetic and pleasurable experience of reading and the status of the picturebook as an aesthetic object. The fourth part discusses a case study on the picturebook Emilia Mirabilia (2016), intended for children ages 7 and 8, in which this approach is undertaken with more mature readers. Finally, the last part of the chapter underscores how important it is for teachers and educators to develop the expertise they need for fostering the aesthetic literacy of young children. Consequently, this chapter places an emphasis on the semantic complexity and the educational potential which can emerge from a reading of picturebooks and which is crucial in the literary, visual, and aesthetically-oriented sense. It can be compared to a unique constellation of textual and visual features “which can be described as a coherent pattern or gestalt, contributing, in the particular work of art, towards the overall artistic design or vision. This uniqueness is, so to speak, part of the logical makeup of the concept of an aesthetic feature” (Haugom Olsen 1981: 525).
... The main visual characteristics of the characters, in this case Daddy and his roommate, Frank, contribute to the way masculinity is perceived by children (Campagnaro 2015). In the picturebook analysed, gay masculinity is normalised and the expressions of love between both men is presented as natural. ...
This paper employs the model to analyse visual narratives in children's picturebooks proposed by Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013) and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual social semiotics (2006), in order to observe the main compositional and interpersonal meanings created in the picturebook Daddy's Roommate. The aim of the study is to look at the position of the readers in the story and to observe the way the characters are represented and the relationships between them. The role of the mother will also be deconstructed, due to her importance in the story. I will analyse the main characteristics of the interpersonal and compositional metafunc-tions by exploring the way in which the visual and textual component create meaning. The methodology is mainly qualitative-descriptive. The analysis reveals that the abundance of middle-shots and close-ups suggest involvement between the characters represented in the book and the reader. Moreover, the predominance of offers points out that the reader is invited to observe the relationship and the actions that the child has with Daddy and his roommate and to see how positive it is. The composition-al meanings show that both Daddy and his roommate appear in prominent positions to show that they are important in the child's life. In most cases, the written theme coincides with the visual one as a way to reinforce the complementary meaning of both modes of communication in the story.
... En general, los libros álbum para niños influyen en la construcción de ideología y valores (Soler Quiles, 2015). Las principales características visuales de los personajes contribuyen a la forma en que los niños perciben la masculinidad (Campagnaro, 2015). En este sentido, las historias analizadas no son sexistas (Adler, 1993), ya que los hombres representados realizan tareas tradicionalmente asociadas a la mujer, como cocinar, coser, limpiar o cuidar a los niños. ...
... In general, children's picture books influence the construction of ideology and values (Soler Quiler, 2015). The main visual characteristics of the characters contribute to the way masculinity is perceived by the audience, in this case children (Campagnaro, 2015). In this sense, the books analysed are non-sexist (Adler, 1993) because the men represented are doing tasks traditionally associated with women such as cooking, sewing, cleaning, or taking care of the children. ...
The aim of this paper is to approach the representation of fathers and their construction of masculinity in a sample of picture books with two-father families published in the last decade, paying attention to the relationships between the image and the written text. Using
some tools of critical discourse analysis, linguistic and visual patters of physical contact between the fathers and the child will be analysed in order to deconstruct masculinity and to determine if one of the fathers has a more affectionate relationship with the child.
This research will also approach the main textual strategies used to portray and promote gay families. The methodology is qualitative. The discoursive analysis shows that, in the sample of picture books analysed, there are aspects related to new masculinities such as
representing both fathers doing domestic tasks or taking care of the child, which will have apositive influence on children’s education and socialization.
Resumen
El objetivo de este artículo es aproximarse a la representación de los padres y a su construcción de la masculinidad en una muestra de cuentos infantiles donde el modelo familiar consiste en familias en las que hay dos padres, prestando atención a la relación entre
la imagen y el texto escrito. Se emplearán herramientas de análisis crítico del discurso, se analizarán los patrones lingüísticos y visuales de contacto físico entre los padres y el/la niño/a para deconstruir y para determinar si uno de los padres tiene una relación más afectiva con
el/la niño/a. Esta investigación también se aproximará a las principales estrategias textuales empleadas para promover y representar las familias gais. La metodología es cualitativa. El análisis discursivo llevado a cabo revela que, en la muestra de cuentos analizados, en
general, aparecen aspectos relacionados con las nuevas masculinidades como puede ser la implicación de los dos padres en las tareas domésticas o en las labores de cuidado de las/os
niñas/os que aparecen en los cuentos, aspectos que influirán positivamente en la educación y socialización de las hijas/os.
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