1. Introduction
2. What is a Picturebook?
3. Creating Meaning in a Picturebook - Part I
4. Creating Meaning in a Picturebook - Part II
5. Creating Meaning in a Picturebook - Part III
6. The Book as a Physical Object - Part I
7. The Book as a Physical Object - Part II
8. The Book as a Physical Object - Part III
9. Conventions and Style - Part I
10. Conventions and Style - Part II
11. Elements of Design - Part I
12. Elements of Design - Part II
13. Media of Picture Books - Part I
14. Media of Picture Books - Part II
15. Media of Picture Books - Part III
16. Activities & Assignments

Creating Meaning in a Picturebook - Part I

A. Sequential - Moving the Plot Along

Look at the first three images from your copy of Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins.

Though this appears to be a fairly simple sequence, these openings demonstrate much about how picturebooks work, how they create meaning, and how they guide the reader through the book. This is a story of Rosie the hen taking a walk, so it's a story about a journey. When you open your copy of Rosie's Walk, you may notice that the book is much wider than it is tall. Its horizontal shape reflects the fact that walking, for the most part, is a horizontal action. Rosie's walk is a walk around the barnyard. The horizontal shape contributes to the sense of making a journey.

Now, notice how the action begins at the left of the page and moves to the right. Just as your eye moves from left to right when reading print, The picturebook is laid out so it moves in the same way, with your eye ending at the right and you ready to turn the page. In a museum each picture stands alone, and rarely does one picture connect in a narrative fashion with the pictures around it. Unlike art we might see at a gallery or a museum, pictures in a picturebook serve as context for the pictures that follow -- the pictures are part of the narrative structure, part of the tension that must exist to some extend in any book. They cause the reader to ask, What comes next? If we aren't asking ourselves that question we have little reason to want to turn the page. That's the drama of a picturebook and artists must take that into account when they illustrate a picturebook.

These first three openings also show the four ways pictures and words can work together to make meaning.

1. The picture can show what's described in the text. The text mentions Rosie the hen walking and that's exactly what we see in the first opening.
2. The picture also shows what's mentioned or suggested in the text. We see Rosie walking around a farmyard. The fact that Rosie is a hen suggests that the setting might be a farm, as that's where we would expect to find a hen.
3. The pictures show what is neither mentioned, suggested, or described. We see a fox in each of the openings. There is nothing in the text to suggest a fox is part of this story. The picture extends the printed text by providing information only contained in the picture. Pictures and text working in this relationship tend to offer a richer experience; you must pay more careful attention to the pictures as they have the sole responsibility for providing certain information necessary to the story as a whole.
4. The picture subverts or contradicts what's mentioned, suggested, or described. Rosie is going for a walk, which suggests something relaxed and peaceful. But this walk, at least from what we can see, isn't peaceful. Rosie is being stalked by a fox. Does Rosie know the fox is there? The text never says and the pictures are ambiguous. This is a gap -- a bit of information we must fill in and it's a big part of the pleasure of this story. The same dynamic is at work in Scieszka’s The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf. The wolf tries to say that he did not mean to eat the pig up. It just happened that way because his helpless sneeze blew up the pig’s house while he was visiting to borrow a cup of sugar for his granny’s cake. On the other hand, the pictures tell us different side of the story. When the house was blown down, we see the table utensils around the pig’s body as if it is a reserved meal. The picture on the wall informs us that Alexander T. Wolf is the grandson of the wolf from the Little Red Riding Hood. As the story goes on, the gap between what the wolf tell us and what the pictures portray, makes the reader feel ironic and question if the wolf is reliable or not.

B. Increasing Tension

The pictures in Rosie's Walk create tension and relief by the changes in the fox's position and condition relative to Rosie. Another way to create tension is to change the size of the illustrations as Maurice Sendak does throughout Where the Wild Things Are.

Take a look at your copy of Where the Wild Things Are to see how the larger pictures play more heavily on our senses, creating more intense feelings.

Also, look through your copy of Come Away from the Water, Shirley, and notice how John Burningham creates tension by contrasting the plain white background color of the pictures of Shirley's parents with the deep, rich background colors in the pictures of Shirley. Burningham also changes the backgrounds of Shirley's pictures from light green to nearly black, mirroring the intensity of Shirley's imaginary play and her deep disappointment where she hears that she must leave the beach and go home.