In the places where conversations take place about art and literature, there is little time for tthe picture book. Why should this be? It has a long history, a fascinating line of development and has often been a site for artists and writers to take risks and stretch their inventiveness.
The picture book owes its origins, to a mix of the graphic representations of the protestant martyrs that were distributed in the seventeenth century and the illustrated sheets ('chapbooks') full of ballads, tales and legends that were sold on the street. In 1678, John Bunyan, a self-confessed and guilty reader of these scurrilous sheets, produced the first versions of 'The Pilgrim's Progress' which, by 1684, came with illustrations and decade by decade, the combination of sharp-eyed booksellers, chapbook-makers, engravers, printers, educators, poets and doggerel writers started to produce what we would recognise today as the picture book.
Conventional wisdom tells us that it's an 'illustrated' book. That's to say, it tells a story which is added to by what were sometimes called 'illuminations'. Anyone opening Pat Hutchins' 'Rosie's Walk', can quickly see that this isn't what's going on. Instead, picture books are multi-track ways of talking to us, using words, graphic design, page design, cartoon and art as a way of telling many things simultaneously. These different tracks do not tell the same story and the business of enjoying a picture book often revolves round the ways in which we can read these different meanings. In 'Rosie's Walk' the text tells us that Rosie (a hen) goes for a walk. The pictures (and only the pictures) tell us that a fox is trying to catch her.
Today, the world of the picture book has diversified into many forms. My eight-month year old has a choice that includes a rustling, eight-page cloth book showing the faces of a dog, a rabbit and a cat; a plastic bath book in the shape of a tortoise that folds outwards telling the story of Henry the elephant; small but highly chunky board books that show various toys and machines, and an animal book with feely bits. Very soon, he'll be onto the board books with flaps, pop-ups, moving pieces, buttons for the sound of washing up, nursery rhymes or Disney songs that his older sister has left stacked up in her room. Clearly, the worlds of toys and books merged - not that this is new. The Victorians produced a wonderful range of novelty books involving see-through sections, fold-outs, moving pieces and musical boxes.
These all engage a baby in the notion that there are sequences and surprises, to be found in the process of holding an object in your hand that has these folding layers we call pages. Let no one tell you that this is not a form of reading. Watch a six-month year old baby follow and remember the images or textures offered up in one of these books for babies.
What we say and do as we turn the pages of these baby books is perhaps more important than many publishers acknowledge. Bald nouns like 'truck' and 'teddy' aren't a great help for either adult or child and we could do with more that help us make noises, sing, do rhythms and play finger games.. The books for the child who is beginning to talk are much better, and with the likes of the incredible Julia Donaldson now leading the way, we have many books full of rhyme, rhythm and song that are ideal for the child turning 'babble' into language. Meanwhile, the deceptively simple genre produced by people like Mick Inkpen and Rod Campbell have an almost magic ability to engage very young children.
By the time a child can enjoy the traditional picture book, there is now an extraordinary range of style, shape, story, subject matter, theme, cultural diversity. We can go back to Beatrix Potter and her curiously dangerous little books or wait for the next challenge from people like Laura Child, Roberto Innocenti or Anthony Browne. It's also a field full of tie-ins and celebs, so you may well find yourself immersed in Barbie, the Fimbles, Ricky Gervais, Madonna or whatever Disney has offered. If you mix these in with the picture books that have had the power to give pleasure to adults and children over many years ('classics' if you like), you get a sense of how the dominant cultural icons tug in one direction while the intellectual and artistic power of people like Maurice Sendak or Janet and Allan Ahlberg seem to tug in another. Our new library allows twelve books on one child's ticket. This 'armful' approach seems dead right to me, though sadly, they don't seem to have Beano annuals. My eighteen-year old learnt the art of scholarship through the Beano: cross-referencing, cataloguing and analysis of genre. I kid you not.
Email
