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- How adult and children's books differ
- Topics
- The prevailing trend is inclusive. No topic is prejudicially off-limits, if handled in a sensitive manner.
- Many examples of this wide-ranging variety of topics are listed later in this same document.
- Different notion of what's boring and what's appealing
- For children, endless repetition is FUN! This is probably a necessary aspect of their voracious learning process.
- See (and listen to) the percussive refrain in "Trashy town".
- Children enjoy gross-out humor more openly
- Icky eats: "A Load of Old Tripe", one of the poems in "There's an Awful Lot of Weirdos in our Neighborhood"
- Boogers and worms: "Pat the beastie"
- Nose-picking: "The dumb bunnies' Easter"
- Resolution
- Traditionally, children's stories would end with an explicit moral.
- The moral, or some other uplifting payoff, is subtly implied in more recent works.
- But note the bluntly stated moral in "Pat the beastie"--although its ironic intent (spoofing such 19th century fare as Wilhelm Busch's "Max und Moritz") will be lost on children.
- Happy ending--if only partial/provisional--is the norm.
- children will identify far more closely than an adult with the characters in the story, and may have a hard time distinguishing between real and fictional mishaps.
- "Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel" ends with an ingenious win-win resolution: the villain is won over rather than defeated.
- by contrast, the happy ending in "Witches four" relies on a deus-ex-machina resolution: everything abruptly turns out OK by magic.
- exception: "The Coming of the Surfman"--ends in failure
- Emotional range
- Children's stories encompass just about every emotion, but lead to attenuated consequences:
- Hate, death, even murder have been addressed--but no disturbing depictions of the same.
- Love and crushes are OK--but sexual innuendo is not. Some critics reject traditional fairy tales precisely because they see blatant erotic subtexts in many stories.
- Non-sexual nudity may be acceptable in the right context. In some countries this is a more difficult issue. There were many objections in the U.S. to the child's frontal nude in "In The Night Kitchen" (Sendak's interview with Rolling Stone magazine).
- Child safety
- Wild adventures are just about expected--at least for older kids. But they must remain within a safe comfort zone.
- "The elephant and the bad baby" contains a blatant violation of the 'child safety' creed. Not surprisingly, it is a 3-decades-old book. Few editors these days would allow the extended pursuit of a baby (albeit ensconced atop a huge elephant) by a butcher brandishing a meat cleaver.
- Perhaps just as important to the publishers: any violent or dangerous activity that children may attempt to emulate becomes a liability issue.
- No derogatory terms or images
- Language that hurts is not OK, even if the author is trying to explain and salve the hurt itself
- Expurgated expletives: "A Poem to Send to Your Worst Enemy", in "There's an Awful Lot of Weirdos in our Neighborhood"
- Experimentation
- After examining a variety of picture books, you may start noticing that narrative techniques that would pass for avant-garde experimentalism in adult fiction are used in mainstream children's literature as a matter of course.
- Some scholars contend that this approach is simply a consequential response to the yearning for discovery in the target audience. David Lewis in "The constructedness of texts" (an essay collected in "Only Connect", 3rd Ed., p. 272) discussing the unconventional, open-ended nature of picture books:
"Many picture books have the air of refusing to take anything for granted; they seem to assume an audience for whom the shape and nature of much in the world, especially the activity called reading, is still in flux."
- I find further evidence in favor of this interpretation in the history of cinema. Only in its infancy was filmmaking able to attract broad appreciative audiences for experimental works (focusing on, and delighting in, the mechanics of the medium). Examples as early as the many short movies by Georges Méliès (such as Trip to the Moon, 1902), and as late as the Buster Keaton comedies (most notably Sherlock, Jr., 1924) appealed to viewers still uncertain as to what was 'normal' and 'to be expected' in film--and therefore equally open to both conservative and radical strategies.
- Picture book formats
- Board books
- "Zoom City", for ages 1 and up
- Picture books
- wordless
- "A Boy, a Dog and a Frog"
- "The Ring"
- "Elephant buttons"
- worded
- wordy
- "The Coming of the Surfman"--half of each spread is a full page of text
- these blur the line separating picture books from easy readers
- poetry--generally allowed to exceed normal page limits
- Ranges from newly illustrated editions of the classics (such as Stevenson's "A child's garden of verses") to edgy ("There's an Awful Lot of Weirdos in our Neighborhood") and energetic ("Wake up house!: rooms full of poems") new works.
- For younger readers, many board books (such as "Zoom City") explore poetry's primal roots in ambient sounds and onomatopeia.
- NOTE: a picture book of poetry is NOT the same as a picture book with rhyming text. The former is a collection of short pieces--often not narrative in nature; the latter is a story--which most editors would rather read in prose.
- there are also a few books that conform to the picture book format, but are not intended for children.
- Edward Gorey was the chief practitioner of this hybrid approach. See for instance his "The curious sofa: a pornographic work by Ogdred Weary".
- This book is, of course, not pornographic at all--unless the readers make up lewd interpretations for its puzzling text and images, in compliance with the expectations created by the title. Nevertheless, the title itself makes this book inappropriate for children.
- Another Gorey title that subverts the genre is "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"--an alphabet book detailing the ghastly demises of a series of hapless children...
- Easy readers
- "Make way for ducklings" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury").
- Middle Grade novel
- "The velveteen rabbit"--the publisher's stated reading level is "6th grade"
- "I Was a Sixth Grade Alien", fifth grade reading level.
- "McBroom's ghost"
- Young Adult novel
- While YA is part of the juvenile department at most publishers, from the illustrator's standpoint it differs little from the adult market: in general, visual material is restricted to the book cover.
- Textbooks/Curriculum complements
- there are as many sub-categories as there are study subjects and grade levels. For the illustrator, they often have in common the style (due to lower production costs: line art, spot color), and the contractual arrangement (work-for-hire).
- "D'Nealian Handwriting ABC Book", grades K-2
- Comic books/comic strips/cartoons
- Comics are a highly visual form of printed matter, addressed to all the same age levels as the children's book formats detailed above (from simple wordless stories to sophisticated 'graphic novels'). However, in the narrowly compartmentalized universe of publishing, children's books and comic books--regardless of intrinsic merits--are two entirely separate worlds.
- Cross-over works are rare. One such example is "Fred": it was constructed and marketed as a picture book, but the story was told in comic book format.
- Picture book genres and themes
- Stories
- Shulevitz ch. 4, p.47
- Pared-down classic linear narratives
- Taking "Where the wild things are" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury") as an example, the essential elements are:
- Exposition: here's a kid named Max, he's wearing a wolf suit, and he's up to no good.
- Conflict: mom is not amused by Max's wild behavior, and represses his self-espression with a timeout. Max counters by literalizing the notion that he's a wild thing. In his own fantasy world, he will strive to be "the most wild thing of all".
- Climax: in an orgiastic (by small-kid standards) 'wild rumpus', Max celebrates his subjugation of much bigger wild things, who hail him as their king.
- Resolution: after having let off steam, Max pines for family warmth and square meals. As a token of his mom's enduring affection, he finds his supper waiting for him in his room.
- Given the constraints of the medium and the inclinations of the audience, there are generally no secondary storylines, additional turning points, lengthy descriptive passages. A particularly fast-paced example of this narrative style is "The paperbag princess", where all the basic elements are tightly packed in a few spreads by letting text and picture handle separate tasks:
- In the first spread, by way of exposition, the text tells us who the protagonists are, while the picture shows us what the conflict is: the object of Elizabeth's affections, Ronald, is very obviously a self-absorbed jerk.
- By the second spread we are dropped abruptly in the midst of catastrophic events: castle crashing and burning, dragon abduction of Ronald, Elizabeth left naked and destitute. The bulk of the book is given over to non-stop action: Elizabeth's quest to retrieve her (unworthy) loved one.
- In the final spread, the text describes the climax--Elizabeth finally sees through Ronald's fatuous beauty and rejects him as the "bum" he really is. The picture shows the resolution: Elizabeth skipping and jumping happily into the sunset--all by herself.
- Notice, though, how even this simple book layers two different stories: the overt quest to rescue Ronald, in which the dragon is the villain. And the real quest to liberate Elizabeth, in which Ronald himself is the villain.
- Cumulative stories
- "The book that Jack wrote", an extended play on familiar nursery verse, beginning and ending with a book inside a book inside a book...
- "The elephant and the bad baby"
- Circular stories
- "Have you ever seen a chick hatch?", on poultry lifecycle--a play on the 'chicken-or-egg' conundrum. The reader can start on any page of this spiral-bound book without a cover (the latter is replaced by a slipcase).
- "The book that Jack wrote", in its recursive aspect.
- "What goes around comes around", which uses the circular plot to imply a moral--retribution for inconsiderate actions.
- Multiple parallel storylines
- "Full moon soup"
- "Once Upon a Time"
- Self-referential stories
- "Free fall", an adventure book about the dreams fueled by adventure books.
- "The book that Jack wrote", in its book-in-a-book aspect.
- "Pat the beastie", which presents the beastie's side of the story as a second, miniature picture book glued to one of the pages of the larger book.
- Intersecting storylines
- "Shortcut": new characters and storylines are introduced in each of the first few chapters. In the later chapters those disparate characters cross paths--at least in the images. The text feigns ignorance of all the odd coincidences and purports to tell simple, straightforward, disconnected stories.
- The odd narrative structure may be disconcerting for younger readers, but with some adult encouragement they should come to see it as a game--one that rewards close scrutiny of the illustrations.
- Basic learning
- Alphabet
- "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- "Jambo means hello: Swahili alphabet book"
- "Eating the alphabet: fruits and vegetables from A to Z"
- "The Z was zapped"
- Counting (often embedded into a cumulative storyline)
- "Ten, Nine, Eight" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- "One hole in the road"
- Colors
- "Freight Train" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- Vocabulary
- "I Hear, I See, I Touch" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- Concept
- Bedtime
- "Goodnight Moon" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- "Ten, Nine, Eight" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- Day in the life of...
- Find the hidden details
- "Pigs in hiding"
- "It's a spoon, not a shovel"
- Holidays
- "It's Halloween"
- "The dumb bunnies' Easter"--a story so comically scrambled as to be equally inappropriate for all occasions, not just Easter.
- Tall-tale, exaggeration
- Issues (personal, social)--often addressed indirectly in the form of a story
- sibling rivalry
- "Julius, the Baby of the World"
- "Half-as-big and the tiger"
- "Titch" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- new kid on the block
- "I was a sixth grade alien"--here the theme is amplified to cosmic proportions, since the protagonist is no less than the new kid on the planet.
- "Will I have a friend?"--a book to soothe first-day-of-school anxieties
- work roles ('what do you want to be when you grow up?')
- "Matthew's dream"--mom and dad mouse hope their child will become a doctor, but he finds his calling on a visit to the art museum and becomes a famous painter.
- gender roles
- "William's doll"
- "The paperbag princess"
- self-esteem and empowerment
- "Titch" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- "Whose mouse are you?" (collected in "20th-century children's book treasury")
- "Half-as-big and the tiger"
- animal/pet rights, environmentalism
- "Pat the beastie"
- "Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel" provides an instructive contrast to contemporary attitudes: back then (1939), clearing hillsides was a sign of progress.
- nutrition, health, illness
- "Eating the alphabet: fruits and vegetables from A to Z", "Moe Q. McGlutch, he smoked too much"
- mortality, grieving
- prejudice and tolerance
- "Upside-downers: more pictures to stretch the imagination"
- "Why are you calling me a barbarian?"
- "William's doll"
- good manners and mis-behavior
- "The elephant and the bad baby"--even babies aided and abetted by rampaging elephants must, in the end, learn to say 'please'.
- "Moe Q. McGlutch, he smoked too much"--which, in keeping with the zeitgeist of the early 70s, emphasizes the folly of stultifying etiquette and the value of questioning authority.
- "This is the bear and the bad little girl"--teddy bear theft bordering on bear-napping.
- "It's a spoon, not a shovel"
- ethnic identity
- "Big meeting"
- "Grandfather's journey"
- "Jambo means hello: Swahili alphabet book"
- "Shota and the star quilt"
- "Snapshots from the wedding"
- "Why leopard has spots: Dan stories from Liberia"
- In addition to books which focus on a specific ethnic heritage, there is a more general inclusive trend--which encourages a multi-ethnic cast in all stories, as in "The high rise glorious skittle skat roarious sky pie angel food cake"
- many more themes, sometimes quite unexpected
- urban decay in "The Coming of the Surfman"--unusual for being a dystopia
- homelessness in "Witches four"
- Non-fiction follows somewhat different rules and will be addressed later.
- Types of illustration work we will cover
- Shulevitz, beginning of chapter 9: "The purpose of illustration" (p. 121)
- Picture book (fiction)
- Illustrator challenge: visual storytelling
- Non-fiction
- Illustrator challenge: effective and accurate representation
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Details regarding the books mentioned in this document
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Return to Overview
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