Children's Books -- Part 1

Hi Everyone,

A while ago, I came across a quote that connects a lot of the things I am most interested in. Picture book author and illustrator Karla Kuskin said, “There are great advantages to being a stranger because as a stranger you pay attention to everything, and that’s what children do. And that is also what you want to do as a writer or as an artist drawing: to see what is different and what is important.” Kuskin connects being in a new place to being a child. Often what is old hat to an adult is a fascinating adventure to a child. Going to the post office is as interesting as going to Timbuktu. Tying your shoe for the first time is as much a triumph as slaying a dragon or climbing Everest.

The Calvinist preacher Jonathan Edwards wrote in his journals, “the world exists anew every moment . . . we every moment see the same proof of a God as we should have seen if we had seen Him create the world at first.” If we are to remain childlike -- an essential characteristic if you are wanting to write and illustrate for children -- we need to ensure that we continue to see the world as Edwards described, as perpetually and wonderfully new.

This is one of the main reasons why I love picture books for children. Though not aware of it, child readers demand an equal balance between consistency and surprise. Without some stability in a story, the setting, characters and plot would be not only unbelievable, but incomprehensible. If an astronaut on the moon on page twelve turns into a teacher in a classroom on page thirteen with no explanation, the reader will be as lost as the characters. Furthermore, patterns and repetition play a huge role in learning to read, and being aware of this as an author or illustrator can enhance the book as a learning tool.

And yet if there weren’t new developments on every page, you wouldn’t have a story, you’d have a series of photocopies. And it’s the delicate dance between consistency and surprise that produces the best parts of picture books, whether verbally or visually. In the following sequence, the break in the pattern has punch only because the pattern is there in the first place:

On Monday, Jacob danced with the dog.
On Tuesday, he danced with the cat.
On Wednesday, he danced with the rabbit.
On Thursday, he danced with the goat.
On Friday, the llama danced with Jacob.

Without the first four sentences, the llama dancing with Jacob would not be as interesting because we wouldn’t have the back-story, as it were. However, without the last sentence, the story would be too flat, a joke without a punchline.

In my art criticism class this term, we had a discussion about Activist Art, art that attempts to change some aspect or viewpoint in society, be it patriarchal assumptions about the role of women or the stigma of AIDS. We noted how Activist Art often relies heavily on specific cultural vocabularies, using symbols, words and ideas that are well known to people of a certain culture.

"Health Coverage" (2008) -- Luba Lukova

For example, Luba Lukova’s image about the health care system depends on our familiarity with the image of an umbrella and with the caduceus, the symbol for medicine (though traditionally, the rod of Asclepius, with one snake and no wings, represented medicine, while the caduceus represented commerce, among other concepts). In capitalizing on these communal symbols, the art is often considered more “democratic” because it is accessible to a wide variety of people. Activist Art can lose some of the subtlety found in other kinds of art, however, and some people criticize it, saying that it deserves a quick read only, and nothing more. Other kinds of fine art, on the other hand, and painting in particular, can sometimes seem exclusive because artists often use their own private vocabularies initially unknown to the viewer.

"The Persistence of Memory" (1931) -- Salvador Dali

For example, the ants we can see in the lower left corner of this Salvador Dali piece represent decay and rot, which we know because he has established this as a personal symbol in the context of his other work. Apart from its sheer aesthetic value, Dali’s work is full of layers and hidden meanings, and as such, merits a more sustained viewing than, say, a poster protesting cutbacks in government services.

Is there a middle ground between accessible and understandable work on the one hand and work that has a richness in the visual vocabulary it employs? Of course. And one solution to this dichotomy comes in the form of picture books precisely because of the relationship between pattern and variation, between consistency and surprise. Picture books are essentially tiny worlds, usually created in a mere 32 pages. The author and illustrator must establish their own system of symbols and rules for their world. At first, it is unfamiliar to the readers, as strange as traveling to a foreign country; initially, picture books are like Dali’s painting. However, the author and illustrator are responsible for teaching the reader these symbols and rules. They not only create the world, they guide us through it. Because picture books are comprised of a series of words and images, we grow accustomed to the books’ individual vocabularies as we read. By the time we close a picture book, we should be naturalized citizens of the world it contains.

If, as Edwards wrote, the world really is created anew every moment, it could follow that there are an infinite number of worlds. This is a thrilling prospect, and I’m not yet sure what I think about it. At any rate, a picture book is a chance to enter into one moment’s world, to get to know its inhabitants and its culture, and to leave better able to distinguish “what is different and what is important.”

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse