Reading Contemporary Picturebooks : Picturing Text

This book analyzes how picture books work - the role of picture books in learning to read, how children make meaning from pictures, and how teachers can make best use of picture books in the classroom.

Reading Contemporary Picturebooks takes a look at one of the most vibrant branches of children''s literature - the modern picturebook. This exciting new book takes a sample of contemporary picturebooks and closely examines the features that make them distinctive and then suggests a way of characterising the ''interanimation'' of words and pictures that is the essence of the form. The reasons for the picturebook''s vitality and flexibility are also explored and the close bond between the picturebook and its readers is analyzed. Advances in our understanding of how visual images are organized are examined and the book concludes with an attempt to redescribe the picturebook in such a way that pictures, readers and text may be drawn together. Picturing Text will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers interested in reading, children''s literature and media studies.