Colombia

Thanks to a growing number of licensed editions and original creations, the picturebook is gaining in importance in Latin America. The present volume testifies to the growing interest that publishers, specialists in children's literature and educators manifest for this genre. It brings together a number of revised articles and papers by Fanuel Hanán Díaz, a Venezuelan specialist in children's books, who has been studying the developments in Latin American picturebook illustration for years.

The first of four chapters looks at milestones of the genre to trace its historical development all the way from the European roots to the present day. In the second chapter, Díaz focuses on the characteristics of the genre, namely the interactions between text, image and overall graphic design. Questions of pictorial composition, visual effects and artistic techniques are addressed in chapter 3, including reflections on the relationship with fine arts and film. The last chapter looks at the reception of picturebooks and analyses different ways of 'reading' them.

The chapters are only loosely related but well structured; many examples illustrate Díaz's argument, creating a highly readable text. The joy of reading and looking at the volume is somewhat tempered by the inferior quality of the reproductions, particularly regrettable in a book about the importance of images. It nevertheless remains a recommendable volume, especially useful as a concise introduction for anyone interested in working with picturebooks, be it in theory or practice.