Parodic Play with Paintings in Picture Books

Many recent studies have pointed to the increasing influence on children's literature of the postmodern trends of adult literature, but few have explored in depth what some critics consider to be the most striking, that of parody. In her ground-breaking book A Theory of Parody: The Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms, Linda Hutcheon has argued quite convincingly that parody is a characteristic shared by all the arts in the postmodern world (1). Hutcheon uses the term parody in the broad sense of a revisiting and recontextualizing of previous works of art, what is often referred to by the more neutral term allusion, but in this paper I would like to focus on parody in the more common sense of references with a comic or satiric intent.¹ Even in this stricter sense of the term, the functions of parody can range from respectful homage to biting ridicule, from serious criticism to playful mockery, but authors and illustrators who use artistic parody in children's literature tend to do so in a playful manner.

Hutcheon's theory of parody remains a more useful one for children's literature than more formalist approaches, such as Gérard Genette's, because she insists on the "pragmatic context": "the author's (or text's) intent, the effect upon the reader, the competence involved in the encoding and the decoding of parody, the contextual elements that mediate or determine the comprehension of parodic modes" (22), issues that are even more crucial in children's books than in adult literature. To appreciate parody, the reader must first recognize the intent to parody another work and then have the ability to identify the appropriated work and interpret its meaning in the new context. Many critics have pointed out the potential for elitism in parody, a danger that is even greater when children are the target audience. Like other forms of intertextuality, parody would seem to be inaccessible to most children in light of their limited cultural heritage. In spite of the heavy demands parody makes on the reader, however, it is not a new phenomenon in children's literature, as Lewis Carroll's Alice books clearly demonstrate.

According to Hutcheon, the one thing on which all historians of parody agree is that it prospers "in periods of cultural sophistication that enable parodists to rely on the competence of the reader (viewer, listener) of the parody" (19).² In spite of widespread concerns about literacy rates, many critics have pointed to the increasing cultural sophistication of children and children's literature at the turn of the millennium. In today's so-called Age of Information, children certainly have access to, in fact they are inundated by, a vast cultural repertoire through their exposure to what the Canadian author Tim Wynne-Jones refers to as the "cybertower of Babel" (161).³ Does this, in fact, make today's children more proficient readers and viewers of parody, as the increasing number of children's books using the technique would seem to suggest? Based on my experience with my own three children, I am convinced that children today are able to decode more parodic allusions than the baby boom children. But I also think that the repertoire of allusions they recognize is at the same time narrower. In spite of their easy access to cultural information in the electronic age, I am at once amazed and disconcerted to witness the extent to which their "cultural" education comes from programs such as The Simpsons, meaning not only that their repertoire of cultural icons tends to be limited largely to those they have seen on the popular show, but also that those icons have been assimilated in a parodic mode, making viewers more receptive to parody in other contexts. Authors and illustrators such as Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith have plugged into the cultural phenomenon of the Simpsons generation.

Although today's children may be more proficient decoders of parody, it is obvious that authors and illustrators of the often quite sophisticated children's books currently on the market do not expect young readers and viewers to...