New Directions in Picturebook Research (review)

Over the last several years, long established boundaries of the picture book genre have been blurred through innovations in content and aesthetics, as well as through new avant-garde concepts. Picture book scholarship takes these developments into account by extending the scope. It demonstrates what traditional scholarship can gain from interdisciplinary approaches that integrate linguistics, narratology, communication studies, cognitive psychology, memory studies, and picture theory. Recognized scholars such as Perry Nodelman, Maria Nikolajeva, and Carol Scott, known for their seminal studies of the picture book, are joined by other eminent scholars of children’s literature, including Teresa Colomer, Sandra L. Beckett, Bettina Kümmerling- Meibauer, and Nina Christensen. The result is inspiring and convinces with its multiple perspectives on the evolving genre.

The articles in the first section focus on the relationship between the picture book and literacy and explore, among other things, the question of how much visual literacy is required to decode intervisual and intertextual references in complex picture books (M. Nikolajeva). Or they examine the trend in recent picture books to allude to genres, artists, or works of the visual arts (S. Beckett). The second section concentrates on narratological aspects: looking at twisted endings in picturebooks (B. Bellorín / M. C. Silva-Díaz), picture books without text (I. Nières-Chevrel), or the function of blank spaces in text and image (F. Zaparaín). The contributions of the third section attempt to assess the influence of linguistics and psychology on the production and research of picture books. They consider aspects such as the relationship between the real and the implied reader (I. Mjør) or whether picture books with first-person narratives influence language acquisition (E. Gressnich / J. Meibauer).