postmodern picture book

I thought I’d break this blogging fast with a nice roundup, featuring books by the prolific, award-winning author-illustrator David Macaulay!

I discovered David Macaulay back in college, when my illustration teacher showed us the Caldecott-winning Cathedral (which I read along with Pillars of the Earth), and I filed him away in my mental book wishlist. Years later, I lucked out on Black and White and Cathedral while trawling through bargain bins, and I’ve been fascinated by his work ever since.

Lately I’ve been really lucky, as Flipper friend (and hatter extraordinaire) Marie got me a couple David Macaulay books for our annual FFP Kris Kringle, and I’ve scored some more titles during my frequent bookstore raids, so I’ve got a little collection going. On top of the two titles already in my collection, I’ve now got: the storybooks Baaa, Shortcut, and Angelo, and the architecture books Mill, Pyramid, Unbuilding, and Mosque.

Continue reading “David Macaulay roundup”

Wolves

I’ve been fascinated with postmodern picture books ever since I took a course in children’s books back in college. Since then I’ve been building up my collection of po-mo picture books, and I’ve now got over 20 of them, mostly from rummaging through bargain bins.

I love how po-mo picture books challenge the reader to look at things in a different way, offering an enjoyable experience to both the young reader, the parent reading to the child, and even an older reader randomly picking up the book and flicking through the pages.

The multiplicity of meanings also encourages creativity and imagination in constructing the meaning of the text or illustrations, as well as the interest to reread a book.

I also marvel at the writers and illustrators’ creativity in taking the craft of picture books one step further, defying convention and structure

I have several books in this picture book roundup: The Story of a Little Mouse Trapped in a Book by Monique Felix; Wolves by Emily Gravett; Zoom and Re-Zoom by Istvan Banyai; Bamboozled by David Legge; and Pinocchio the Boy, or Incognito in Collodi by Lane Smith (books 175-180 for 2009).

(In case you missed it, I previously discussed the characteristics of po-mo picture books in the post I did on The Three Little Pigs.)

Continue reading “More Po-Mo picture books (Picture book roundup 10)”