Children's Picture Books as Multimodal Texts

Catalog description

Children's picture books are often described as fundamental in nurturing the development of young children into engaged readers and fearless writers. Many adults have a special place in their hearts for picture books they loved as children; books they read over and over again, books that spoke to their hearts and minds, and books that helped them figure out the mystery of written language. In this inter-domain course, we will take a close look at children's picture books and explore their magic though integrating humanities and the arts. We will read many, many books of different genres to examine how the written text and illustration work together to compose a work of art that we read, understand, enjoy and connect to. We will explore the criteria by which we judge the literary and artistic quality of picture books and will become acquainted with resources that can help us find exceptional books. We will also consider the significance of children's literature representing diverse perspectives and will work to deconstruct the values and biases implicit in texts written for young children. Much of the course will be organized in a workshop format through which we will learn about the authoring and illustrating techniques and processes used by notable authors and illustrators of modern children's picture books, while also experimenting with the same techniques through drafting and developing our own picture books. Our end goal will be to thoughtfully weave linguistic and visual composition elements to craft original multimodal texts for children.