Author Stephen King once said, “Books are a uniquely portable magic.” I love this quote because it rings true to me. As a little girl, I remember opening the pages of my favorite fairytale and becoming part of the story. I was the princess waiting for my knight in shining armor. or the peasant girl waiting for my fairy godmother to come and turn my life right side up. Everything seemed real—I didn’t know why—but it did.
It wasn’t until recently that I learned of the magic authors created through picture books. I used to believe picture books were purely for the entertainment of young children. I thought their only purpose was to tell a good story that would draw me in and transform me into one of the characters of the book. Now that I have …show more content…
Although most books are generally a plain rectangular shape, this format can still bring about many emotions to the reader. Rectangular books can come wider than they are high, or higher than they are wide depending on what the illustrator and author want to convey. When authors want to specifically focus on a particular character, they tend to make their books higher and less wide, to put the focus on them. This is shown in Sparks Fly High. I believe Quattlebaum and Gore thought that the characters, the Colonel and the Devil, were more important aspects of their story than the landscape of the field. We can see the emotions of both characters as they have dance contests, because the height of the book allows us to see the personality and emotions of them through the detailed pictures. (what is important is the interaction between the two characters) With books that are wider than they are high, illustrators are allowed to fill in the extra space around the character, allowing the reader to focus on the character’s surroundings and settings. Readers can draw information about the story line from these surroundings. Nodelman explains that “if we operate, as illustrators always do, on the assumption that such external appearances reveal internal characteristics, we learn much of a character in such pictures through the details of the background...Books like these tend to focus on relationships between characters and their environment, they ask us to take an attitude of detachment, to stand back objectively and interpret characters in terms of details of their settings.” In Where the Wild Things Are, I believe much of Max’s surroundings in the “wild land” reflect what is going on in his head. We learn much about Max and the way he thinks because Sendak makes Max’s thoughts and behaviors literally come alive through the settings and surroundings. Books that are wider than they are high,
It wasn’t until recently that I learned of the magic authors created through picture books. I used to believe picture books were purely for the entertainment of young children. I thought their only purpose was to tell a good story that would draw me in and transform me into one of the characters of the book. Now that I have …show more content…
Although most books are generally a plain rectangular shape, this format can still bring about many emotions to the reader. Rectangular books can come wider than they are high, or higher than they are wide depending on what the illustrator and author want to convey. When authors want to specifically focus on a particular character, they tend to make their books higher and less wide, to put the focus on them. This is shown in Sparks Fly High. I believe Quattlebaum and Gore thought that the characters, the Colonel and the Devil, were more important aspects of their story than the landscape of the field. We can see the emotions of both characters as they have dance contests, because the height of the book allows us to see the personality and emotions of them through the detailed pictures. (what is important is the interaction between the two characters) With books that are wider than they are high, illustrators are allowed to fill in the extra space around the character, allowing the reader to focus on the character’s surroundings and settings. Readers can draw information about the story line from these surroundings. Nodelman explains that “if we operate, as illustrators always do, on the assumption that such external appearances reveal internal characteristics, we learn much of a character in such pictures through the details of the background...Books like these tend to focus on relationships between characters and their environment, they ask us to take an attitude of detachment, to stand back objectively and interpret characters in terms of details of their settings.” In Where the Wild Things Are, I believe much of Max’s surroundings in the “wild land” reflect what is going on in his head. We learn much about Max and the way he thinks because Sendak makes Max’s thoughts and behaviors literally come alive through the settings and surroundings. Books that are wider than they are high,