Verbal and visual texts relate to the world in differing ways, and it is this very difference which explains the unique way in which picture books make meaning. Explore this claim by comparing/ contrasting TWO picture books chosen from one of the groups listed below.
In picture books, readers are presented with two different systems of meaning, .
namely; text and illustrations. Although these appear as separate entities, they work in .
conjunction to narrate the story. Meaning is represented in language and images, .
inviting the reader to attend to both in order to make sense of the story. Readers are .
required to "navigate" through the text, illustrations and design elements in order to .
construct their understandings. Anthony Browne's "Zoo" and Nigel Gray and Gregory .
Rogers "Running Away From Home" are just two picture books, which enable us to .
interpret how and why the verbal and visual elements of the picture book are so .
fundamental in constructing meaning.
.
Illustrations are imperative in picture books for many other reasons then being merely .
included to accompany the written text. Yet it is the manner in which the two (verbal .
and visual elements) work together to produce meaning that is intriguing about the .
picture book itself. The illustrations themselves have varying functions within the .
picture book format. Illustrations provide immediacy for its reader. The picture, the .
whole picture is readily available at the turn of a page. Where as in relation to text, it .
is a slow process which sees only small amounts of information being released at a .
time, from page to page. A reader must wait till the end of the book till the full story .
can be completed. The text and the illustrations may "mirror" each other, where the .
meanings represented on the page are symmetrical in nature. The same information is .
thus, offered to its reader through both text and illustration. For example, in Gray and .
Rogers "Running Away from Home" the pair has constructed a two-page layout that .
