The Red Tree by Shaun Tan
(Melbourne, Thomas C. Lothian, 2001)
The Red Tree is a picture book that treats the very serious issues of childhood loneliness and depression with compassion, and offers hope to the reader that help is available to those affected by these problems. A young girl goes through her day, where the world and her feeling about herself overwhelm her. Tan uses images such as a giant fish and ships, cityscape and landscapes to dwarf the girl and reinforce her feelings of insignificance and disconnection to the world. He privileges certain words such as 'darkness' and 'troubles' by the size of the font used, to re-emphasise that despair that the girl is feeling.
Yet, all through the book Tan offers a symbol of hope to the girl (and the reader), if they search for it. Amid the complexity of the visual images, for example the collage of city buildings, aeroplanes and robot-faced figures, there lies a tiny red leaf which appears in all the illustrations. Whilst the girl is oblivious to its presence, the reader can infer that this represents the hope that will lead to the girl regaining her sense of worth and a realisation that she is not alone, by blossoming into the red tree.
Whilst The Red Tree deals with an issue that is difficult for society to acknowledge and deal with, Shaun Tan has through the use of post modern images created a book that deals in a sensitive way and demonstrates an understanding of depression in a young person.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Blog A: Postmodern Picture books- Voices In The Park by Anthony Browne. Posted by Karin Allan ETL402.
'Voices in the Park" clearly demonstrates many elements of Postmodernism.
The picturebook has four separate scenarios that run alongside each other but where the characters all end up in the park and interact with oneanother at different times.
Each character is represented with different styles of type, bright colours and with pictures that can be looked at over and over again and through doing so one notices things maybe not previously seen.
The characters are gorillas but speak like humans displaying human feelings and emotions.
The text has an everyday conversational tone which would appeal to children both of a young age and older. Pet dogs feature prominently and seem to get on better than the 'human gorillas' do. Though the adults demonstrate images of despair and meanness the children connect and the ending has positiveness and hope.The varied illustrations with bright colours and lifelike images displaying varied shapes, shadows, sizes and images would be enormously appealing to young children and older readers.
The picturebook has four separate scenarios that run alongside each other but where the characters all end up in the park and interact with oneanother at different times.
Each character is represented with different styles of type, bright colours and with pictures that can be looked at over and over again and through doing so one notices things maybe not previously seen.
The characters are gorillas but speak like humans displaying human feelings and emotions.
The text has an everyday conversational tone which would appeal to children both of a young age and older. Pet dogs feature prominently and seem to get on better than the 'human gorillas' do. Though the adults demonstrate images of despair and meanness the children connect and the ending has positiveness and hope.The varied illustrations with bright colours and lifelike images displaying varied shapes, shadows, sizes and images would be enormously appealing to young children and older readers.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Fig's Giant
McCaughrean, G 2005, Fig's Giant, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Reviewed in Reading Time, 50(1), p. 23.
For those who wish that children still read 'the classics', Fig's Giant will be most suitable. Fig meets a giant, Lemuel Gulliver, who has survived a shipwreck and arrived at her home of Lilliput. Fig is able to overcome language barriers (as children can) and take care of her friend. Gulliver delights Fig with his 'treasures' of spectacles, a handkerchief, a comb, and a pocket watch. Young readers will be amused by Fig's reaction to ordinary objects through their descriptions and how Fig and her friends use them.
Although children may not have the literary or historical knowledge to fully appreciate the book, adult readers will. The book is an excellent stepping stone to a classic whose commentary on social and political events is still applicable today.
Reviewed in Reading Time, 50(1), p. 23.
For those who wish that children still read 'the classics', Fig's Giant will be most suitable. Fig meets a giant, Lemuel Gulliver, who has survived a shipwreck and arrived at her home of Lilliput. Fig is able to overcome language barriers (as children can) and take care of her friend. Gulliver delights Fig with his 'treasures' of spectacles, a handkerchief, a comb, and a pocket watch. Young readers will be amused by Fig's reaction to ordinary objects through their descriptions and how Fig and her friends use them.
Although children may not have the literary or historical knowledge to fully appreciate the book, adult readers will. The book is an excellent stepping stone to a classic whose commentary on social and political events is still applicable today.
Automaton by Gary Crew
Automaton by Gary Crew
Reading Time, Volume 50 Issue No. 2 May 2006, p. 16
Automaton by Gary Crew details the experiences of a young boy working in a factory owned by Thomas Edison. Edison is meant to have built 8,000 large, grotesque talking dolls at some stage during his career. The dolls were equipped with phonographs that played nursery rhymes. The toys kept breaking down and the majority were not sold. Edison allegedly buried the whole lot. The book looks at the human obsession to create things in their own image. The imprint page includes the quote “It’s alive!” from Frankenstein outlining from the beginning the themes that will be addressed in the book. This reference shows the author’s willingness to employ intertextuality to assist in expressing his meaning.
Illustrator Aaron Hill uses the recurring image of the key that is used to animate the dolls to reinforce this theme. A key hole is included on many of the pages, which asks the reader to “turn”. This makes the reader in some ways complicit with Edison’s grotesque attempts to create human-like dolls. By doing this the illustrator uses a common convention in postmodern picture books using the book as artefact.
The book is written partly as a diary, but uses letters and other correspondence within the illustrations to help tell the story. Micro and macro images are inlayed and overlapped on the main illustrations and are used to display Edison’s intentions and desires. The image of the evolution of man with Hill’s alterations is effective in conveying this message. One of the double pages at the end displays the final fate of Edison’s dolls followed by the possible reasons behind his attempts.
James Tracey
Reading Time, Volume 50 Issue No. 2 May 2006, p. 16
Automaton by Gary Crew details the experiences of a young boy working in a factory owned by Thomas Edison. Edison is meant to have built 8,000 large, grotesque talking dolls at some stage during his career. The dolls were equipped with phonographs that played nursery rhymes. The toys kept breaking down and the majority were not sold. Edison allegedly buried the whole lot. The book looks at the human obsession to create things in their own image. The imprint page includes the quote “It’s alive!” from Frankenstein outlining from the beginning the themes that will be addressed in the book. This reference shows the author’s willingness to employ intertextuality to assist in expressing his meaning.
Illustrator Aaron Hill uses the recurring image of the key that is used to animate the dolls to reinforce this theme. A key hole is included on many of the pages, which asks the reader to “turn”. This makes the reader in some ways complicit with Edison’s grotesque attempts to create human-like dolls. By doing this the illustrator uses a common convention in postmodern picture books using the book as artefact.
The book is written partly as a diary, but uses letters and other correspondence within the illustrations to help tell the story. Micro and macro images are inlayed and overlapped on the main illustrations and are used to display Edison’s intentions and desires. The image of the evolution of man with Hill’s alterations is effective in conveying this message. One of the double pages at the end displays the final fate of Edison’s dolls followed by the possible reasons behind his attempts.
James Tracey
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean
Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean, illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre
( Scholastic Press, New York, 2006)
This is an excellent example of 'book as artefact' where the creation of the story is the story. Cleverly, the story is being created as it is being read: a pig is trying to write a story and is being constantly disrupted by the reader turning the pages. The act of turning the pages is itself a plot device which draws the young reader into the story and gives him/her a sense of control. The pig makes a number of futile attempts to stop the reader from turning pages (including placing a "VERY HEAVY ROCK" onto one page) which helps to create humour as the reader believes he/she is upsetting the pig, making his escalating outrage and gruff manner funnier.
Different types of text are employed to create the narrative - speech bubbles, signs and labels - which challenge the reader to make meaning. Not only is the reader coauthor, but also becomes a character in the story. This is most evident when the pig invites the reader to insert his/her name in a story he has written in an attempt to make the reader mad enough to go away. The postmodern elements combine to create an intelligent, interactive and hilarious book that young readers will find highly engaging.
( Scholastic Press, New York, 2006)
This is an excellent example of 'book as artefact' where the creation of the story is the story. Cleverly, the story is being created as it is being read: a pig is trying to write a story and is being constantly disrupted by the reader turning the pages. The act of turning the pages is itself a plot device which draws the young reader into the story and gives him/her a sense of control. The pig makes a number of futile attempts to stop the reader from turning pages (including placing a "VERY HEAVY ROCK" onto one page) which helps to create humour as the reader believes he/she is upsetting the pig, making his escalating outrage and gruff manner funnier.
Different types of text are employed to create the narrative - speech bubbles, signs and labels - which challenge the reader to make meaning. Not only is the reader coauthor, but also becomes a character in the story. This is most evident when the pig invites the reader to insert his/her name in a story he has written in an attempt to make the reader mad enough to go away. The postmodern elements combine to create an intelligent, interactive and hilarious book that young readers will find highly engaging.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Postmodern Picture Books
Study Task 1 – Postmodern picture books – Blog A
I have selected two postmodern picture books that are unique in the way they show postmodern strategies.
The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan.
Magpies, Volume 15, Issue No. 4, September 2000, ‘Picture Books for Older Readers’, p.31.
Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing is written from a child’s perspective and is reminiscent of a boy’s carefully constructed scrapbook. The plot is simplistic, a young boy living in a treeless retro city of the future, finds a lost surreal looking red thing, takes it home, is told he cannot keep it and eventually finds a new home for it. Paradoxically it is a sophisticated work that contains multi-layered visual and verbal text that will challenge the adult reader’s social conscience.
Apart from one page that is totally blank, the pages are totally covered, there are no white areas, and all the pages consist of a collage of scientific and technical blueprints. Layered onto these images are verbal texts that have been neatly handwritten onto blue lined paper, cut out and then glued in place.
The double page featured in the middle of book is in direct contrast to the collage of the other horizontal pages and is viewed by turning the book 90 degrees. The outside of the page is black; the viewer is looking through a framed doorway at surrealist creatures playing in a carefree manner.
Tan acknowledges that he has appropriated Australian artists Jeffrey Smart and John Brack’s paintings ‘Cahill’s Expressway’ and ‘Collins Street’ for this picture book. Pete, the narrator’s friend appears to be wearing a ‘Mambo’ shirt and uses ‘Mambo’ style language.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? By Lauren Child.
Magpies, Volume 17, Issue No. 5, November 2002, ‘A Close Look At’ by Lyn Linning, pp.4, 5.
Childs has used features within metafiction to self-consciously inform the reader/s of the artifice of this picture book. Herb is the very conspicuous narrator, who falls asleep reading a book of fairy tales. He awakes to find Goldilocks shrieking at him ‘to leave her page!’ Herb realises that he has fallen into his fairytale book, and as he races from story to story trying to escape from the book he meets a pastiche of characters from The Three Bears, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots and Cinderella. Herb finally escapes by climbing up the text falling out of the book onto his bedroom floor.
Sophisticated jokes abound in this postmodern picture book: for example- The title Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Book? is a pun on Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, and when the medium sized bear offers Herb some porridge the text states-
‘You might find it too hot or too cold.
I’m afraid we’re out of just right’.
Featured throughout this overt picture book is an eclectic use of mixed media images including photos, ink drawings, collage work, macro and micro views. Conventional, gothic and eccentric textual fonts all work in unison with the verbal text and mixed media images to provide an ironic, playful postmodern parody.
Robyn Mundt:)
References:
Stephens, J & Watson, K &Parker, J (eds), 2003, From Picture Book to Literary Theory, St. Claire Press, Sydney.
Tan, S The Lost Thing, viewed 9 April 2007, <>.
I have selected two postmodern picture books that are unique in the way they show postmodern strategies.
The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan.
Magpies, Volume 15, Issue No. 4, September 2000, ‘Picture Books for Older Readers’, p.31.
Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing is written from a child’s perspective and is reminiscent of a boy’s carefully constructed scrapbook. The plot is simplistic, a young boy living in a treeless retro city of the future, finds a lost surreal looking red thing, takes it home, is told he cannot keep it and eventually finds a new home for it. Paradoxically it is a sophisticated work that contains multi-layered visual and verbal text that will challenge the adult reader’s social conscience.
Apart from one page that is totally blank, the pages are totally covered, there are no white areas, and all the pages consist of a collage of scientific and technical blueprints. Layered onto these images are verbal texts that have been neatly handwritten onto blue lined paper, cut out and then glued in place.
The double page featured in the middle of book is in direct contrast to the collage of the other horizontal pages and is viewed by turning the book 90 degrees. The outside of the page is black; the viewer is looking through a framed doorway at surrealist creatures playing in a carefree manner.
Tan acknowledges that he has appropriated Australian artists Jeffrey Smart and John Brack’s paintings ‘Cahill’s Expressway’ and ‘Collins Street’ for this picture book. Pete, the narrator’s friend appears to be wearing a ‘Mambo’ shirt and uses ‘Mambo’ style language.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? By Lauren Child.
Magpies, Volume 17, Issue No. 5, November 2002, ‘A Close Look At’ by Lyn Linning, pp.4, 5.
Childs has used features within metafiction to self-consciously inform the reader/s of the artifice of this picture book. Herb is the very conspicuous narrator, who falls asleep reading a book of fairy tales. He awakes to find Goldilocks shrieking at him ‘to leave her page!’ Herb realises that he has fallen into his fairytale book, and as he races from story to story trying to escape from the book he meets a pastiche of characters from The Three Bears, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots and Cinderella. Herb finally escapes by climbing up the text falling out of the book onto his bedroom floor.
Sophisticated jokes abound in this postmodern picture book: for example- The title Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Book? is a pun on Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, and when the medium sized bear offers Herb some porridge the text states-
‘You might find it too hot or too cold.
I’m afraid we’re out of just right’.
Featured throughout this overt picture book is an eclectic use of mixed media images including photos, ink drawings, collage work, macro and micro views. Conventional, gothic and eccentric textual fonts all work in unison with the verbal text and mixed media images to provide an ironic, playful postmodern parody.
Robyn Mundt:)
References:
Stephens, J & Watson, K &Parker, J (eds), 2003, From Picture Book to Literary Theory, St. Claire Press, Sydney.
Tan, S The Lost Thing, viewed 9 April 2007, <>.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Wolves
Emily Gravatt (2005)
Reviewed in Magpies (vol. 21, no. 1, March 2006, p.22).
The premise of Wolves is quite simple. Rabbit goes to the library and ‘burrows’ a book about wolves.
book as an artefact/implied readers
- The title page has a photograph of the book itself, complete with school stamp, and a subsequent page has a removable borrowing card and date slip. In this way, the book has become the story, rather than just a vehicle for telling the story.
- At the end of the book, there is an envelope containing an overdue slip.
- Reader brings prior knowledge of the library borrowing system and as such is able to enjoy puns such as “burrowing” (instead of borrowing) and “Grabbit” (instead of Gravatt).
intertextuality
- There are two narratives running simultaneously in this book and the characters of each story both move in an out of each other’s narrative. However, the rabbit is unaware of this movement, but the wolf is calculating in his movements.
pseudo narrative
- Until the end of the story you are led to believe that all information is factual. However, one the book is torn apart, implying the death of the rabbit, an alternative and happy ending is
provided (where they share a jam sandwich). This blurs the boundaries between fiction and fact.
The physical construction of the book itself engages the reader with its juxtapostion of mixed media. Each subsequent reading will enable the reader to construct further meanings. The way in which the book is “a book within a book” is a novelty young readers will love.
Posted by Frances Eames
Reviewed in Magpies (vol. 21, no. 1, March 2006, p.22).
The premise of Wolves is quite simple. Rabbit goes to the library and ‘burrows’ a book about wolves.
book as an artefact/implied readers
- The title page has a photograph of the book itself, complete with school stamp, and a subsequent page has a removable borrowing card and date slip. In this way, the book has become the story, rather than just a vehicle for telling the story.
- At the end of the book, there is an envelope containing an overdue slip.
- Reader brings prior knowledge of the library borrowing system and as such is able to enjoy puns such as “burrowing” (instead of borrowing) and “Grabbit” (instead of Gravatt).
intertextuality
- There are two narratives running simultaneously in this book and the characters of each story both move in an out of each other’s narrative. However, the rabbit is unaware of this movement, but the wolf is calculating in his movements.
pseudo narrative
- Until the end of the story you are led to believe that all information is factual. However, one the book is torn apart, implying the death of the rabbit, an alternative and happy ending is
provided (where they share a jam sandwich). This blurs the boundaries between fiction and fact.
The physical construction of the book itself engages the reader with its juxtapostion of mixed media. Each subsequent reading will enable the reader to construct further meanings. The way in which the book is “a book within a book” is a novelty young readers will love.
Posted by Frances Eames
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Circus Carnivore by Mark Svendsen
“Circus Carnivore” written by Mark Svendsen, illustrated by Ben Redlich (2006)
Reviewed in Reading Time (vol. 49, no. 4, November 2005, p.26).
The book follows the imagination of a child who has been sent to their room following a tantrum. She imagines a machine that is inside her head and that is responsible for her tantrum. She must control this machine in order to turn her world from “noise-some to joy-some”.
Post-modern elements evident throughout the book -> how they could engage young readers.
multiple constructions of meaning
- the narrative of the story is complete and unbroken, but the pictures have absurdist elements that are “not related in any way to the narrative” (Svendsen) -> the author admits that this is inspired by the likes of Monty Python and is designed to provide comedic entertainment for the reader (but are unobtrusive enough not to undermine the story)
- pictures are bordered by busy sepia-toned drawings and phrases that are both related and not related to the story or pictures
- the writer employs their own language that allows the reader to construct their own meaning, which can even change the more times that the book is read -> allows the reader to take control of the language and feel a sense of ownership over it
book as an artefact
- the writer addresses the reader and invites them to read the book
-> it entices the reader and almost dares them to read it
- some of the drawings in the margins of the pages are sketches of drawings found on other pages -> this invites the reader to peer into the book-constructing process
Reviewed by Roxanne Ciddor
Reviewed in Reading Time (vol. 49, no. 4, November 2005, p.26).
The book follows the imagination of a child who has been sent to their room following a tantrum. She imagines a machine that is inside her head and that is responsible for her tantrum. She must control this machine in order to turn her world from “noise-some to joy-some”.
Post-modern elements evident throughout the book -> how they could engage young readers.
multiple constructions of meaning
- the narrative of the story is complete and unbroken, but the pictures have absurdist elements that are “not related in any way to the narrative” (Svendsen) -> the author admits that this is inspired by the likes of Monty Python and is designed to provide comedic entertainment for the reader (but are unobtrusive enough not to undermine the story)
- pictures are bordered by busy sepia-toned drawings and phrases that are both related and not related to the story or pictures
- the writer employs their own language that allows the reader to construct their own meaning, which can even change the more times that the book is read -> allows the reader to take control of the language and feel a sense of ownership over it
book as an artefact
- the writer addresses the reader and invites them to read the book
-> it entices the reader and almost dares them to read it
- some of the drawings in the margins of the pages are sketches of drawings found on other pages -> this invites the reader to peer into the book-constructing process
Reviewed by Roxanne Ciddor
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