scholarly journals Black, White, Colourful, Gray: Visual Effects in the Children’s Book Mimi & Liza

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Gabriella Petres Csizmadia

Abstract The study presents the reader with an intermedial interpretation of the storybook Mimi & Liza written by Katarína Kerekesová – Katarína Moláková – Alexandra Salmela (2013). The storybook follows the story of the friendship of two little girls, Mimi, who sees the world proliferating in mad colours, and the blind Liza, who is immersed in inner seeing. The two girls are presented as each other’s opposites through the semiotics of two counterpointing colour schemes. The analysis is based on Mitchell’s conception of media (Mitchell, 1994), that is, it sets out by acknowledging the intermedial state of the culture of children’s books, and then it follows the unfolding of the visual elements up through the investigation of expressive visual effects created by the text’s rhetoric. The visualization happening with the help of language is the condition of the common worldview of the blind and seeing characters as well as the guiding principle and goal of the volume; therefore besides the visual representation characteristic of children’s books, an emphasized role is given to the validation of the ekphrastic perspective in the analyzed work. The ekphrases of the text are presented as intermedial references (Rajewsky, 2010) based on Irina O. Rajewsky’s interpretation of intermediality. A unique feature of the interpretation is that the ekphrases of the volume read as sort of imaginary/imagination ekphrases which create the special, children’s book version of ekphrasis. It is characteristic for this imagination ekphrases that the order of the imaginary image and its linguistic description create an undecidable symbiosis. These images, however, can also be interpreted as inverted ekphrases, since they function not merely as descriptions of imagination ekphrases, but also as the visual world representations of linguistic imagination. Through several examples the study introduces and analyzes the mechanisms of the visualization happening with the help of language as well as the scenery painted with words.

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-99
Author(s):  
Nina L. Panina ◽  

The aim of this article is to analyse the transition period in the history of illustrating children’s educational books on the material of Russian-language publications. It is the period in which the function of an intermedial representation gradually develops from emblematic to encyclopedic and narrative-figurative images. This process is related to the literary history of children’s books and their genre transformations. In the last third of the 18th century, children’s literature in Russia was formed as an independent direction with its special goals, and the basis for further search for specific methods of children’s book design, including educational ones, was laid. In the first quarter of the 19th century, the children’s book had a typical European visual design and continued the trends inherited from the 18th century: translations, borrowings, and revised texts in publications often copied illustrations rather than made new ones. A new stage came at the end of the 1820s, when Russia was actively developing independent children’s literature, and professional authors and criticism appeared. It was the time of the pedagogical experiments of Vasily Zhukovsky. This article does not claim to analyse Zhukovsky’s pedagogical activity comprehensively, but this activity is significant for the subject-matter of the study. In his pedagogy, Zhukovsky went to a new level when searching for intermedial ways of transmission of the universal coherence of phenomena, the systemic representation of knowledge about the world, and the ideas of the world as a system. The search, though much slower, was also observed in contemporary children’s books. The integration of cognitive and didactic functions in the Russian-language children’s book of the 18th century resulted in a mix of different principles of illustration in one publication. These principles are: (1) emblematic: the title, image, and text form a three-part structure; (2) encyclopedic: the sheet contains separate numbered images of the same type of objects excluded from the visual context; (3) narrative: the plot, expressive and figurative, including caricature, illustrations are readily used in an educational book due to their persuasiveness. Each of these principles has its own ways of displaying coherence. An encyclopedic illustration shows an object in a series of similar ones, in an enumeration, shows the structure of the object. An emblem gives its symbolic and allegorical interpretation. A narrative illustration shows its functions and its involvement in causal relations, depicting the environment of events and objects. The children’s book of the studied period tends to integrate all these ways. While the emblem as an independent intermedial genre degrades, certain elements of the emblematic tradition are actively borrowed by new forms of publications. The emblem gives the European book of modern times the most important intermedial tools for displaying universal coherence, the world as a system. The change of the epochs leads to an inevitable blurring of the meaning of the emblematic sign. The transitive nature of the analysed period is expressed in the search for a new intermedial form of coherence, similar to the lost emblematic bimediality of the text and illustration in terms of effectiveness. In the search for such a form, encyclopedic publications that claimed to be all-encompassing use the emblematic and narrative principles of illustration. In turn, the narrative illustration, driven by a similar desire for inclusiveness, consistency, and universality, absorbs the emblematic and encyclopedic principles.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Pearce

Michael Bond, Paddington creator passesIt is with sadness that we note the passing of Michael Bond, British author and creator of the Paddington Bear children’s books. Bond’s first book A Bear Called Paddington was first published in 1958 and told the story of a bear found at Paddington Station in London, that is then adopted by the Brown family. Paddington Brown, as he is later named, loves marmalade sandwiches, and always manages to get into some type of trouble despite best intentions. Paddington’s adventures continue to delight children around the world, and are representative of middle class life in London.Bond’s first book was followed by over twenty Paddington books, which have sold 35 million copies worldwide, and are translated into 41 languages. In 1972 a lady by the name of Shirley Clarkson made her children a stuffed Paddington toy that was soon in demand by other children. Clarkson eventually obtained a license to manufacture the toys and Paddington stuffed bears became the must-have souvenir when returning home from London. A number of television programs were produced over the decades, the first in 1975. In 2014 StudioCanal produced a film called Paddington, and another film about the lovable bear is being planned for late 2017. Bond’s Bear Called Paddington, with his little suitcase, button-down coat, hat, and Wellington boots has become a British icon known the world around. Bond, who wrote over 150 books in his lifetime, received the OBE in 1997 and the CBE in 2015. He passed away at the age of 91 on June 27, 2017.For further reading, both the New York TImes and The Guardian have obituary columns for Michael Bond. The paddington.com website also has a great resource of historical and biographical information on the Paddington books and Michael Bond.Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Kids Submissions The Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) is now accepting submissions for the spring 2018 edition of Best Books for Kids & Teens (BBKT), the CCBC’s semi-annual selection guide to the best Canadian children’s books, magazines, audio and video, which will be released in May 2018. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: October 6, 2017 For more information visit the CCBC website.


Libri ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-317
Author(s):  
Jiming Hu ◽  
Xiang Zheng ◽  
Peng Wen ◽  
Jie Xu

AbstractChildren’s books involve a large number of topics. Research on them has been paid much attention to by both scholars and practitioners. However, the existing achievements do not focus on China, which is the fastest growing market for children’s books in the world. Studies using quantitative analysis are low in number, especially on the intellectual structure, evolution patterns, and development trends of topics of children’s bestsellers in China. Dangdang.com, the biggest Chinese online bookstore, was chosen as a data source to obtain children’s bestsellers, and topic words in them were extracted from brief introductions. With the aid of co-occurrence theory and tools of social network analysis and visualization, the distribution, correlation structures, and evolution patterns of topics were revealed and visualized. This study shows that topics of Chinese children’s bestsellers are broad and relatively concentrated, but their distribution is unbalanced. There are four distinguished topic communities (Living, Animal, World, and Child) in terms of centrality and maturity, and they all establish their individual systems and tend to be mature. The evolution of these communities tends to be stable with powerful continuity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-379
Author(s):  
Seok-Hee Joo ◽  
Eun-Yeong Shin

Purpose: It was intended to measure the sound intensity of children's sound books and to compare them with the standards of Korea and the International Standards Organization (ISO).Methods: The loudness of 15 children’s sound books was measured at a distance of 25 cm (child’s arm length), and 2.5 cm length of external auditory canal. Measurements taken three times with each book were performed, and the overall sound intensity of the sound books and the sound intensity of each button were measured and compared.Results: Compared with the Korean standard, all the buttons of all books exceeded the standard for the sound volume of the children’s book measured at a distance of 2.5 cm. When comparing the maximum sound intensity measured at a distance of 25 cm with 85 LAmax, a total of 168 buttons of these, 25 (14.88%) were recorded as exceeding the maximum loudness. According to the standards of the ISO, all buttons in all books were below the standard 85 LAeq.Conclusion: Several children’s books are loud enough to cause noise-induced hearing loss, especially when they are placed close to the ear. Strict standards for sound children’s books are required, and it is important to put a warning on the cover of the book. It is expected that the sound intensity of the children’s sound book presented in this study can be referenced when referring to the loudness during hearing rehabilitation in children.


Bibliosphere ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
E. V. Engalycheva

The article is devoted to the history of Siberian regional children's book publishing. The author has collected theoretic-practical opinions of historians, bibliologists, publishers and booksellers, librarians and bibliographers, psychologists and sociologists, which purpose is to generalize and reveal regularities of books' flow for children. V. G. Belinsky, L. N. Tolstoy, F. G. Tol’, N. V. Chekhov developed the first concepts of children's book. N. K. Krupskaya, V. A. Sukhomlinsky studied the «core» of the children book repertoire. V. G. Sopikov, B. S. Bondarsky reviewed children's literature of the 19th century in their bibliographic works. The author allocated some organizational components using formal-logical, comparative-historical and structural-typological methods. The first block is related to studying such definitions as «children's book», «children's literature», «editions for children», «a circle of childhood reading», «the repertoire of children's books», their typological signs. The presented concepts are investigated according to tasks, which children's editions solve. S. G. Antonova and S. A. Karaichentseva touched issues of children's literature typology in their publications. The second block of literature reveals the children's book development in Russia in various periods of its formation. I. E. Barenbaum, A. A. Grechikhin, A. A. Belovitskaya studied general fundamentals of the book's history, while A. Ivich, L. Kohn, I. Lupanova considered the history of children’s books. The third block is devoted to printing and art features of the children's book design, activity of universal and specialized publishing houses to distribute literature for children. The fourth block explains such category as «reader - library», considers techniques of work with children's book, offers methodical recommendations for teachers and tutors. Readers’ activity is examined as well. The author analyzes interests, factors, incentives and aims influencing childhood reading. Dissertation researches disclose the regional specifics of children's book publishing in 1980-2013, confirm the considered subject relevance. The historical, comparative, formal and logical analysis carried out by the author will be useful both the specialists in publishing and editorial affairs, researchers studying the history and development of the children's book, historians, and teachers in the educational process of such courses as «Publishing and Editing», «Children's Literature», «Book Science». The author concludes that the children's book has been studied in different periods of its development in the context of numerous aspects, directions and components, which makes it possible to reveal the special patterns of its existence.


2002 ◽  
Vol 103 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 267-272
Author(s):  
Michael Ryan

This article uses a narrative to describe the way in which one project, centred round the restoration of a collection of historic children’s books, developed into a much wider international project. It looks at the managerial issues and some of the technical issues concerned and draws a number of conclusions about how such projects can be developed. In particular it looks at the role of partnership, project management and the frequently under‐appreciated role of publicity and promotion. It examines the ways in which project partners need to agree criteria and methods of working, as well as the key role played by specialist staff and various supporting organisations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Stephanie Bange

My name is Stephanie, and I am a collector. What are my favorite things to collect? That’s easy—dolls! I bought my first Barbie when I was six years old. I was given a doll from Morocco at age seven. To this day, I continue to collect both Barbies and international dolls, but my third collection now numbers eight hundred dolls. During my first year as an elementary school librarian in 1979, I began to collect dolls based on characters from children’s books.I wanted to add some zip and zing to class visits at my school library. The previous school librarian had plugged boys and girls into listening stations with worksheets each time they came to the library. I felt my students were missing out by not hearing fantastic tales from exotic places and visiting magical worlds of wonder.Bottom line, I wanted them to experience the joy found within the covers of books. That’s when the first dolls from children’s books—Corduroy, Curious George, the Cat in the Hat, and Winnie-the-Pooh—found their way into my shopping basket and my storytelling repertoire.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document