The current issue of
The Horn Book includes an article called
Hey, Al and the Choice by
Kathleen T. Horning.
Hey, Al, illustrated by
Richard Egielski and written by
Arthur Yorinks, won the Caldecott in 1987, even though it is, according to Horning, "clearly an adult's fantasy."
The entire article deals with the issue of
Hey, Al being signaled out for an award for children's books when its protagonist is an adult. Horning says, "...I'm not sure it's a completely satisfying story for children. Essentially, it's a retelling of their mentor's masterpiece,
Where the Wild Things Are, told from the perspective of a middle-aged man."
It's not a definitive article on picture books for adults, in general. Think of it more as a variation.
When Picture Books and Adult Literature Collide at Cultivating Culture deals with the issue of picture books for adult readers, which I was talking about yesterday. It doesn't go into the subject very deeply, covering mainly parodies (I have a copy of Goodnight iPad) and adult writers writing picture books. It doesn't address straight picture books written on subjects of interest to adults rather than children or using vocabulary or a voice that adults will appreciate more than children will.
I hope that before the end of Picture Book Month I'll find some more on this subject.
I received
It's a Book by
Lane Smith for my birthday. I recall it getting a lot of attention when it was published in 2010, and I can remember something else, too, though I'm having some trouble putting my finger on it. Was there just a little bit of controversy over this thing? Maybe because of the text on the last page? Because some considered it too adult?
I think the whole book is kind of adult. It's all about a monkey trying to get through to a jackass that a book is a book, not an electronic device. The whole issue of children being too plugged in too early seems to be a very adult concern to me, not one that children are even aware of. You could make the argument that that is the point, to make children see this before they become too enamored of electronics. But if kids haven't yet become enamored of electronics will they understand terms like "text," "tweet," and "Wi-Fi?"
There's an overt message in
It's a Book, I think, one that adult readers concerned about keeping reading a traditional book-centered activity will embrace. That's okay. I'm a big fan of picture books for adults. In fact, it could be a fun read-aloud for them with their little ones. I don't know how many young picturebook readers will get this on their own, though.
I have finally read some
Shaun Tan, and I do like his work.
Tales From Outer Suburbia, in particular, reminded me of the
Ray Bradbury short stories I read in my early teen years. My uncle Mickey, a college graduate who married into the Gauthier family, had an enormous trunk filled with paperback books. Once when my parents, sisters, and I were visiting him and my aunt in the old house their were living in up in the mountains, he opened that treasure chest and pulled out a couple of Bradbury books to give me. They, along with
To Kill a Mockingbird, were among the first adult books I read.
My recollection of the Bradbury short stories, and his book
Dandelion Wine, a particular favorite of young Gail's, is that they were small town stories about things that just weren't quite every day. And that's how I read
Tales From Outer Suburbia and
Lost & Found, too, though in this day the action shifts to suburban towns rather than whatever small towns used to be back when Bradbury was writing.
Tan tells his tales in part with visuals, making his books picture books and seemingly for the very young. I see them more for older readers, older children, as I was when I first read Ray Bradbury, and adults.
Check out Shaun Tan's essay
PICTURE BOOKS: Who Are They For?, in which he addresses the question "Who do you write and illustrate for?" Among the things he has to say while trying to come up with an answer: "I suspect that much art in any medium is produced without a primary concern for how it will be received, or by whom. It often doesn’t set out to appeal to a predefined audience but rather build one for itself. The artists’ responsibility lies first and foremost with the work itself, trusting that it will invite the attention of others by the force of its conviction." He also says, "What makes art and literature so interesting is that it presents us with unusual things that encourage us to ask questions about what we already know. It’s about returning us, especially we older readers, to a state of unfamiliarity, offering an opportunity to rediscover some new insight through things we don’t quite recognise (as it was for all of us in the very beginning)."
I think that's a very good explanation for why adults like picture books, in general, and Tan's books, in particular. The strangeness of both
Tales From Outer Suburbia and
Lost & Found do make the familiar unfamiliar, much as Ray Bradbury's short stories did years ago.
I went to the library on Tuesday for a much needed book stock-up. Ms. Eileen, the children's and YA librarian, was helping me find a picture book I'd seen mentioned on our library's blog when she started talking about beautiful picture books that adults love but kids not so much. She brought up the subject. I didn't.
She said there are beautiful picture book biographies, some of which she's not buying because the kids in the local grade school can't use them for reports. "They come in with a page requirement," she explained. The kids have to read biographies that are longer than these picture books, which remain on the shelves.
And which shelves? Ms. Eileen said that shelving them is a problem. Do you put them in biography where they won't be used because they're too short? But if she puts them in with picture books, the picture book crowd won't know what to make of them because they have a lot of text for traditional picture books.
My suggestion, of course, was to place them in an adult area where adults can find them. Older children may feel embarrassed about reading picture books, but we adults are above all that, right? These books are beautiful and the subject matter is interesting--at least to grown-ups. They deserve to be published. But why do we have to insist they're for kids? What's wrong with publishing these things for adults?
If publishers were to create a category of picture books for adults, such books might become more desirable to older children--and to their teachers and parents who want them to read Big Kid books.
In an NPR interview with Peter Sis, Scott Simon never refers to Sis's book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain as a picture book. Instead, he calls it an illustrated book. That could be a good term for books published in what we think of as picture book formats but with content most definitely not for the child readers we usually associate with picture books.
The Wall is a marvelous memoir of Sis's childhood in Cold War Czechoslovakia. Sounds riveting, doesn't it? The Cold War is a subject, I'm embarrassed to say, that has always left me...uh...cold. I always thought of those Eastern European countries under the Communist's heels as gray, colorless places, much like Sis's sophisticated, highly detailed illustrations. The Wall may have changed all that for me.
On one level Sis uses mature, cartoon-like illustrations with classic minimal picture book text to tell the story of his childhood and adolescence. In addition, though, he adds historical detail along the margins of those illustrated pages. On top of all that he has six big pages of journal entries going back to 1954. That's a lot of material.
Too much, of course, for your preschoolers and first grade students for whom picture books are usually written. This would be one rough read aloud. Too much, I'm guessing, for anyone under, say, fourth grade. It should grab the attention of much older readers, too. (For instance, the part rock played in these young peoples' lives should be of interest to a lot of teenagers; a lot of adults, for that matter.) The Wall would make a great reading list addition to a social studies curriculum.
But will the grown-ups who teach those classes be open to giving credit for reading an "illustrated book?" Yes, the book is good enough to read on your own. But how will young people of the right age to appreciate it find it? It was on the new picture book shelf in the kiddy area at my library. How much is it going to circulate in that age group?
I think this book would also make a great addition to an art program. Sis says at the end, "I find it difficult to explain my childhood; it's hard to put it into words, and since I have always drawn everything, I have tried to draw my life-" Does anyone else see an art project there?
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