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| Postmodernism |
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| Preceded by Modernism |
| Postmodernity |
| Fields |
| Criticism of postmodernism |
Postmodern picture books are a specific genre of picture books. Characteristics of this unique type of book include non-linear narrative forms in storybooks, books that are "aware" of themselves as books and include self-referential elements, and what is known as metafiction.
Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. Genre is most popularly known as a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria, yet genres can be aesthetic, rhetorical, communicative, or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as cultures invent new genres and discontinue the use of old ones. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility.
Metafiction is a form of literature that emphasizes its own constructedness in a way that continually reminds the reader to be aware that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and storytelling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art. Although metafiction is most commonly associated with postmodern literature, its use can be traced back to much earlier works of fiction, such as Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1387), Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605), William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c.1608), Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759), William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847), as well as more recent works such as Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) and Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Metafiction, however, became particularly prominent in the 1960s, with authors and works such as John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse, Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" and "The Magic Poker", Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and William H. Gass's Willie Master's Lonesome Wife.
A classic example of this genre is David Macaulay's award-winning Black and White (1990). This book consists of four "separate" sub-plots which are related, but the reader must decide in what way the story becomes meaningful. The inside front cover of this book, awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1990, states: "WARNING: This book appears to contain a number of stories that do not necessarily occur at the same time. But it may contain only one story. Then again, there may be four stories. Or four parts of a story. Careful inspection of both words and pictures is recommended."
David Macaulay is a British-born American illustrator and writer. His works include Cathedral (1973), The Way Things Work (1988) and The New Way Things Work (1998). His illustrations have been featured in nonfiction books combining text and illustrations explaining architecture, design and engineering, and he has written a number of children's fiction books. Macaulay was a 2006 recipient of a MacArthur Fellows Program award and received the Caldecott Medal in 1991 for Black and White (1990).
Black and White is a 1990 postmodern picture book by David Macaulay. Published by Houghton Mifflin, it received mixed reviews upon its release but was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1991. The book tells four overlapping stories, each drawn with a distinct visual style. The four stories are "Seeing things" about a boy on a train trip by himself, "Problem parents" about siblings whose parents behave differently one night, "A Waiting Game" about people waiting for a train, and "Udder Chaos" about cows who escape and then return to their field.
Examples of postmodern picture books include David Wiesner's The Three Pigs, Anthony Browne's Voices in the Park, and Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's The Stinky Cheese Man. Some books have unusual pictures that don't always mesh with the traditional, linear text (that often matches the pictures). An example would be Bamboozled by David Legge.
Frank Serafini (2004) has created lesson plans that lead students to discuss how text interacts with illustrations. Three sets of texts could be discussed: books that have corresponding text and pictures, books where the illustrations enhance the texts, and books where the illustrations contradict the text (Bamboozled is an example of contradictory text). Another lesson that Serafini describes that incorporates PM picture books could be having students read books that are ambiguous and allow for multiple interpretations. Student are encouraged to record their thinking in a journal called a "walking notebook". Books that are especially open to interpretation include: Browne's Voices in the Park, Wiesner's The Three Pigs, and David Macauley's Black and White.
These books could be thought of as multi-modal texts that defy the usual, linear organization of storybooks. In postmodern, meta-fictive books, the reader is intentionally made aware of the way that the book calls attention to itself. For example, in Wiesner's The Three Pigs, the main characters decide to climb outside the text; pictures depicting the pigs climbing outside the story are prominent. In The Stinky Cheese Man, Scieszka and Lane purposely use intertextual references, or references to many other well-known fables, to create tongue-in-cheek, satirical stories and spin-offs of classic fairy tales. Widely varying size fonts and pictures combine to create a post-modern picture book.
According to Anstey (2002), characteristics of postmodern picture books include:
- Non-traditional plot structure
- Using the pictures or text to position the reader to read the text in a particular way, for example, through a character's eyes or point of view.
- The reader's involvement with constructing the meaning of the text.
- Intertextual references, which requires the reader to make connections to other books or knowledge, in order to better understand the text.
- Varied design layout and a variety of styles of illustration.
Ryan & Anstey (2003) suggest that post-modern picture books may allow students to increase their "self-knowledge about reading" and that students might be able to use this knowledge in strategic ways as they read. In their study, Ryan and Anstey looked at how sixth graders responded to a PM picture book, which was selected because it was open to many interpretations, titled The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan. They discovered that the reading of such texts allow students to draw upon their resources as readers. The reading of such books supports a multiliteracies perspective. Accordingly, such books may be useful in allowing teachers to use texts that encourage students to draw upon their own identity and use this knowledge to read strategically.
John Marsden is an Australian writer and school principal. Marsden's books have been translated into eleven languages.
Shaun Tan is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for The Lost Thing, a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. Other books he has written and illustrated include The Red Tree and The Arrival.
