First-Person Engaging Narration in the Picture Book: Verbal and Pictorial Variations

摘要

This article explores what effects pictures have on the concepts of immediate-engaging, distant-engaging, and distancing first-person narration. The basic premise is that a pictorialized (as opposed to an illustrated) narrative involves different dynamics of engagement than a purely verbal narrative. The effects of these dynamics are explored in Louise Fitzhugh's I Am Five, Kay Thompson's and Hilary Knight's Eloise, Jeannie Baker's Where the Forest Meets the Sea, Michael Bedard's and Les Tait's The Clay Ladies, and in Ellen Raskin's Nothing Ever Happens on My Block. In all of these books the verbal narrative is immediate-engaging, but the pictures vary. Some are third-person limited, which allows for various forms of irony; others are third-person objective, which largely eliminates irony and a broader perspective of what is going on; while others are interspersed with moments that are, or come close to being, first-person viewpoints and therefore draw the reader in more actively.