Abstract
This chapter explores the picturebook as potentially stimulating intergenerational play and discusses examples from the corpus of Croatian picturebooks. The basic semiotic structure of the picturebook, which consists of two discourses that relate the same story or dwell on the same theme, results in its distinctive characteristics that encourage play. The most obvious characteristic of this kind, interactivity takes various forms, ranging from the physical, tactile interaction with the book to puzzles and searching games of varying complexity. Intertextuality is another feature that invites readers to become involved in guessing games. Nonsense and jokes challenge the readers’ sense of humor, and metafictive devices offer yet another variety of picturebook playfulness. Multiple features may add up to playful tasks and challenges of varying sophistication which expand the readers’ competences. It is particularly in this area that picturebooks assert their commitment to a dual—adult and child—readership.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, Voices in the Park is addressed in Sylvia Pantaleo’s “What Do Four Voices, a Shortcut, and Three Pigs Have in Common? Metafiction!” and “Young Children Interpret the Metafictive in Anthony Browne’s Voices in the Park,” Andrea Schwenke Wyile’s “The Drama of Potentiality in Metafictive Picturebooks,” and Frank Serafini’s “Voices in the Park, Voices in the Classroom.”
- 2.
Examples of studies on Black and White include “‘Wait a Second…’: Negotiating Complex Narratives in Black and White” by Jill Kedersha McClay , “Read All Over” by Deborah Kaplan, “‘Everything Comes from Seeing Things’: Narrative and Illustrative Play in Black and White” by Sylvia Pantaleo, and “Radical Change Theory, Postmodernism and Contemporary Picturebooks” by Eliza T. Dresang.
- 3.
The Three Pigs is analyzed in several studies, for example, in Pantaleo’s “Four Voices,” Lawrence Sipe’s “First Graders Interpret David Wiesner’s The Three Pigs: A Case Study,” Bette Goldstone’s “The Paradox of Space in Postmodern Picturebooks,” and Margaret Mackay’s “Postmodern Picturebooks and the Material Conditions of Reading.”
- 4.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Book? is examined, for instance, in “The Voices behind Pictures” by Evelyn Arizpe et al., “Consuming Books” by Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario, “Lauren Child: Utterly and Absolutely Exceptionordinarily” by Susan S. Lehr, and “Playfulness in Lauren Child’s Picture Books” by Suzanne O’Sullivan.
- 5.
The picturebook Wolves is discussed in, among others, “Imagination and Multimodality” by Christine Hall, “Mutinous Fiction” and “Emily Gravett’s Postmodern Picturebook Wolves” by Sylvia Pantaleo, and “Diverse Narrative Structures in Contemporary Picturebooks” by Sylvia Pantaleo and Lawrence R. Sipe. Besides, most, if not all, of these five picturebooks are investigated from various perspectives in Exploring Student Response to Contemporary Picturebooks by Sylvia Pantaleo, “Picturebooks and Metafiction” by María Cecilia Silva-Díaz, Playing with Picturebooks: Postmodernism and the Postmodernesque by Cherie Allan, and, most recently, “Postmodern Picturebooks” also by Allan, to name but a few relevant publications.
- 6.
“Storyworld” is defined by Marie-Laure Ryan and Jan-Noël Thon as the mental representation of a virtual world that a text must evoke in order to qualify as a narrative (3).
- 7.
“Nećete vi grickat naše knjig[e],” “Pustite nas unutra, i to BADAVA!,” “Hoćemo u Muzej,” “Van iz našeg Muzeja, vratite nam naše [znan]je!,” and “Čudovišta, napustite Muzej dragovoljno! Dalje prste od naših uspomena” (Marijanović 10–11). The translations from Croatian picturebooks are mine.
- 8.
“Gdje ste bili do sada?,” “Idite kući—ovdje se ne puši i nema hladnih špricera,” “Ne smetajte dok učimo!!!!!,” “A što će vama uopće Muzej?,” “Vratite nam zdrav okoliš, pa ćemo vam vratiti Muzej!,” and “Neka uđ[e s]amo čistačica da obr[i]še debelu [prašinu] s kn[j]iga” (Marijanović 12–13).
- 9.
The term “intraiconic text” (Nikolajeva and Scott 73) denotes verbal passages which naturally belong to the visually conveyed settings and (seemingly) do not have any special role in the course of (verbal) storytelling.
- 10.
Indeed, the Turks did occupy the city of Osijek in 1526 and stayed there for a century and a half. Osijek is situated where the Celtic town of Mursa once was. Musa became a Roman colony during the Emperor Hadrian’s rule. It was first mentioned in historical records as a Croatian town in the twelfth century. The original text: “Jedan se lik sjeti da bi mogli iskopati i rovove—onako, za svaki slučaj. Drugi se lik sjeti da pod granitnom kockom trga počiva rimski grad Mursa, pa teren nije najzgodniji za kopanje. Treći se lik sjeti da je Mursa malo dalje, a da je pod njima turski grad. Četvrti reče da mi nikada nismo imali Turke, a peti izjavi da su Turci imali nas.”
- 11.
A tambura is a musical instrument similar to a lute. Widely popular in Slavonia and some other parts of Croatia, it is used in small ensembles.
- 12.
“Smotanom neprijatelju dugo je trebalo da shvati kako se i metalnom japanskom vazom, slatkim brončanim Apolončićem, bogato rezbarenom nogom renesansnoga stola, Napoleonovim pozlaćenim stolcem, vrlo tvrdo ukoričenom Vergilijevom Eneidom, prastarom urom, pa čak i tamburom slavnoga Paje Kolarića, može nekoga sasvim lijepo i atraktivno dernuti po tintari.”
- 13.
The graffiti reads: “Tata, kupi mi vilu, gliser i aftomobil, / Neću ni bracu, ni seku –
pa nisam ja pedofil!ja hoću postat debil!!! / Tata, kupi diplomu, maleni doktorat, / kupi mi neradno mjesto i debeli zlatni sat!” (Marijanović 3). - 14.
The English translations of both versions of the Little Red Cap story in Snježni kralj can be found in Revisioning Red Riding Hood around the World (Beckett 144ff).
- 15.
The original poem was written by Grigor Vitez in 1956.
- 16.
The original poem was written by Ratko Zvrko in 1967.
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Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce the following images:
Figures 5.3 and 5.4, two double-page spreads from Čudovišta u muzeju iliti 1. tvrđanski rad za Muzej protiv dosada nepoznatih čudovišta by Stanislav Marijanović, published by the Muzej Slavonije in Osijek in 2010. Reprinted with the kind permission of Stanislav Marijanović and the Muzej Slavonije in Osijek.
Figures 5.5 and 5.6, details from Znatiželjna koka by Sanja Pilić (writer) and Andrea Petrlik-Huseinović (artist), published by Kašmir promet in Zagreb in 2000. Reprinted with the kind permission of Sanja Pilić and Andrea Petrlik-Huseinović.
Figures 5.7, 5.8, and 5.9, details from Kako živi Antuntun by Grigor Vitez and Tomislav Torjanac, published by Mozaik knjiga in Zagreb in 2009. Reprinted with the kind permission of Tomislav Torjanac.
Figures 5.10, 5.11a, b, c and d, and 5.12, details from Grga Čvarak by Ratko Zvrko and Tomislav Torjanac, published by Mozaik knjiga in Zagreb in 2011. Reprinted with the kind permission of Tomislav Torjanac.
Figures 5.13a and b, front cover and a double-page spread of Ljubav spašava živote by Svjetlan Junaković, published by Algoritam in Zagreb in 2007. Reprinted with the kind permission of Svjetlan Junaković.
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Narančić Kovač, S. (2021). Intergenerational Encounters in Contemporary Picturebooks. In: Deszcz-Tryhubczak, J., Kalla, I.B. (eds) Children’s Literature and Intergenerational Relationships. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67700-8_5
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