Vivas, Julie. Let the Celebrations Begin! Written by Margaret Wild. Orchard Books, 1991.

In Let the Celebrations Begin!, Julie Vivas uses color and composition to convey the emotional state of the women in "Hut 18, bed 22" who await liberation from a concentration camp at the end of World War II.

In this double-page spread, the horizontal lines of the bunks' thick wood bleed off the page and suggest the permanence of the women's intended fate. In revealing their shorn hair and minimal, tattered, patchwork clothing, Vivas does not ignore their status. At the same time, she gives the women life and conveys hope to the reader. The book's young narrator is positioned on the recto, one leg pulled close, her upper body confined by the edges of the bunk. Her eyes are full as she turns to listen to the women discuss what has been for so long unimaginable, waiting to contribute. A soft, gentle color palette surrounds her, and Vivas' use of shading creates a light, airy mood in what is meant to be a terrifying space.

Nicolajeva contends, "picturebooks evoke emotional engagement through images as well as words, through amplification of words by images, and through ambiguity created in the interaction between media when conveying a character’s emotional state" (114). The text informs that the women are planning a party, the uncertainty and impossibility of which otherwise feels clear. Although confined to their space, the women are all in motion. On the verso, the woman in blue gestures with her hands, looking up on an angle to communicate with the woman covered in an orange blanket, who looks down, skeptically. On the recto, the woman in gray leans forward, also gesturing with her hands, to communicate across the gutter with the woman in purple, who leans forward to listen. If "viewing a person’s facial expression or bodily posture sends a stronger and more immediate signal to the brain than reading the verbal schema-statement 'This person is happy, sad, angry, or frightened'" (Nikolajeva, 114), an examination of the women in the bunks reveals motivation, disbelief, even excitement.

Works Cited

Nikolajeva, Maria. “Emotions in Picturebooks.” The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks, edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Routledge, 2018, pp. 110-118.

Vivas, Julie. Let the Celebrations Begin! Written by Margaret Wild. Orchard Books, 1991.