Alemagna, Beatrice. The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy. Enchanted Lion Books, 2015.

Edith, age five-and-a-half, goes by the nickname Eddie. She dons a skirt and bright pink coat and sets out to find the best birthday present ever for her mom. Because readers are more likely to locate visual images within schemes, including gender stereotypes, more quickly than they locate them in the associated text (Coats 120), it is likely that Eddie will be coded as female due to her apparel before she is associated outside a gender schema which is a possibility presented in the text thanks to the gender-neutral nickname she adopts.

While Eddie visually presents as female, she displays traits that historically may be recognized more as male in picturebooks such as cleverness and adventure (Coats 120). There is a trend of portraying girls as tomboys in children’s literature through transgressing norms and challenging binary gender schemas (Coats 125), and Eddie could be viewed as falling into this trend as her behavior challenges her appearance and the traditionally female gender schema. While Eddie’s story is associated with traits related to male characters, The Wonderful Fluffy Little Squishy offers not a tomboy story, but a story that facilitates schema accretion “allowing children to choose which schema – boy or girl – they wish to perform” (Coats 125). Through the use of a gender-neutral nickname and traditionally female dress and colors, Eddie occupies multiple schemas and becomes an every child (albeit a white one).

Alemagna’s example of schema accretion further challenges binary gender schemas through the visual similarities between Eddie and the Fluffy Little Squishy. The Fluffy Little Squishy has the bright pink color as Eddie’s coat and it’s wild fur is as spiky as her tousled hair. The creature becomes a mirror for Eddie. Thus, Alemagna’s illustrations offers children a third schema that is neither boy nor girl, but simply “an adorable little creature.” The Fluffy Little Squishy becomes a symbol of Eddie’s adventure, persistence, and of childlike wonder itself. While Coats acknowledges that binaries appear to still matter in regard to gender (125), The introduction of a fantastical creature that is visually representative of the child presents an example where children can perform either gender, like Eddie, or adopt a new perspective altogether where curiosity and delight matter more than gender binaries.

(371 Words)

Works Cited:

Coats, Karen. “Gender in Picture Books.” The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature. Routledge, 2018, pp. 119-125.

Perkins, Useni Eugene. Hey Black Child illustrated by Bryan Collier. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

In her 2018 article for Children and Libraries, “Facing the Black Child: The Bold Direction of Twenty-First Century Picturebooks,” Michelle Martin references Bryan Collier’s illustrations for Doreen Rappaport’s Martin’s Big Words which include an “image of a young black girl whose face and torso appear over a fragmented image of the American flag” (3). Martin notes that at the time this confrontational gaze was “unusual and innovative” (3) but has become a recent trend “in which readers face a child of color” in face-front or full body views near the climax of the plot (4).

Collier’s more recent work shows that he continues to make use of this tactic. In his illustrations for Useni Eugene Perkins’ poem turned picturebook, Hey Black Child, Collier routinely asks the reader to face the black child from the front cover through nearly every spread of the book. Though there are some spreads where the black child fails to face-front and directly face the reader, Collier uses these spreads to require the reader to face black childhood and find it creative and limitless. Collier has a black boy face away from the reader in a spread where he is painting. When the boy’s back is seen rather than his face, the creative act he is engaged in is highlighted. This is a black boy who is creative and engaged in art that positions black children in a central position. Through the painting, the black child is still facing the reader, even if it is in an unexpected way. Additionally, the boy’s painting is similar to a later spread in the book, indicating the boy does accomplish what he desires through his creativity.

Collier’s illustration in this spread and others shows that even when the central black child doesn’t face the reader, the reader still must reckon with the actions and potential of black children. Considering Martin identifies the trend of the forward-facing black child as a way to ensure that people “who haven’t been seeing [black and brown children] and their self-confidence and their pride, will have to sit up and start paying attention” (6), Collier offers art and music as examples of spaces people should be paying attention to black children. From innovative in Martin’s Big Words to part of a larger trend in Hey Black Child, Collier’s illustrations put black children and their limitless possibilities front and center.

(395 words)

Works Cited:

Martin, Michelle H. “Facing the Black Child: The Bold Direction of Twenty-First Century Picture Books.” Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children. Fall 2018, vol. 16, issue 3, pp. 3-6.

Frazee, Marla. The Farmer and the Clown. Beach Lane Books, 2014

Marla Frazee’s The Farmer and the Clown is deceptively simple, with its sparsely illustrated prairie and limited use of colors. Though published in 2014, The Farmer and the Clown contains visual markers that link it with historical picturebook trends. Frazee’s use of the pastoral and her invocation of train travel place The Farmer and the Clown in the past. By placing a contemporary picturebook in a past setting, Frazee implies that rurality itself is also a product of the past.

Even by 1910, “the American farm was becoming something of a curiosity,” explains H. Nichols B. Clark (84). Frazee capitalizes on the exoticism of rural life when a small clown falls off of a train and into the farmer’s life. The Farmer and the Clown opens on a grey, bleak prairie reminiscent of L. Frank Baum’s description of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Clark notes that depictions of the pastoral stem from nostalgia for “earlier, simpler times” and Frazee’s prairie is nothing if not simple: a flat horizon line, a few rows of downed hay, and farmer that feels like an elderly version of the farmer in Grant Wood’s painting “American Gothic.” Clark establishes the pastoral tradition as one from the early 20^th century that when used later is only used to evoke the past.

Another indicator of the past is Frazee’s use of the train as the mode of transportation for the clowns. Other than the train, no other form of transportation is seen in the Farmer and the Clown. Writing from the late 1990s, Clark notes “even in this age of space exploration, the railroad continues to captivate our imaginations” (93). While The Farmer and the Clown is by no means a travel narrative, Clark connects the use of the trains in picturebooks to an interest in travel narratives that began in the late 18^th century. Frazee’s train becomes part of this centuries old tradition by depicting a historical form of the train, the steam locomotive. Like the farm, the train serves an indicator of times gone by.

Rail transport and agriculture have long been linked, and Frazee continues that tradition in her picturebook. However, rather than a train transporting commodities, Frazee uses a train to bring the Farmer some small joy in the shape of a childlike clown and then to take it away again. When discussing the pastoral, Clark considers the way Barbara Cooney’s illustrations portray “ways of life and values that have all but disappeared” (83). Similarly, Frazee’s use of the pastoral and train travel place her book in the past seem to imply that rural life is also a thing of the past. This is not the case, with 19.3% of the American population living in rural areas (America Counts Staff), yet Frazee presents a picturebook world where childhood does not exist in rural areas, especially once the clown gets on the train to leave the farmer alone again in a barren pasture.

(491 words)

Works Cited:

Clark, H. Nichols B. “Here and Now, Then and There: Stories for Young Readers” in Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children’s Book Illustration. Roberts Reinhart Publishers, 1996, pp. 81-124.

American Counts Staff. “One in Five Americans Live in Rural Areas.” United States Census Bureau. 09 August 2017. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html#:~:text=Urban%20areas%20make%20up%20only,Census%20Bureau%20%2D%20Opens%20as%20PDF.

Isadora, Rachel. The Twelve Dancing Princesses. G. P. Putnam’s Sons: 2007.

Rachel Isadora has created multiple retellings of European fairy tales that place them geographically in Africa. Isadora uses a collage style with painted and printed papers which feel inspired by Eric Carle. Her African characters have varying skin tones, brightly colored garments, and a variety of lush textures appear in both the clothing and the backgrounds. This is easy to see in the spread of the princesses getting ready to dance where each sister is portrayed with different clothing and a different skin tone as leaves drape above them. According to Natalie Op de Beeck in Suspended Animation, “material qualities and imagery influence the way readers interpret and remember representations of the Other” (76). Isadora’s illustrations display a strong material quality and are presented in vibrant full color. The beautiful, detailed illustrations suggest that the representation Isadora employs of African characters will be accepted by, and even attractive to, implied readers (Op de Beeck 77).

However, strong material quality does not mean Isadora’s work should slip by unexamined. According to her back-flap biography, Isadora “lived in Africa over a ten-year period, inspiring her to create fairy tales with an African setting.” Though Isadora does not take an ethnographic approach to her picturebook, this biography establishes her as an ethnographer who is inspired by her time abroad. While Isadora’s illustrations are beautifully rendered, The Twelve Dancing Princesses offers a monolithic Africa that lacks any cultural specificity. Furthermore, while the text of The Twelve Dancing Princesses has been rewritten by Isadora, nothing has been significantly altered from Grimm’s original European text to position the story within an African context.

The only thing “African” about this picturebook are Isadora’s illustrations which after further examination border on ethnographic rather than respectful. As an alternative example to Isadora’s work, Tom Feelings was also inspired by his time living in Africa, and his work in Jambo Means Hello and Moja Means One is educational and culturally specific. These picturebooks present Africa as a place of “beauty, important history, and ancient cultures” (Martin 54). If works that represent Africa as the Other should showcase “the integrity of African cultures,” (Martin, 55), Isadora fails to do so. Instead The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Isadora’s other fairy tale adaptations present the Other in an aesthetically pleasing, monolithic way that fails to engage on a deeper cultural level.

(388 Words)

Works Cited:

Op de Beeck, Natalie. “Picturebook Ethnography: Representing the Other in Picture Books and Illustrated Texts.” Suspended Animation. University of Minnesota, 2010, pp. 53-118.

Martin, Michelle, “From Ten Little Ni---rs to Afro Bets: Images of Blackness in Picture Books from 1870-2002.” In Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children’s Picture Books 1845-2002. Routledge, 2004, pp. 19-72.

Lies, Brian. Bats at the Library. Houghton Mifflin, 2008

“Buy it for the pictures,” the Kirkus review of Brian Lies’ Bats at the Library advises, noting Lies inclusion of classic children’s book characters portrayed in the styles of Robert McClosky, E. H. Shepard, Ed Emberly, and Beatrix Potter among others. In two double page spreads, Lies presents a history of children’s literature. This inclusion of other books within a picturebook is not uncommon, as William Moebius notes, “’the presented word’ may also bear the marks of ‘presented worlds’ in other texts” (138). One specific example Moebius provides is that “it is not unlikely for a character to be found reading a book, the title of which is readable within the illustration” (138). While Lies does not offer titles of children’s books within his illustrations, he offers clear visual indicators that connect readers to Make Way for Ducklings, Winnie The Pooh, Drummer Hoff, Peter Rabbit, and more.

Lies uses visual indicators in his illustrations, rather than making use of the inconotext to “test the reader’s knowledge of the world of texts” (Moebius 138). While Lies’ ability to mimic the illustration styles of others is remarkable, and the inclusion of the bats reading the stories into the illustrations is whimsical and offers a visual portrayal of the way readers may supplant themselves into texts, the history of children’s literature that Lies references in the pages is a white one. There are no characters of color or works by authors of color referenced in the two spreads that Lies has created.

Lies chooses to reference classic works rather than contemporary ones which lends to the whiteness of the works alluded to. However, as Jonda McNair notes when writing about children’s literature specifically featuring black characters, historically there have been books that accurately represent black youth available. As McNair points out, “thinking about how to promote African American children’s literature requires a look back at and an understanding of its history.” While McNair focuses on Africa American children’s literature, this careful consideration of history are important for all diverse children’s literature. However, a history and presentation of diverse children’s literature is what Lies avoids in the pages of Bats at the Library. If “little bats will have to learn / the reason that we must [emphasis in text] return,” it’s important to ask what type of children’s literature the bats, and in turn young readers, are being told it is imperative to learn about.

(398 words)

Works Cited:

Kirkus Reviews. “Bats at the Library.” Originally reviewed 15, August 2008. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/brian-lies/bats-at-the-library/

McNair, Jonda. “Reflections on Black Children’s Literature” the Horn Book. 23 July 2018. https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=reflections-black-childrens-literature-historical-perspective

Morales, Yuyi. Dreamers. Neal Porter Books, 2018

Brian Lies’ 2008 picturebook Bats at the Library features an all-white history of children’s books in its pages with illustrations that mimic the styles of the illustrations in classic children’s literature. Published ten years later, Yuyi Morales’ Dreamers features libraries and the books on the shelves within them as well. However, unlike Lies, Morales use of intertextuality presents a diverse view of children’s literature that extends beyond the all-white classics to include works by and about BIPOC that relate to themes of immigration and movement presented in the book.

In one spread, the cover of John Steptoe’s Stevie is featured near the center of the spread. On the shelf nearby are Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly and Allen Say’s Grandfather’s Journey among numerous other titles. If understanding diverse children’s literature requires understanding it’s history (McNair ), then Morales shows an understanding of that history though the inclusion Steptoe’s early work which McNair uses as an example in her “Reflections on Black Children’s Literature: A Historical Perspective” as well as with her inclusion of Hamilton’s folktale collection. While Morales’ library and referenced literary history are more diverse than Lies’, Dreamers also features children’s classics like Corduroy and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom; however, these books are more contemporary than the classics reference by Lies. Corduroy features a black character in Lisa and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a concept book without human characters but one that would have been helpful in Morales’ characters’ quest to learn English. Morales also features works about immigration like Shaun Tan’s The Arrival or movement like Donald Crews’ Freight Train in relation to the theme of her book. Given that examples of intertextuality are “tests of the reader’s knowledge of the world of texts” (Moebius 138), Morales is testing her reader on picturebooks by diverse authors and featuring diverse characters whereas Lies only asks the reader if they are familiar with the canon of white children’s classics.

Dreamers presents a diverse canon of children’s literature that privileges books by diverse creators and stories about immigration in relation to the book as a whole. Morales uses intertextuality to not only test a reader’s knowledge of the world of texts, but to offer them a world of texts beyond the ones they may be familiar with. In Dreamers, the library that is not a place of “musts” related to learning through white children’s literature as Lie’s anthropomorphic bats encounter, but a library that is a place where “we didn’t need to speak, we only need to trust.”

(343 words)

Works Cited:

McNair, Jonda. “Reflections on Black Children’s Literature” the Horn Book. 23 July 2018. https://www.hbook.com/?detailStory=reflections-black-childrens-literature-historical-perspective

Moebius, William. “Introduction to Picturebook Codes.” Children’s Literature: The Development of Its Criticism. Edited by Peter Hunt. Routledge, 1990, pp. 131-147.

Naberhaus, Sarvinder. Blue Sky, White Stars illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2017.

John Stephens explains that 9/11 presented an ideological shift in American picturebooks (139). Pre-9/11 picturebooks often embraced an optimistic multiculturalism while post-9/11 picturebooks are “idealistically nationalist” in their positioning of American centrality and dominance (139). Blue Sky, White Stars, an ode to the American flag written by Sarvinder Naberhaus and illustrated by Kadir Nelson, is a post-9/11 picturebook that appears to showcase pre-9/11 sentiments of multiculturalism but ultimately embraces the ideology of American dominance.

The predominant theme of Nelson’s illustrations is encapsulated on the cover of the book, which presents a multicultural, multigenerational group of people with a boy holding a small American flag. While the flag on the cover is small, it has a large presence in the picturebook. Nelson illustrates multiple double-page spreads where the flag occupies on side of the page, and racially and ethnically diverse people occupy the other creating a connection between the two sides of the spread. Given that pre-9/11 ideologies of multiculturalism presented an idealized world, Nelson’s illustrations align with this idealism as the text doesn’t provide room for the illustrations to explore the nuances of a diverse American society.

While the book does not appear to focus on American dominance, it uses the flag as a symbol for nationalism. The dominance of the flag not only as an American symbol but as a global symbol for power emerges in the final spread of the picturebook which features the American flag planted on the moon with the Apollo capsule and the earth in the background. The space race was one facet of the cold war which can be viewed as a textbook example of a desire to establish American dominance and superiority. Positioning this spread as the final spread in the book presents the imagery of America’s national symbol as dominant on earth and beyond and overpowers the multiculturalism that occurs earlier in the book. Only twelve people have ever walked on the moon, and all of them have been white American men. Thus, the final spread of this book engages not with a diverse America, with American centrality and dominance that is inherently white and male.

Stephens notes that “ideologies imply it is the way that the story an audience derives from its text is oriented towards the actual world” (137). Blue Sky, White Stars was published 16 years after 9/11. While on the surface the book shows the appearance of pre-9/11 multiculturalism, the final spread situates the orientation of Nelson’s illustrations within with the actual world where the post-9/11 nationalistic ideology of American centrality and dominance reigns supreme.

(415 words)

Works Cited:

Stephens, John. “Picturebooks and ideology.” The Routledge companion for children’s literature. Routledge: 2018, pp. 137-144.