When I first chose my children’s book, I thought it would be impossible to pull enough meaning out of the illustrations to write a whole paper. I flipped through Jamberry, one of my childhood favorites, and saw these simple and childish drawings of a boy and a bear frolicking through a land of berries. I didn’t think there was any way that the illustrator incorporated any hidden messages into his work.
It is extremely interesting to me that while I was looking for these hidden messages, the analysis was really right in front of me. I thought I was just giving a summary of the book, when I was actually analyzing the illustrations. It was hard for me to realize this because as a child I saw Jamberry as a story, but in reality the text does not tell a story at all, and this is where the analysis comes in.
While there are artistic techniques used in the illustrations such as color and physical space, the main focus is on the distance and space between the text and the illustrations. Because I was familiar with this story and as a child had it read to me, I saw the text and illustrations as one. But when I read the text on its own, I began to see that I was actually doing a visual analysis the whole time.
At the beginning I had such difficulty with this assignment because I couldn’t pinpoint many specific artistic components that tell a different message. However, I came to find that you don’t have to be an artist in order to do visual analysis. We visually analyze things everyday and that enhances our experiences. It is fascinating to think that as a child I was able to see the images in Jamberry as the narrative without putting any extra thought into doing so. Because the visual analysis paper is a college writing assignment, just that aspect can overwhelm you and block you from seeing that you actually know what you’re doing. Sometimes when you take a step back and think about what you are writing, your ideas may not be as obvious to others as you think they are, and what you thought was summary isn’t actually summary at all.
I had a similar experience in analyzing my children's book, Two Little Trains. Although I did not read this book as a child, I still had trouble seeing the deeper message at first. However, as I delved deeper into the interaction between the text and the illustrations many levels of meaning became apparent. I don't know if the author and illustrators did all of the things I noticed on purpose but I was truly amazed at how intricate the details were. It was also difficult at times to discuss in a college-level academic way a children's book, because I often found myself feeling silly using big words in conjunction with words like "puff, puff, puff" and "chug, chug, chug." In the summary versus analysis part, I felt like I could stray away from summary pretty easily because once I got started with analyzing, it was pretty easy to keep going and find more and more details that made the children's book enjoyable for adults as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely. It was such a great assignment to go back to a childhood favorite and be able to see it in a new light. For my book, the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, I also struggled at first in trying to analyze objects that I once only viewed as pretty illustrations and colors. Similarly to your experience, as I began to search through the symbols and illustrations in greater depth, I realized how much more meaning the book possessed. I find it really interesting that you said "I saw the text and illustrations as one," because I felt the same way. I felt like there was no further way of dissecting the book and that everything was a blur because of the amount of times I had been exposed to it. It hindered my ability to read beyond what I had already known until I went in and spoke to Carol. I was then, finally, able to analyze shapes and colors to reveal the deeper message within the book.
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