As a confirmed Xennial, raised on black-and-white print and (reasonably) at home amongst the colours of pixels, today’s session with Dr. Shoemaker was an eye-opener for me.
Broadly speaking, my bookshelves at home are arranged around non-fiction and fiction. My fiction is arranged around new, ‘proper’ books (ones with mostly words…maybe a few images) and old, ‘kids’’ books (ones with mostly images…maybe a few words). Since I was very, very young, though, I’ve had a set of books by Janosch (the Ferdinand series) that I’ve never been able to think into one or the other. They’re sparsely- and beautifully written. They’re signaturely- and beautifully illustrated. (If a bit dated – descriptions and depictions of Africa as Ferdinand drives through Löwenland are, well, of their time…).
As Dr. Shoemaker said today: their text works because of their imagery and their imagery works because of their text. They’re picture books, and that’s a thing. Might need a new bookshelf. Will definitely use in the classroom.
A propos nothing at all… 🙂