Write Task 2: Picture Books

As the articles from the picture books module state, we can certainly use pictures in picture books to gain a better and deeper understanding of the characters in the story. Today, we will be taking one picture book I have read, “Curious George’s First Day of School” by Margaret & H.A. Rey, to illustrate this point as well as show how the illustrations support various aspects of the children’s book.

First of all, the illustrations help the story’s theme of the first day of school as well as the lesson of helping others. Throughout the book, there are pictures of George’s classmates (who are human), the teacher, the lockers in the hallways, the blackboard with notes, books and arts and crafts supplies, and more that all work together to give readers a sense of school and classes (whether they be reading, writing, arithmetic, art, etc). Because of all of these illustrations, we readers start to see a pattern. We start to see that this book is all about school in some way and the theme of the story is happening in the classroom. We also get to see the theme of helping others through the illustrations. In particular, we get to see the times/pictures where George and all of the other students are helping to mop up the floors after George spills the paints (and we also get to see the giant mess George has made and the janitor chasing him, so we know he is in deep trouble). However, the illustrations on the last couple of pages demonstrate to readers that everything worked out alright and everyone had a good first day overall. Also, the pictures help us see how many children were helpful in cleaning up the messes, for example, along with what the messes looked like. In a nutshell, then, pictures in children’s book contribute to our overall reading of the story.

As mentioned, too, the janitor starts chasing George down the hallway when he goes in the janitor’s closet without asking or finding the janitor first. This intensifies the story and the pictures add to the plot and emotions in the story. We can clearly see the janitor’s anger or determination to catch George and we see him running down the hallways. Then, later in the story, we get to see the emotions of the “man with the yellow hat” as he picks George up from school. We get to see the man’s reaction to George’s friends waving goodbye to George, although this is not stated in the text. However, the illustrations show us this as he is smiling and waving too.

Overall, then, we get to see so many additional things about this children’s book through the picture features. Without the pictures, we would miss out on things such as exactly how big the mess was, the colors of paint mixing together (so children can visually see that red and yellow make orange, for example) instead of just reading about it, the classroom environment, and much more. In regards to the pictures, we readers get to see an inside look as to what kind of school this was and what George’s first day was like. It can be boring or monotonous to just read about all these details such as the principal’s hair was black or George mixed yellow and blue together to make green. Instead, through pictures, we readers also get to infer things and draw our own conclusions. Pictures do not tell the story twice, instead, they add to the story and can even tell a completely new, open-ended one. That may be one reason we do “picture walks” of books in schools.

As you can see, picture books are so vital to the enjoyment of stories, but they also add a lot on an academic, emotional, etc. level as well. Just by taking a look at one random picture book, too, we see just how significant illustrations are. They are essential to getting to the next level of understanding things like the plot, theme(s), emotions, etc. of the text.