The+Picture+Storybook+Style

What are some of the styles (writing, art) found in picture storybooks?
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Added by Helen Mastico > With a picture storybook both the pictures and the writing work together to convey the story. Without either the work would be incomplete. Frequently there are pages that are only pictures to continue the action before the story writing continues. In Palatini’s //Piggie Pie// for instance illustrator Howard Fine gives us a double page spread of the piggies getting dressed up in their disguises before Gritch the with lands and starts looking for them. In //A Tooth Fairy’s Tale// by David Christiana, the pictures fill the pages and are as detailed as fine art. The writing is spare and the pictures fill in the detail. The perspective conveys the drama of the story; the light on the tooth fairy in later pictures implies her goodness and the sinister nature of the giant (the boy) in the story.

> Some books use rhyme to give the writing a rhythm, others repeat a common phrase. A common idea is to build on a subject repeating the ideas that came before. In this way the suggestions of Sam-I-Am in //Green Eggs and Ham// by Dr.Seuss begin to sound more and more ridiculous as they are listed one after the other. They are seldom descriptive since that is the role of the pictures.

> //Too Much Talk// by Angela Shelf Medearis is based on a Ghanaian folk tale with a dog and various inanimate objects talking. In each scene the same idea is conveyed, a person tells of this talking the listener scorns it then another thing answers that shouldn’t. In each the listener screams and runs away. The reader knows what’s coming and it’s funny in the sense that the child feels superior to the silly people in the book. The illustrations by Stefano Vitale are oil paints on wood, the grain of which is clearly visible and they evoke the origins of the story. Particularly the weaver who is wearing a bright, patterned robe illustrative of the traditional Ghanain kente cloth.

> Cut work, stencils, watercolor, pen and ink, oil paints, pastels, colored pencils, photographs – any method of generating pictures can be used. The art style chosen adds to the story by setting the mood.

Palatini, Margie. Piggie Pie. New York. Clarion Books, 1995 Christiana, David. A Tooth Fairy’s Tale. New York. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994 Medearis, Angela Shelf. Too Much Talk. Cambridge. Candlewick Press, 1995 Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham. Random House Books for Young Readers; 1st edition 1960