From: K.T. Horning <horning>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 11:06:55 -0500 (CDT)

I think the visual component to the radical change books is the part that stands out to the casual reader but, from Eliza's description, I think the changes go much deeper than that. As a case in point, I'll share a true-life anecdote: a five-year-old I know has developed such a great interest in sharks that he has talked his father into reading aloud a thick nonfiction book aimed at middle schoolers as their usual bedtime chapter book. The child cannot yet read but his father explained to him how the book was organized with a table of contents and an index and he told his son that they didn't have to read the book straight through -- if there was some aspect of sharks he especially wanted to know about, they could look it up in the index or scan the table of contents and read that part first. So that is how they are reading the book, with the child suggesting a topic to look up in the table of contents or the father reading aloud the chapter headings and the child selecting which chapter they will read. Although the book has few pictures, it is holding the interest of this five year old, partly I think because his father has helped him to feel as though he has some degree of control over the contents by making their reading an interactive experience and partly because it's such a high-interest topic for him.

After they'd been reading for a while, the boy turned to his father and said, "This is so neat, Dad! It's like a cd-rom, only it's a book!" A few nights later, he again expressed his delight by saying, "I love this book, Dad! It's like a cd-rom without pictures!"

Now back to children needing/wanting more visual books: I have heard this idea expressed a lot over the past several years but does anyone know of a study that provides firm evidence that this is true? In my experience with children I have found that words are still the most essential part of books and human interaction, in general. Anyone who has read picture books aloud to preschoolers knows that a great text will rise above lousy pictures but the greatest illustrations in the world will never compensate for a lousy text. And at the beginning of the "video revolution," a ten-year-old girl once told me that she preferred books to movies because "books have more description so I can understand better what's going on." Her comment was a real eye-opener for me because it made me realize that viewing art, pictures, movies, television or real life can be a passive act and we seem to assume that because children CAN do it, they're understanding and getting something out of what they're seeing. So I'm beginning to wonder if the visual argument isn't just wishful thinking on the part of adults who have less and less time for conversing with and reading to children.

The type of highly visual books that Eliza described go beyond flashy art by using visual elements in a new way, to pull the reader/viewer in and get him or her involved in interacting with the text and/or pictures. I was first aware of this in Patricia Lauber's science books back in the mid80s
(such as "The News About Dinosaurs") in which she asks readers to study the accompanying illustrations to make observations. Since her books were among the first science books to use color photographs and illustrations, most people focused on the fact that they were in color (wow!), rather than commenting on how the author was using the illustrations to involve the reader in a new way of approaching information in a book.

Perhaps the r.c. books overall open more doors to child readers, so they can jump right into books on their own, and don't have to wait around for an adult who has the time, ability and willingness to unlock one of those
"cd-roms without pictures."

Kathleen Horning Cooperative Children's Book Center University of Wisconsin-Madison
Received on Tue 15 Apr 1997 11:06:55 AM CDT