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illustrations in poetry books
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From: Barbara Tobin <barbarat>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:57:13 -0400
I'm wondering how teachers/adults handle illustrations in poetry books, especially in the expanding genre of picture books about just one poem?
Much as I enjoy some of these books, it is a nagging concern to me that young people take away with them a particular illustrator's interpretation of a poem before being given a chance to form their own images. A case in point is Susan Jeffers interpretation of Frost's
'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' (1978). Her lighthearted vision of a jolly old man feeding the animals and making angels in the snow is quite different from the 'standard' high school interpretation. Jean Little's wonderful little poem in Hey World, Here I Am! (1986) describes the betrayal felt by an effervescent teen on having the 'hidden meanings' revealed to her in English class ('It's grown so complicated now that/Next time I drive by/I don't think I will bother to stop'). I wonder if young readers brought up on the Jeffers-style version would feel as passionate about such a gloomy revelation?
I was delighted to see how one of my student teachers handled this dilemma in her first/second grade classroom. As part of a much broader poetry unit, she had the children first listen to, then read aloud with her, Frost's poem from her own hand-lettered chart version of it. After they had talked about it (letting the kids use their own interpretations), she then read them the Jeffers picture book, and led them to examine the differences in the layout of the poem, to consider the choices an editor makes when translating a poem into a picture book, where you put the line breaks, where you make double page spreads, etc.
Perhaps illustrations work best for narrative poems (like Charles Keeping's evocative illustrations of The Highwayman, that I mentioned earlier); or maybe in lyrical poems if they are not too realistic and don't try to conjure up concrete images,--for example, Ed Young's impressionistic illustrations for Frost's Birches (1988)?
One thing I do NOT think children need is an interpretation of a poem given to them on the same page that they read the poem itself, a case in point being the Poetry for Young People series. Here's an example from the volume on Robert Frost for 'The Pasture': "In this poem, he seems to be talking perhaps to a friend, someone he loves, or a stranger who has stopped by. He asks the listener to come out to the pasture with him, to see the things that he will see. But Frost is also asking his reader to come into his world- a world of pastures, leaves, springs, and young calves newly born".
If this is really necessary for kids to enjoy a poem, maybe put it at the back of the book (where most kids don't look anyway), rather than in a place where a child might say, 'Oops, I was wrong, I thought it meant something else!' Or worse, they might quickly learn to look down at the
'translation' BEFORE reading the poem itself.
Do you have any suggestions for illustrated single poem picture books that you think work really well?
Maybe Scott Menchin's playful, predictive illustrations for Bob Dylan's playful, predictive poem/song 'Man Gave Names to All the Animals' (from his album Slow Train Coming)? (ha, finally found a way to slip that one in!)
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn.edu)
Received on Tue 15 Apr 2003 10:57:13 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 11:57:13 -0400
I'm wondering how teachers/adults handle illustrations in poetry books, especially in the expanding genre of picture books about just one poem?
Much as I enjoy some of these books, it is a nagging concern to me that young people take away with them a particular illustrator's interpretation of a poem before being given a chance to form their own images. A case in point is Susan Jeffers interpretation of Frost's
'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' (1978). Her lighthearted vision of a jolly old man feeding the animals and making angels in the snow is quite different from the 'standard' high school interpretation. Jean Little's wonderful little poem in Hey World, Here I Am! (1986) describes the betrayal felt by an effervescent teen on having the 'hidden meanings' revealed to her in English class ('It's grown so complicated now that/Next time I drive by/I don't think I will bother to stop'). I wonder if young readers brought up on the Jeffers-style version would feel as passionate about such a gloomy revelation?
I was delighted to see how one of my student teachers handled this dilemma in her first/second grade classroom. As part of a much broader poetry unit, she had the children first listen to, then read aloud with her, Frost's poem from her own hand-lettered chart version of it. After they had talked about it (letting the kids use their own interpretations), she then read them the Jeffers picture book, and led them to examine the differences in the layout of the poem, to consider the choices an editor makes when translating a poem into a picture book, where you put the line breaks, where you make double page spreads, etc.
Perhaps illustrations work best for narrative poems (like Charles Keeping's evocative illustrations of The Highwayman, that I mentioned earlier); or maybe in lyrical poems if they are not too realistic and don't try to conjure up concrete images,--for example, Ed Young's impressionistic illustrations for Frost's Birches (1988)?
One thing I do NOT think children need is an interpretation of a poem given to them on the same page that they read the poem itself, a case in point being the Poetry for Young People series. Here's an example from the volume on Robert Frost for 'The Pasture': "In this poem, he seems to be talking perhaps to a friend, someone he loves, or a stranger who has stopped by. He asks the listener to come out to the pasture with him, to see the things that he will see. But Frost is also asking his reader to come into his world- a world of pastures, leaves, springs, and young calves newly born".
If this is really necessary for kids to enjoy a poem, maybe put it at the back of the book (where most kids don't look anyway), rather than in a place where a child might say, 'Oops, I was wrong, I thought it meant something else!' Or worse, they might quickly learn to look down at the
'translation' BEFORE reading the poem itself.
Do you have any suggestions for illustrated single poem picture books that you think work really well?
Maybe Scott Menchin's playful, predictive illustrations for Bob Dylan's playful, predictive poem/song 'Man Gave Names to All the Animals' (from his album Slow Train Coming)? (ha, finally found a way to slip that one in!)
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn.edu)
Received on Tue 15 Apr 2003 10:57:13 AM CDT
