The use of Framing and Composition in Ellen and Penguin : Clara Vulliamy

I’ve spoken before about how much I love Clara Vulliamy’s skill with picture books. She’s got an awareness and respect – and love – for the medium that translates into some very good and very smart books. It was with some excitement when I discovered Ellen and Penguin and the New Baby nestling on the bottom shelves of my library.

Ellen and Penguin and the New Baby is a very sensitive and  charming book that is practically a lesson in frames and composition. So I thought I’d share some of that with you by looking at how Ellen is treated throughout the book.

Fig 1: Opening Double Page Spread

The opening double page spread is our introduction to Ellen and the book. The text is as follows: L) “Ellen had a new baby brother” R) “Penguin wasn’t sure if he liked new baby brother much”. And this is where it started to hit me, that thing about composition and framing. Look at that picture of Ellen on the right hand side. Look at the way she’s almost imperceptibly closer to the right hand side of the page. And look at how she’s bursting out of the page. What do we gain from this? We learn that it’s not Penguin who isn’t sure – it’s Ellen. We learn that she is an exuberant character because even the frame of the image, the frame that is contentedly unbroken around her baby brother, cannot contain her. And we learn that there is a world of difference between her and her baby brother. He looks out towards the reader, forcing an eyeline connection, whilst  Ellen glances warily across at him.

This is what I mean when I talk about picture books inculcating a visual literacy. If you read the text and solely the text which displaces the emotions onto Penguin, you’d think it was a story about Penguin. But it’s not. It’s a story about Ellen and her not quite knowing how to act around this thing that has come into her life, her unease and wariness and nervousness around this tiny baby brother. And all of that’s on this spread, right here.

Fig 2: Swings

I fell in love with the following spread (Fig 2) because it reinforces that ‘bigness’ of this apparently small and simple narrative. The text reads: L) “Everywhere Ellen and Penguin went,” R) “the baby came too”. The thing to love about this spread is Ellen, yet again, and the use of frames and white space. In the first image Ellen is swinging out of the frame. She’s broken the boundary of the page. She’s caught, mid swing, with the intimation that she’s got more to go. She’s only just begun. Her face is that mixture of nerves and excitement that come when you swing.

And then in the second image – she’s pulled back. She’s back at the start of her swing, momentum gone, her feet being tucked back inside the frame. She’s being controlled again by the image, made to conform to the rules that come with having a new baby brother. And talking of that baby brother – he’s here. Suddenly the image isn’t just Ellen – it’s him as well. She’s having to share an almost equal split with him.

There’s another moment in the book that struck me and it’s in Fig 3. On the previous page, Ellen’s old mobile has just been given to the baby: “The baby was given Ellen’s old mobile / with the woolly sheep hanging down” (I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned it, but when I use a slash in a section where I’m quoting something, it is to indicate a line break. So now you know).

Fig 3: Toys

What’s happening in Fig 3 is the biggest incursion into the white space yet. The text reads: ” “Penguin’s cross,” said Ellen. / “He likes that mobile.” “. See here how the book can barely contain Ellen. She’s so very cross ; she’s spilling out out of the  boundaries of the frame and storming towards the page turn. Everything about this is wanting you to turn the page. The way her toys fall towards it, the way her body is mid-stomp towards it, but the way Ellen’s turned back, wanting to be noticed, wanting to be valued like she was before adds a whole new level to the piece.

There’s also such a sense of trapped motion here in all these highlighted moments. Ellen is a child who seems to thrive on being able to DO and to BE and she – just – can’t. Not now. Not when she doesn’t know how to be.

These are all images and visual tensions which are resolved in the final pages. If you’re wary of spoilers look away now.

Fig 4: Ellen

In Figure 4, one of the final images,, Ellen is dancing “round and round” with Penguin. Compare this with Figure 1. Here Ellen is the frame, she’s bright and vivid and dominating it wholly. But she’s dominating it in a positive manner – she’s not escaping any visual lines (thereby constraints) and she’s not doing it by leaving anyone in the background of the image. She’s doing it by being Ellen – and by being her properly.

It’s lovely. I really like Vulliamy’s work, it gives me so much to look and to see and to ‘interrogate’ (though that’s really not quite the best word at this juncture, it is all I can come up with!). I’d really reccommend her as one of the authors you use if you’re wanting to introduce yourself to picture books and to the sheer potential and power of what they can achieve.

Once upon a time

Image: o palsson (Flickr)

I’m doing a lot of reading of fairytales at the moment, and am being struck by the narrative joy inherent in them. ‘Once upon a time’. It’s a glorious, effortless phrase. It transports you instantly into a world of wicked stepmothers, princes turned into frogs, and talking cats.

I always tended to read fairytales as fairly unique creatures, personal to my own settings and surroundings. I mapped the troll bridge from the Three Billy Goats Gruff onto a bridge in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors. I imagined the fat round pumpkins from the vegetable patch next door being transformed into Cinderella’s carriage.  And yet, something like Cinderella has been being told across the world from the 1st century BC! I find that fascinating that a story can grow and spread and grow again in intensely different contexts.

But that’s the thing about fairytales, I feel that for all their prince and princesses, they are stories based very much on the common experience of being human. They teach us not to judge on appearances. Not to trust strangers. About sex. About growing up. About surviving when your parents drop you off in the forest and a witch decides to stuff you into an oven. Which is exciting, and also sort of subversive in a kind of splendid manner.

The other thing fairytales also allow us to do is work out the boundary of our world – of our experiences and of our selves.  They allow us to learn how to control our surroundings, and to engage in fear in controlled contexts. I always remember a quote I read about why people read crime and horror fiction – and it was because when events like this occur in a story, we know that there is control. We know that this event is controlled, either through the page-turn of a book, or through the fact that the storyteller will finish their story and we learn to ‘manage’ that horror.

Critically speaking, it’s worth having a look at the Aarne-Thompson Index, and also the work of Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar who excel in this area. I’ve also got a lot of love for the work of Iona and Peter Opie (and not just for their fairytale work, the Opie book on the Lore and Language of School Children is superb though sadly feeling a bit aged now).

And, obviously, on a fictional note, the wondrous The Jolly Postman, which should be on mandatory reading for pretty much everyone

 

Why read? The School Story

There are a whole world of genres in children’s literature, and there are new ones being created each and every day. In these posts, I’ll be focusing  on some of the key genres and both introduce them and offer some top hints on where to begin.

My first in this occasional series is very close to my heart. Behold the school story genre!

Image: theirhistory (Flickr)

The appeal of school stories can come from both the mimicking and distancing of real life. Education is something nearly everybody experiences, albeit in different forms. Reflecting this common experience onto literature allows the reader to both empathise with characters and also allow a sense of wish fulfilment to occur. In the book the mean girl might get her comeuppance, the awkward kid save the day, or the school is racked by a series of pranks. In the real world, it might be a very different scenario. The kid might be lonely, bullied or just unable to talk yet in the quick brashness of schools. Books set in schools can show behaviours and strategies to help in dealing with this and also implicitly support the child by reinforcing the very simple fact that they are not alone.

There’s also something rather glorious about the structure of school stories. They occur very much in their own world that’s been separated from the ‘real’ world of the reader. It’s rare, for example, to read one that doesn’t begin with a journey. This can range from taking the train from Platform 9/34, the boat across the Tiernsee, or getting sent to England from the wilds of Africa. The journey element helps to remove the book school from the reader and their daily trials and tribulations. This source of escapism would prove to be something of a poignant source of comfort during World War Two. The school story was thriving, vigorously so, and some of the best of the genre were produced during this era. Have a look at the Chalet School in Exile for some superbly ideological bravery and also Owen Dudley Edward’s magnificent ‘British Children’s Fiction in the Second World War‘ for more info.

School stories have had a little bit of a resurgence in the past few years. Stemming initially from the dominance of the Harry Potter series, this has boiled down into a host of books hitting the market. You can track everything I’ve written on school stories here and this includes reviews of The Paladin Prophecy, the Alice-Miranda books and also a vast amount on my Mastermind specialist subject which is early 20th century school stories. Commonly referred to as GirlsOwn literature, this covers authors such as Angela Brazil and my darling Elinor M. Brent-Dyer.

Other key authors in the genre include the indefatigable Enid Blyton for her redoubtable ‘Malory Towers’, ‘The Naughtiest Girl’ and ‘St Clares’ books. Despite being published a good seventy odd years ago respectively, they still remain popular and St Clares, as I discovered recently, has a peculiarly prevalent life as the series (and FILM!) Hanni und Nanni.

If you’re interested in a list of school story recommendations, have a look here. The FCBG (Federation of Children’s Book Groups) hold a regular Twitter chat on various different topics. It’s always fascinating, and you’re guaranteed to end with a list of titles you need to get hold of instantly.

TL:DR?

- School stories reflect the commonality of school, the dominant impact of education upon the majority of children  and offer a way of both dealing with, and escaping it. Because they’re awesome.

Children’s literature, food, and frenchwomen

Food is a central theme in children’s literature and school stories in particular. It’s something which has stayed eternally present from the cookery lessons of  the Chalet School, the roundness of Billy Bunter through to the chocolate frogs of Harry Potter. Food is a magical device and it’s particularly magical when used in the school story.

As part of my blog birthday celebrations, I thought we’d have a look at three of my favourite foodiest moments in school story history.

‘Angela lifted the toast on to the table. “I got Antoinette to make anchovy toast for us,” she said’                                 Fifth Formers of St Clares by Enid Blyton.
Image: wallyg (Flickr)

Why has this moment had such an indelible impact on me? I think because it’s one of the key moments in St Clares, a very ‘prank-aware’ school, that food and pranks combine. Fifth Formers at St Clare’s was published in 1945, right at the end of the Second World War. Food was being rationed. The school story was increasingly becoming an idyll of escapism. Right from the train / plane / bus journey to the relevant school, through to their exotic locales (Austria, Islands, romantic manors in the countryside), these stories were havens to the increasingly under attack populace.

The scene in question involves Angela, one of the snobbier girls in the school, and the new girl Antoinette. Angela is under fire from most of her form-mates for using her prettiness and letting the younger girls run after her in a manner unbecoming to that of a senior. Antoinette, the young sister of Claudine – a member of Angela’s form, is a girl who decides to not follow the attitude of the other young girls. Asked to make anchovy toast, Antoinette swaps the anchovy paste for bootpolish, and spreads the toast with this. Angela and her friends are of course sent to Matron for a cautionary dose and Antoinette has wangled her way out of ever doing jobs for Angela again.

There’s obviously several levels in this incident. A little bit of class commentary – the upper class Angela getting her comeuppance – and a level of the younger child winning out against the elder one. But what I really love is the final moment of the episode which involves Antoinette being so upset (oh, don’t worry, she’s really not!) she is given a square of chocolate from Matron in order to calm her soul. Brilliant. How can you not root for Antoinette throughout all of this?

“But there is no need to cook it,” said Thekla calmly. “It is smoked—see!”And she held it so that that they saw the rind was a rich red-brown.                                                                                                                                                                                  From: The Chalet School and the Lintons by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer                                                                                          Image: Hendry (Flickr)

And then there’s Thekla. Thekla von Stift makes her first appearance in Exploits of the Chalet Girls (1933) and has a stormy time before ending as one of only two girls the Chalet School ever expels. She seals her fate when she decides to have a go at Joyce Linton in the effort to break up the younger girl’s friendship with Joey Bettany.

Thekla’s defining ‘foodie’ moment comes in The Chalet School and the Lintons (1934) . Joyce, tearaway new girl, has decided to throw a midnight feast to which everybody has to bring something. We have sardines, and cake, and all the normal foodstuffs you’d expect schoolgirls to be able to procure.

And then Thekla brings “raw smoked bacon” which she calmly chomps down on in the middle of the midnight feast.

It’s an amazing moment that reinforces Thekla’s rampant role as ‘Other’ in the series and one that has lasting impact. The midnight feast ends up with illness for Thekla and Mary Shaw, and Joyce Linton, the instigator, “almost dies” with a billious attack. A bilious attack that’s very much helped on its way by Thekla’s calm eating of the bacon.

I love this. Despite Thekla’s obvious awfulness, there’s something rather epic about a stolid Prussian snob eating bacon in the middle of the night.

Image: Great British Chefs (Flickr)

What’s the thing you want most after a shock? A hot sugary cup of tea? Nope.

You want an omelette aux fines herbes cooked by a Frenchwoman who has a bit of a crush on you. This is the fate of Joey Bettany  in The Chalet Girls in Camp (1932). Following an incident in the book which Joey, naturally, is heavily involved in, she is recovering back in camp. Simone Lecoutier (who’s always had a bit of a pash for Joey) decides to cook an omelette aux fines herbes to aid the recovery process.

It’s an incredibly romantic moment. The Chalet Girls have been camping in the Baumersee; an area of intense beauty and full of all the magic Brent-Dyer could possibly imbue it with. Simone is a neat, nimble-fingered, French woman of great charm and the image of her making an omelette  on the camp-fire, seasoning it with herbs, flipping it in the pan, whilst her beloved best friend is recovering from shock is something that borders on almost sensual.

I think I’m going to have to do a follow up post on this! I mean, I’ve not even begun to talk about Guernsey cut and come again cake, watered down wine, garlic cloves vs normal cloves, ginger beer, chocolate frogs  ….

(I am indebted to @wonderlanded for sourcing me the Thekla quote – many thanks!)

Les Bandes Dessinées

Bandes Dessinées (BDs) are a staple of my French holidays. Ever since childhood, I remember walking past the rows and rows of graphic novels in the supermarket. And the thing that got me was that they were just so simply *there*.  Not tucked away in some specialist little shop, or hidden ashamedly round the back of a pillar, or rammed onto a tiny shelf. They were just there. Quite content and proud and ridiculously exciting.

Reading books like this is total detective based fun. My French is wobbly (I can feed and water myself but tenses and more elaborate structures are way out of my ken) but I managed to work out so much from these books. Graphic novels have the intense joy of being read visually as well as textually so even if you just pick out the pictures you get a story. I’m really sad these sort of books weren’t used in my French lessons – I’d have died of happiness if they were. So take a risk! Pick one of them up! If I’d never have badgered my mum to let me have a gorgeous book about unicorns, I’d never have learnt the French word for unicorn* – and that’s a life-skill in itself!

On my most recent holiday to visit family I took the opportunity to pick up a few more titles. I admit there was a point when I stood in the middle of the aisle and shrieked something along the lines of “ONE EURO EACH? COR WHAT A DEAL!” and um maybe elbowed an innocent or two out of the way in my raptures.

And here’s what I found.

Le Missionaire. Number One: Messages by Buscaglia and Crippa I struggle to coherently formulate my love for this book. It starts with an Apocalypse Now-esque flashback of a scarred war veteran who ends up working with the Vatican in order to confirm the legitimacy of miracles. There are nuns (NUNS WITH SECRETS), mysterious villages and some superbly moody artwork. Brilliant.

Quartier M : Book 1/3 Felures by Benjo, Zano, Beauverger. This is a dystopian vision of the future drawn in a stunningly evocative manner. It’s quite laconic in places both visually and textually. Essentially (and my French got very iffy on this one), there’s a suburb where the adults are all amnesiacs and as a result of this the kids are running the joint. There’s a more coherent precis available here but even with my wobbly French I fell in love with the relationship between the two central children and the West Side Story-esque interplay between the gangs.

Nefesis: Tome 1: Resurrections by Camboni and Filippi. Of all the books I picked up, this was the one I struggled with the most. I *think* this book is about a female scholar of Egyptian artefacts who turns into something like Catwoman on an evening. Amazing no? Or at least it would have been if I could have coped with the awful stylised lettering. Not one that I’ll be coming back to.

Les Mondes D’Aldebaran 1: La Catastrophe by Leo. OH MY GOD THIS BOOK. Of all of the books I read, this by far won the THIS IS A LITTLE BIT BONKERS prize. Essentially what happens here is that we’re on an alien planet (detailed geographical notes available on the inner covers) and it’s all going a little pear-shaped. The sea is solidifying, amazing whale-slug things are being found on shore, and the planet is having a major freak out session. This book is amazing and nuts and sort of spectacular.

Alpha: L’Echange by Jigounov / Renard. This is a more traditional (I say traditional, none of these books are really traditional, they’re all brilliant) crime book. My French got a bit patchy in it again so my precis is going to be a little iffy. Essentially there’s this guy, he has something some other guys want so they kidnap him and for some reason there’s a parallel plot of a foxy Russian lady doing the sights of Paris (the Louvre etc) with some other bloke who thinks she’s all innocent but she’s not she’s got SECRETS.

La Derniere Reine: Tome 1 Le Cobra Du Nul  by Weber / Caracuzzo. Okay, so in a haul of a couple of books I got dystopia, hard science fiction, alternative history, and crime. This book is all about Egypt and taught me how to say “Get out of the way, my boss the King is coming through and you really should make space” (“Faites place! Faites place!” *evil glare at the poor people*).

*licorne. La. Because everything in French that’s pretty is feminine (according to my dad).