The Island : Armin Greder

The Island by Armin Greder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s a difficulty sometimes when considering picture books and that difficulty is this: they are inescapable. There’s always a level of semiotic interpretation that occurs with a sign, be that sign a word or an image, but I think that the breadth of interpretation narrows when we think about images. If I write the word “cat” for example, what do you think of? A kitten? An adult cat? Sleeping? Jumping? Eating? And what colour is it? Is it alone? With a family? Being stroked?

Now, if I show you a picture of a cat I am showing you something that you cannot easily shift into another context. I am showing you the cat that I see when I write the word, I am showing you my cat. Of course you can then take that image and lay it on top of your image of cat, but I am dictating, however briefly, what I want you to see.

And that, all of that, is something which struck me when thinking about The Island. It is an inescapable book.

It starts with the front cover, that oppressive, dark block of colour, rearing away from you. It’s perspective, yes, but it’s also something else. It almost doesn’t want you to touch it. It is a book that comes with a built in recoil.

Ironic, really, when we finally open it up and see what’s inside. It is the story of a man who is shipwrecked on an island. The pages are full of white space, rolling acres of it that in this case act as a focaliser. There is nowhere else for us to look so we look at the man. The man who “wasn’t like them.” We look at him, his silent nudity, and we try to find this difference that is written in the text in him.

It is not there.

And so, as we realise the intense futility and awfulness of this story and what is about to happen, we are locked in the role of passive onlooker. We cannot change what is about to happen, we cannot tell the islanders to stop – being – so – wrong – and we cannot do anything but watch. And we can’t walk away. That’s the thing about this book – it doesn’t let you go. It is the most uncomfortable and inescapable and brilliant of things.

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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.

Ella’s Big Chance : Shirley Hughes

Ella’s Big Chance: A Jazz-Age Cinderella by Shirley Hughes

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s a richness to everything Shirley Hughes produces, and it’s this richness which comes to the forefront of Ella’s Big Chance. This, as the front cover, states is ‘a fairy tale retold’. It is a retelling of Cinderella, set in ‘the jazz-age’. And it is practically glowing with riches.

Cinderella is such an archetypal story that it needs very little precis. It is the story of a girl, her wicked stepmother and a night on the town that Cinderella will never forget.

In this story, we meet Ella, the daughter of Mr Cinders. The two of them run a dressmaking shop ‘in a quiet but elegant part of town’. There’s an air of faded gentility from the start as the sun eases through the windows to illustrate the shop – the colours, living, under the touch of Ella and her father.

Ella herself is something particularly glorious. Drawn as a sort of Gina Lollobrigida meets Sophia Loren hybrid both facially and physically, her hair close cropped into a wild bob, she’s an all too rare and incredibly beautiful creation. I loved her.

As ever in a Hughes book, there’s a deep awareness of time and the experience of the reader. She’s never selfish in her illustrations, there’s always some sort of – look at me – moment to every scene. The majority of the pages are constructed in a half and half scenario, a white block of text playing next to, or opposite a full colour image. What’s particularly interesting in these pages is that the majority of the text sections have a sort of ‘transitory’ image in pen and ink. These simple black and white moments carry a lot of the book until the ball, and they do so because of their elegance. They transition the reader from scene to scene, joining the story together in a sort of visual stitching. Hughes is very skilled at not letting you go once she has you.

When we reach the ball scene, which is something we’re always waiting for in a Cinderella story, it is not disappointing. Hughes goes for it and produces images that are just – richness. They are luscious and edible and dreamlike all at the same time. She balances the vivid intensity of the moment with human touches. When Ella arrives at the ball, walking down the stairs in her silver dress that is visually stunning, Hughes throws in moments all over the scene. A gentleman at the edge of the far page has eyes for nobody but Ella even though his partner is talking; a group of women stare in shock and distaste at this competitor, whilst another woman serene in her duties as host holds out her arm to greet Ella who pauses, so very briefly, at the stairs to close her eyes and savour the moment.

It’s worthwhile to note that in this book Hughes designed all of the dresses. So when you read it, remember this and note her use of colours and shapes. See how Ella in her black shift dress is the centre of the picture, always, linked by the black and white images that thread through this book and yet somehow, always in the shadows, her dress blurring into the darkness of the shop and the cellar. Watch the peacock nature of one of Ella’s step-sisters, posing in her vivid red dress, uncaring that she blocks up half of the image and steals focus from her sister. Look at the way Ella’s ball dress is conjured from the night and the stars and the silvery magic of her fair godmother.

Look a this book, and treasure it, and take your time over it. And then do it all over again. It’s a book that rewards slow, leisurely, indulgent reading.

(And it gives you the most perfect, perfect of conclusions).

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The Savage : David Almond / Dave McKean

The Savage by David Almond

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The wild child phenomenon is something that’s been represented repeatedly in literature, perhaps most notably in the case of The Wild Boy of Aveyron. But it’s never been treated like this.

Almond and McKean have produced a strange, enthralling hybrid of a book. It’s not quite picture book, it’s not quite graphic novel, it’s a layer between the two – switching from one story to the other and then eventually, beautifully tightening the gaps between the two. I won’t attempt to write a synopsis of it, because I don’t think that would do it justice. What I will say is that it deals with themes of masculinity, bullying, and the real / fantasy world but do note that it’s definitely not one for younger children, as it contains scenes of physical violence and intense imagery. And what I will also say is that The Savage is one of those books to experience, and experience it you must.

It’s stunning. My love for David Almond grows with every book of his I read. What he does so very well is he writes the primal magic of childhood. Remember the days when snow was amazing and not something that made your commute impossible? Almond does. And here he produces something quite stunning, drawing in elements of the wild child myth but also moments reminiscent of The Lord of The Flies and even at points bits that made me think of Apocalypse Now.

The artwork is what completes this though. It’s similarly outstanding. McKean’s work is exuberant, viciously so. It revels in telling the story and it’s beautiful. Some of the moments where the Savage is exploring the town are full of a kinetic, primal energy that falls off the page. McKean’s sense of the visual, the construction of his images is superb. What’s particularly stunning is that the majority of these images are told in such a limited colour palette. We have forest scenes, coloured all in greens, shifting from light misty pale washes for the background, all the way down to dark, almost black shadows cast across peoples faces. And then, at night, the darkness is expressed in tones of blues, from light to dark, and then, when required, punching straight into great swathes of empty, page swallowing blacks.

This is outstanding in every way. I read. I cried. I gasped. And I fell in love with Almond. Again.

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A few of my favourite things : Cloudland

Here’s the start of an occasional series focusing on some of my favourite covers from picture books. What I want to do is to focus on the image and the artwork and the moment itself rather than critiquing the entire book. The first in this series is the ethereal and outstanding Cloudland by John Burningham.

Cloudland front cover

One of the things about books that I love, and picture books in particular, is the usage of the ‘entire’ book space. By this I mean, the book itself spills over into the endpapers and the cover. Naturally we expect a front cover to every book, but there’s something rather gorgeous and unique about the picture book front cover. Picture books are intensely and deceptively complicated beasts. They need to appeal to the pre-literate, the emerging literate, and the adult who will at some point be reading this to and with their child. That’s a lot to ask from a book and it’s something we should recognise as a massive achievement – and it’s one that’s quite often achieved without words.

So here, the front cover symbolises something special. It’s a note of stylistic intent – the ‘overlay’ of the cut-out felt tip pens characters exuberant on the ‘real’ world of the cloud. I love this artwork- it instantly adds a level of otherworldliness to this cover and throughout the book. Rooting the children in a different medium to that of the clouds gives a sort of bigness to their presence. It is as if to say that these children are so potent, so big, that they can master the clouds that fade into the background. These children also very much float which is glorious to see throughout the book. By not having them ever ‘touch’ the clouds that they’re on, the children are given such a light ethereal quality that you almost expect them to float through the pages and out of the book. I remember once turning a page in Cloudland and marvelling at the way the previous page could be seen from the new spread when I held it up to the light. This phenomenon, whilst not necessarily unusual, was something gorgeous in this book because it added to the unreal nature of the children. They were shaped by sunlight and not even held by the page, they span through the book like mist.

The title of Cloudland itself appears without a hyphenate, suggesting an actual location, and it’s one that looks full of fun. These children are happy – the two in the white shirts are clearly playing, and what’s more they’re waving. We look to find ourselves in pictures and there’s an invitation here straight away for the reader to join in with the party.

But what’s more interesting is the central boy. He feels a little unsure, a little tentative. His movements are more precise and there’s a suggestion of him reaching for something – or even climbing. He adds an element of uncertainty to the cover and it’s through him being placed centrally that we realise that this uncertainty – and the boy himself – are to be central to this story.

Books like this develop – and enhance – literacies, and do so phenomenally well. To read more on visual literacy and the art of reading visual imagery, check out the work of Scott McCloud and in particular Understanding Comics and its sequels.