A lot of talk about bums at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this year!
Bums can’t really be illustrated to children’s books in the United States. Or nudity in general. (Or dead bunnies.) Whereas in the rest of the world these are regular elements in children’s picture books. In a masterclass What makes an illustrated book an international success Illustrator Felicita Sala commented that she sometimes feels restricted with the don’ts of the U.S. book market, and revealed she admires particularly Swedish children’s books.
“It’s not that we can’t bear the sight of naked bums”, commented the masterclass moderator, illustrator, author and designer Steven Guarnaccia, and continued to explain how publishers in the U.S. try to sell books to the largest possible audience; and how it is such a BIG market. In another panel, called Border crossings: Children’s books in a time of restless change, children’s book historian, critic and author Leonard S. Marcus further explained that the attitudes on nudity go back to puritan times in the 17th century.
The U.S children’s book market is more about the characters (or even more precisely about one (main) character), whereas European books are more about the design, Marcus remarked. Literary agent Debbie Bibo described how the overall impact on the reader is what matters the most, but still, European books might not get strong reactions from the U.S. editors because of that fundamental difference in how stories are told.
The matter of back matter was not discussed! It is a big difference when comparing children’s book markets and including the United States, especially in nonfiction.
Blue Seas and Accurate Art
In the panel discussion Reading for a Healthy Planet: Inspiring children’s books to help achieve a sustainable future, the panelists discussed about the balancing between scientific and age-appropriate content, without over-simplifying or losing accuracy. Nonfiction books on sustainability are being made to even smaller children, and it is a good thing: they are ready for it.
The topic of awakening the sense of wonder as the task of children’s literature was raised early in the discussion. To which Fernando Boero, a zoologist and president of Dohrn Foundation, commented: “Wonder is not enough. In addition to wonder, we have to understand the world.”
Boero raised a topic of accurate depiction of the world by talking about the most important animals. Something is not right in how we address these issues, if most people don’t get right the vitally and ecologically important species in our oceans. “Who knows what codepods are?”, Boero asked the audience. Most of us didn’t (I had to read a Publishers Weekly article to catch which important creature he was talking about).
The panel’s moderator Ed Nawotka, senior international editor at Publishers Weekly, noted that walking around the book fair, one might think the world’s most important animals are fluffy and cute – like bunnies and such.
This is an important note for illustrators and publishers. There might be occasions when nonfiction looks like that, but in order to actually visually enhance children’s understanding of the world, it can’t be done through fluffy and cute. Someone in the panel even suggested authors to better guard the illustrators with their art’s accuracy.
As an illustrator of nonfiction, I couldn’t agree more with the fact that art needs to be scientifically or otherwise accurate in nonfiction. But I’d like to see book making as a collaboration, not a hierarchical structure where illustrators place low.
We are witnessing a trend where publishers hire fiction illustrators to work on nonfiction (like eg. literary agent Bibo mentioned), and it sure sounds like an interesting combo, potentially. In the bigger picture I think the question is about nonfiction’s movement towards more diversity in illustration styles and artistic expression. But can you expect a fiction illustrator to have the skills needed in nonfiction? What, in fact, are those skills needed in illustrating nonfiction? I’d like to hear more talk on that.
On my part, I’ve tried to carve it out in my Manifesto on Illustrating Data.
No page numbers but a metric scale
Giù nel blu (Down in the blue) won the Bolognaragazzi award’s Sea special category, and it is a great example of a New nonfiction picture book (which I write about in my Manifesto on Illustrating Data, part 2); A book that can entirely be structured around a visual idea.
In Giù nel blu there is a metric scale instead of page numbering, and like the name suggests, the direction is down towards the deep. That general structure of the book was decided first. After that, finding an illustrator for the sea creatures, scientific fact-checking and finding someone to turn facts into a story, followed.
The book starts blue but gradually turns to black. One challenge was that the deeper you go, fewer creatures appear. The makers weren’t afraid to leave empty dark spreads, and that bold decision became important. “The book gives a lot of space for what we don’t know”, one of the makers commented.
A magnifier was used in depicting the smallest creatures. The art director described the design principle: “Huge is huge and small is small!”
“Usually the author is the protagonist, but this book really was a collaboration. Everyone contributed”, the author Gianumberto Accinelli commented.
Conversation between equals
“Mac Barnett, are you ever going to write a real book?” was the name of author Mac Barnett‘s talk. Because now he has – and the topic is writing books for children. La porta segreta comes out first in italian.
“Children’s books are underestimated; not taken seriously”, Barnett says, “just like children themselves”.
Art is a conversation, and conversation works best when all conversing are equal, Barnett reminds. No one is above the other.
Barnett called the adult reading the book out loud to a child not audience, but a collaborator. And in a picture book there are usually three of them: Author, illustrator and the person reading the book out loud. Each needs to leave room for the others. And the greatest children’s books leave space for kids to talk back to them, too.
A collaboration, where everyone contributes; where everyone is equal; where everyone leaves room for the other – including the child reader – sounds like a true collaboration to me. Salute to that!
Illustrating Data 