Category: Fulbright 2022
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Presentations of data in nonfiction picture books in the U.S.
I spent spring semester 2022 at the Simmons University’s Center for the study of Children’s Literature in Boston, MA, USA as a Fulbright Scholar. My project topic was data visualization and children’s nonfiction picture books. I beheld a lot of nonfiction picture books. I read scholarly and historical material about…
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Numerical Data
“…many of us are cajoled by the mere presence of numbers and charts in the media we consume, no matter whether we can interpret them well.” Alberto Cairo: How Charts Lie – Getting Smarter about Visual Information Visual representations of numbers and numerical data are the core of my Fulbright…
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Visual Comparisons
“Never leave a number all by itself. Never believe that one number on its own can be meaningful. If you are offered one number, always ask for at least one more. Something to compare it with.” Hans Rosling: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things…
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Classification
“…many twentieth-century children’s books teach the idea of list-making. What is Goodnight Moon but a catalogue of things: a list of properties both real and fanciful that mark the progress of evening and the passageway to sleep?” Seth Lerer: Children’s Literature: A Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter Presentations…
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Depictions of Time
It is common to find timelines in children’s nonfiction picture books in the content or in back matter. Usually time is shown as a continuum, and the choices are made between the shape: whether it is straight (horizontal or vertical), curved or even entirely round. Timeline is often read as…
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Cutaway Illustrations
Cutaway illustrations – including anatomy illustrations and exploded views – are very common in children’s nonfiction picture books. They are kind of like maps but on different subjects: animals, humans, plants, houses, ships…. Exploded views you often see of technical subjects. This is visual information you cannot see in real…
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Illustrated Maps
“What is it about maps that intrigues us? Why do we pore over them endlessly? The answer can be found in an earlier era, before much of the earth was explored. Maps lessened the fear of the unknown and looked authoritative, even though there were blank spaces filled with animals,…
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Picture this: What Illustrators do best
One of the first books Cathryn Mercier recommended for me upon arrival at the Simmons University and Center for the Study of Children’s Literature was “Picture This: How Pictures Work” by Molly Bang. It’s a charming and invigorating book, first published in 1991, and it is used in teaching at…
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Illustration and text go together
I have been thrilled to learn the terms ‘text-image interaction’ and ‘visual and verbal interaction’ during my Fulbright project – and get acquainted with the talk of them. For some time I had been searching for the best words to talk about this theme: I feel it combines picture books…
Illustrating Data 