The art of creating children’s picturebooks

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Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling

By Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles

Given the number of excellent illustrated books for children that continue to come onto the market (See Cassone  July 2011, September 2011, July 2012), it is not perhaps surprising that a book like Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling should appear to complement this.  It offers a well-presented overview of the field by two academic specialists, who explain in their introduction that:

interest in and research around the subject of the picturebook has tended to divide clearly between the practitioners in the art and design sector and the theorists in the education sector.  Between us, we represent both of these worlds and have for a number of years sought to build links between the two.... 

Their book therefore caters to the needs both of students aiming to make a career in either sector and of professionals, whether in education, practice or indeed publishing, wishing to extend or update their knowledge. The book’s scope means it is likely to be of great value to both, with illustration and design students in particular rightly thinking ‘I need this book’, though it might be a little too specialized for a wider readership.

The book starts with a section on the rise of the picturebook alongside the history of printing, though it starts in ancient times in looking at traditions of visual storytelling, whilst locating the birth of the modern picturebook in the late 19th century.  A wealth of illustrations, from Randolph Caldecott and William Nicholson in the late 19th/early 20th centuries to Katsumi Komagata and André Neves in the 21st, also help to tell this story visually in a very evocative way.  Some of the chapters that follow deal in detail with ‘The Picturebook Maker’s Art’, technical issues such as connections between word and image, and processes ranging from traditional linocuts such as those by Bawden from mid-century to present-day digital printmaking. Each of these chapters is supplemented by a selection of reflective and thoughtful illustrated case studies from both students and professionals.  Education professionals, and maybe interested parents too, are likely to find a lot of food for thought in sections such as the one on the concept of visual literacy, or on the suitability of sensitive topics, such as violence and death, for children’s picturebooks, and how different techniques can support this.

A particular strength throughout Children’s Picturebooks: The art of visual storytelling is the comprehensive selection of visual examples, which starts with the engaging cover artwork by Beatrice Alemagna. The selection includes not just work likely to be familiar to UK readers, such as that of Anthony Browne or Quentin Blake, but also books by writers and illustrators from all over the world that demonstrate the richness and variety of the international dimension of the picturebook genre at the present time. 

Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling by Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles is published by Laurence King Publishing 2012,192 pp., 300 colour illustrations, £22.50. ISBN 978 1 85669 738 5