LITMIR.BIZ

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and are still in print today. The Italian couple Iela and Enzo Mari created wordless picturebooks, for instance, La mela e la farfalla (1960; trans. The Apple and the Moth, 1970), that combine the young child’s conceptual development with information about nature. One of the first books for very young children that effectively incorporated toy elements in order to propel the story is Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), which launched an extremely successful franchise. Playful character is also a unique feature of Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters (1986): Envelopes glued to the pages contain letters that can be opened and read, thus enhancing the story (Martin 1989). While some picturebooks, such as the Swedes Barbro Lindgren and Eva Eriksson’s popular titles focusing on the baby Max (10 vols, 1981–1995), introduce young children into the concept of story, Pat Hutchins’s Rosie’s Walk (1968) is an innovative example of a book wherein there is contradiction between image and text, thus calling the young child’s attention to the multimodal character of the picturebook as well as initiating a preliminary understanding of irony (Kümmerling-Meibauer 1999).

One of the most discussed picturebooks is Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963), because of its intricate book design and sophisticated relation between text and visuals as well as conscious tribute to the child’s inner life. Sendak’s work paved the way for the increasing psychologization of child characters in picturebooks, taking children’s emotional and cognitive development seriously. Although some librarians and critics were initially uncomfortable with the book, Where the Wild Things Are became a favorite among children and pursued an incredible career in international academia. Innumerable articles testify to the never-ending interest in this picturebook. Considered by some picturebook researchers as the modern picturebook par excellence, Where the Wild Things Are was adapted as, inter alia, an opera version in 1980 and a live action movie in 2009 directed by Spike Jonze, bearing witness to the timeless appeal of the picturebook story.

      While not as popular as Sendak’s picturebook, Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day (1962) represents another benchmark in the history of the picturebook: it is the first US-American picturebook that features an African American child as main character (Martin 2004, p. 51). It established the validity of picturebook stories that focus on the everyday life of children from different ethnic groups, pointing to children’s diverse social and cultural backgrounds.

      The Surge of Pop Art Picturebooks and Other Experiments in Picturebook Design

      In the wake of the 1968 student movement, a new image of childhood emerged that centered on the autonomy of the child, demanding rights for children on an equal level with adults. As a result, many educators, authors, illustrators, and publishers turned toward children’s literature as a means to disseminate this ideal. They advocated for strengthening the child’s mind by providing insights into ongoing political, economic, and social processes, thus supporting the child’s ability to recognize social injustice and political abuse. In light of this, it is no wonder that the picturebooks inspired by the 1968 movement are imbued with ideological beliefs, which mostly rely on anti-authoritarian ideas. Such “leftist” picturebooks stand out due to radical and sometimes challenging topics, such as the exploitation of nature, the imbalance between the rich and the poor, early sexuality, the evolving impact of capitalism, and the war in Vietnam. By drawing on current societal and political issues, such picturebooks took a different tack from that in established children’s literature by encouraging the child audience toward activism. Moreover, these picturebooks often employed visually innovative techniques, such as photomontage and collage, which were inspired by avant-garde movements.

      That interest in aesthetic innovation also resulted in the rise of Pop Art picturebooks. Reaching a peak in the first half of the 1970s, these picturebooks were popular in the United States as well as several European countries including France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Renowned artists such as Peter Blake, Heinz Edelmann, Peter Max, and Andy Warhol created sophisticated picturebooks that exemplify the manifold forms of Pop Art. The publisher Harlin Quist in New York – with a French branch in Paris – was highly influential in this regard as his picturebooks provoked fierce debates on the stories’ and illustrations’ suitability for children (Paley 1989). Despite this, Harlin Quist picturebooks were showered with awards, even leaving their traces in the postmodern picturebook that emerged in the 1990s (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015). One of most famous Pop Art picturebooks is Conte numéro 1 (Story No 1, 1968), with a text by playwright Eugene Ionesco and illustrations by Étienne Delessert. This picturebook – as well as its three sequels, whose titles are only distinguished by the rising numbers two to four – focuses on an absurd story, told by a father to his young daughter. The lavishly painted illustrations that abound in interpictorial references and are characterized by the Pop Art “aesthetics of boredom” (Alloway 1997, p. 170) contribute to the seeming “strangeness” of the nonsensical narrative (Kümmerling-Meibauer and Meibauer 2013).

Pop Art picturebooks represent a singular and time-limited corpus; however, together with the critical and leftist picturebooks of that time, they paved the way for an ever-growing awareness of crucial political, cultural, and societal aspects in the picturebooks to come. Picturebooks increasingly explored topics related to gender, race, disability, and age, thus scrutinizing traditional stereotypes and ideas. Publishers and policymakers increased their focus on authors and illustrators from underrepresented groups such as Native peoples, ethnic minorities, and immigrant communities. For example, the Coretta Scott King Medal, which was awarded for the first time in 1974, acknowledged the work of African American authors and illustrators, who were often overlooked by other award committees. Another prestigious award is the Children’s Africana Book Award (CABA), established in 1991 and presented to authors and illustrators for the best children’s books on Africa published or republished in the United States.

      Picturebook-makers also addressed taboo topics, such as death and the atrocities of war, exploring often neglected issues in the genre. Picturebooks that come to mind here are John Burningham’s Granpa (1984), which deals with the death of a beloved person, and Toshi Maruki’s Hiroshima no Pika (1980), which addresses the bombing of Hiroshima. Correspondingly, Rose Blanche (1985), by Christophe Gallaz and Roberto Innocenti, is the first picturebook that focuses on the Holocaust. At the same time, parodies and newly adapted versions of popular fairy tales burst onto the picturebook market, such as Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko’s The Paper Bag Princess (1980) and Babette Cole’s Princess Smartypants (1986), which play with fairy-tale gender stereotypes. Another pioneering picturebook is The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (1989), written by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith, which turned the original story topsy-turvy and initiated a trend that has not ceased yet.

      Furthermore, at the end of the 1960s there emerged a new picturebook genre that has since become internationally popular. When the German illustrator Ali Mitgutsch published Rundherum in meiner Stadt (All Around in My Town) in 1968, the book was announced as a “Wimmelbuch” (wimmelbook), since the textless double spreads teem with characters and events. This picturebook genre demands specific reading strategies. Because of the many simultaneous actions and figures depicted in a setting, there is no prescribed reading direction. The viewer is totally free in their decision of which actions and figure(s) she wants to attentively observe in order to understand the small stories hidden behind. This activity reveals a playful character as it fosters the child’s ability to discover the connection between single events and characters (Rémi 2011). Akin to the wimmelbook is Martin Handford’s Where’s Wally? series (1987–1997, 7 vols; called Where’s Waldo? in North America), which offers a searching game, as the reader is asked to look for a certain character (Wally) on each double spread.

      The wimmelbook and related book types belong to the swelling corpus of wordless (or textless) picturebooks, increasingly significant in the picturebook market since the 1980s. Wordless picturebooks encompass quite simple picturebooks, such as early concept books and concept books targeted at very young children, wimmelbooks, and sophisticated picturebooks that are based on visual narration, such as Lynd Ward’s The Silver Pony (1973), Tord Nygren’s Den röda tråden (1987; trans. The Red Thread, 1987), and Quentin Blake’s Clown

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