Inside Picture Books - Hardcover

Spitz, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300076029 ISBN 13: 9780300076028

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1999

Synopsis

An exploration of the profound impact of the experience of reading on children. It discusses well-known picture books, including "Goodnight Moon", "Babar" and "Little Black Sambo", and reveals how they transmit psychological wisdom, moral lessons, tastes, and subtle prejudices.

About this title

From the Publisher

Review from Publishers Weekly, April 12, 1999
Readers may never look at picture books in the same way after making their way through this thought-provoking examination. Focusing on her subject through the lens of psychology, Spitz argues that because picture books "provide children with some of their earliest takes on morality, taste, and basic cultural knowledge, including messages about gender, race, and class," it behooves adults to consider more carefully the images transmitted to their kids. Organized thematically, the chapters offer a wide-ranging discussion of art and artistry, visual and verbal cues and the transmission of culture through picture books that resonate with children, often for multiple generations. Whether examining motifs of darkness and abandonment in Margaret Wise Brown's classic bedtime tale "Goodnight Moon," a child's yearning for power in Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" or gender stereotyping in Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" (comparing the bold and naughty Peter to his obedient sisters, she notes "the gendering is explicit: good is to girls as bad is to boys"), Spitz provides an illuminating analysis of what is often taken for granted. Sure to spark lively debate, her book is a must-read for any serious student of children's literature as well as that core group of parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and others who are actively engaged in raising children. Proactive, well-written, scholarly without being dry or pedantic, Spitz's text makes a compelling case for the power of art and literature, and the responsibility that accompanies such power, particularly when it relates to children.--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ellen Handler Spitz is a lecturer in the department of art at Stanford University. She writes and lectures widely on the arts, psychology, and culture. She is also the author of Art and Psyche and Museums of the Mind.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300076029
• ISBN 13: 9780300076028
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248