Picturebooks: Beyond the Borders of Art, Narrative and Culture

The picturebook is now recognized as a sophisticated art form that has provided a space for some of the most exciting innovations in the field of children's literature. This book brings together the work of expert scholars, based in the US, Europe and the UK, who present original theoretical perspectives and new research on picturebooks and their readers. Contributors draw on a variety of disciplines such as art and cultural history, semiotics, philosophy, cultural geography, education and literary theory, and visual literacy in order to revisit the question of what a picturebook is, and how the best authors and illustrators stretch artistic, narrative and cultural expectations. The book looks at the socio-historical conditions of different times and countries in which a range of picturebooks have been created, pointing out variations but also highlighting commonalities. It also discusses what the stretching of borders may mean for new generations of readers and what contemporary children themselves have to say about picturebooks. This book was originally published as a special issue of the New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship.