Pigs might fly: thinking about roles

Continuing with picturebook titles that promote discussion and thought, this post is about Piggybook by Anthony Browne, the present  children's laureate. Anthony Browne is probably most famous for his picturebooks with gorilla characters, and when he was nominated children's laureate in 2009 the title of the Guardian article was: 'Gorilla artist Anthony Browne becomes children's laureate'.  His surrealist life-like illustrations, full of references to other texts, draw you into the pages, and on each re-read there's something new and different to be found.  His picturebooks work on so many levels that they provide pleasure and delight to children and adults alike.  Piggybook is no exception and despite being written in 1986, its message still holds true.  It's an excellent picturebook for all ages to pour over and discuss, including teens and adults.  

The front cover provides an excellent opportunity for predicting the story.  There's an illustration of a sad looking wowan, carrying a man and two boys on her back, who look happy, their cheeks pink and rosey. The woman is  standing against a wall with patterned wallpaper which first appear to be pink tulips, but on closer inspection reveal themsleves to be transforming, Escher-like, into pigs' heads.   There's a lightswitch on the wall, which also has a pig-like look to it.  The dusty blue title, 'Piggybook' is a good contrast to the pinky coloured background.  The visual play with piggyback and piggybook may not be picked up by our students, but we can tell them that the woman is giving the man and boys a piggyback and they are likely to make the connection.  The back cover gives some very precise information about who the people are on the front cover.  "Mr Piggott and his two sons behave like pigs to poor Mrs Piggott - until, finally, she walks out. Left to fend for themselves, the male Piggotts undergo some curious changes."   There are three illustrated cameos from the inside of the book showing a sink full of dirty washing up, an uncleared table and a pig's trooter holding a piece of paper which reads, 'You are pigs'. We can make a pretty good guess as to what we will find inside now... even the family name is pig-like.

There are no endpapers in my paperback version, but the title page is delicious.  It shows two flying pink pigs, flitting across the page.  They remind me first of those ceramic flying mallards of the 1930s, which grannies used to have on the wall above the mantlepiece.  There were always three and though we can only see two pigs there's definitely a resemblence.  And then I'm reminded of the idiom, "Pigs might fly", something we say when we think there is no chance at all of something happening, another example of Browne's visual humour.  Our students may or may not know this expression, but older students in particular would enjoying learning it.  Even if the reader never makes this connection, which is most likely to be the case, it doesn't lose its charm. 

The opening page is typical of Browne's deadpan narration alongside a very suggestive illustration, which we look at before we read the words.  

We see Mr Piggot, looking his best, larger than large, with his two sons, imitating his pose.  They are in front of their house.  It is only upon reading the words that our attention is drawn to what's missing from the illustration:. "Mr Piggott lived with his two sons, Simon and Patrick, in a nice house with a nice garden, and a nice car in a nice garage.  Inside the house was his wife."  The careful positioning of the unnamed wife, at the end of the decsription after the mention of the car, says it all. 

Browne illustrates Mr Piggott and his boys looking out at the reader and in full colour, they appear initially very confident, in charge and in control.  Mrs Piggott  however is depicted in sepia, we can't see her facial features and she looks small, haunched and timid.  
The early pages of this picturebook set the scene,  Mr Piggott and the boys larger than life, demanding food and attention, their mouths are always open, as though calling for something and Mrs Piggott is always in another picture, cooking, cleaning and looking after her family, never physically with them in an illustration. Gradually, as we turn the pages, we begin to notice references to pigs emerging from the illustrations, Mr Piggott's shadow is pig-like; he's eating fat pork sausages, a close up of his mouth and chest as he takes the sausage to his mouth.  This illustration has no words, it doesn't need any. The climax comes the next day, when they get home to an empty house, "... there was no-one to greet them."   The boys are shown walking into the living room, and if you look carefully they have pig emblems on their school blazers and Mr Piggott has a pig like rose in his lapel - there are other pig references too.   

We turn to an illustration of the living room fireplace.  The wall paper is now definitely pigs not tulips, the tiles have blue pigs on them, the grating has pig-like decorations, the poker has a pig handle, there's a pig vase, a pig card, a pig pencil top and the imitation of Gainsborough's 'Mr & Mrs Andrews' shows a man with a pig's head standing next to what was his wife, but it has been cut out and removed.    
The facing page has the following text: "She was nowhere to be found. On the mantlepiece was an envelope.  Mr Piggott opened it. Inside was a piece of paper."  Under is the illustration of a pigs' trotter holding a letter, with the words "You are pigs."
And of course they are, Mr Piggott and his sons are now pigs in clothes and they try to look after themsleves by cooking  their own meals, which always tasted horrible. Everything's a mess, dirty dishes in piles, clothes stained and in need of a wash.  And there are constant references to the pigs in all these illustrations.

Even the dog has pig-like features, as does the telephone and the lampshade, and can you see the shadow in the window?  That's all we need in a story about pigs!  A wonderful intertextual reference to a wolf, which we automatically associate with three pigs from our exposure to the traditional story.   Many of the students in our classes will be familiar with this story and will make the connection as well.  

Finally we are told, "One night there was nothing in the house for them to cook. 'We'll just have to root around and find some scraps,' snorted Mr Piggott."  Notice the wonderful use of piggy-like words in these sentences.  And Mrs Piggott returns, Browne gives us a fabulous illustration, showing us the perfect ending, the pigs at Mrs Piggott's feet.  And the words on the facing page say, "'P-L-E-A-S-E come back,' they snuffled."  They could do nothing but snuffle, for they were pigs! 

But this isn't the end.  The following pages show the male Piggotts washing up, making beds and ironing, they even help with the cooking and finally we are shown Mrs Piggott, full frontal, she's smiling, a long fringe almost hiding her eyes, there's a smudge on her cheek ... and when we turn the page, we see her mending the nice family car, (look at the number plate!). 

Visually Browne really gives us lots to look for and at.  We don't see all of the visual clues the first, even the second time round.  It's a book which demands that we return to and browse through, taking our time with the illustrations and discovering the hidden messages Browne leaves us.  But the main message isn't hidden at all.  It's very clearly given and discussion around the male / female roles in the home can be both frightening and enriching.  These are important discussions and execellent opportunities for teens and young adults as well as older primary children to use English and think critically about what they see in the picturebook and in their own lives. 

Recently two English teachers working in the third cycle of Portuguese education attended a workshop I was running and they decided to design a whole sequence of activities around the book.  These activities involved not only English but other subjects too.  The students were encouarged to discuss male / female roles in Portuguese society today and in the past (history), look at women in other cultures (geography / social studies) and design a questionnaire in Portuguese to use at home and then analyze the results (maths).  It became a term long project and they were very excited about it. 

In Anthony Browne's speech accepting the children's laureate award he said: "Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. The best ones leave a tantalising gap between the pictures and the words, a gap that is filled by the reader's imagination, adding so much to the excitement of reading a book". Piggybook is an excellent example of one of 'the best' ones. 

A beautiful book about physical disability

Selecting picturebooks for this month has been difficult.  I wanted a theme, but at the same time I didn't. So I decided to look at titles which I always return to when I want to make a point about the variety of themes picturebooks offer us and the opportunity they provide for discussion and thought.  

I start this November collection with one of my favourite picturebooks, Susan Laughs, created by an author illustrator team, who have worked together on many a picturebook, Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross.  On the front flap of the dust jacket of my hardback edition it says:

"Susan laughs, she sings, she rides she swings.  She gets angry, she gets sad, she good, she's bad.  In fact, despite her physical challenges, Susan is no different from any other child."  

The back cover reads: 

"Without being condescending or preachy, the words, pictures and design of this very simple picturebook show that a physically disabled child is 'just like me, just like you'" 

It's a truely beautiful book to look at, for Tony Ross' illustrations are sublime.  Using coloured crayons, he's created very painterly images, cleverly cross-hatching colours together to give semi-transparent backgrounds.  His figures are solid and full of character, and Susan in particular is a mixture of impish sweet.   Ross is indeed a genius, not just because he can draw so well, but because of the humour he always brings into his work, whether in collaboration with an author, or when illustrating his own work.  Susan laughs is no exception.

The front cover introduces us to Susan on a see-saw, if you open the book out you'll find the back cover is a continuation of the illustration. Daddy is sitting on the other end of the see-saw, he is pushing with his strong legs, and Susan's are dangling loosely.  This is a visual message which will only make sense upon re-readings, and re-lookings.  In my paperback edition, following front matter pages show two framed illustrations of Susan, her grin getting bigger and bigger until on the title page she's in full beam.  

Once again these are images which will only begin to give meaning upon re-encounters - they are non-existent in the hardback edition which fewer teachers will be using. 

The bummff on the back cover highlighted the "words, pictures and design" contributing to the simplicity of the book, and indeed design is cleverly put into use.  Willis has written in verse, and Ross has ensured that the rhythm of the rhyming couplets is reflected in the illustrations, with each spread containing either two square images or four upright rectangular ones, in a sort of repeated pattern.  So we are shown two spreads with large illustrations, then a spread with four smaller ones, several times over, visually supporting the rhythm with which we read in the words.  Each illustration is self contained, framed on the page, leaving a white boarder for the rhyming text. 

Here is an example of Ross' visual humour, in the rhyming couplet: 

"Susan splashes, Susan spins, Susan waves, Susan grins". 

Look at how he shows Susan in all these illustrations, with family and friends.  My favourite is Susan imitating the Mona Lisa!

In the sets of four smaller illustrations Ross gives them a connecting narrative sequence, as you can see from the four I've selected below. At the end of the book, appropriately, as though it were also the end of a day with Susan, we see her in bed. 

"Susan feels, Susan fears, Susan hugs, Susan hears."

And not once are we given an inkling that she cannot walk, so much so that when we see the very last page, and we read the words, we immediately go back and check, surely she was using her legs somehwere?  But no... Susan really can do all those things and she's in a wheelchair.

"That is Susan through and through - just like me, just like you."

This title has been used in a children's literature and diversity project run through the British Council Young Learner Centre in Paris.  The activities that have been devised can be downloaded  here.   

But for me, it's reading and looking which are key to this little gem. It's a picturebook to be shared, and then browsed over with or by individual children.  The natural rhythm of the words and their rhymes, make it easy to memorize, and the pictures make us look and look again, with all sorts of visual treasures to discover, and smile at when we do.  

  

'It's a book' ... full of laffs!

I got an email from a friend yesterday with silly jokes about computers and what they've done to us since they took over our lives BIG TIME just over a decade ago.  It reminded me of the article I read after comments from a fellow blogger concerning the diminishing number of picturebooks in book shops, and the discussions I've lurked on about the death of the book and 'long live digital'. So I decided to dedicate this post to "It's a Book".  

Lane Smith, the creator of this picturebook wrote: "The reason I made the book? Certainly not to 'throw down the gauntlet', as one critic has stated.  Naw, I just thought digital vs traditional made for a funny premise.  No heavy message, I'm only in it for the laffs." 

Laffs?  Lots of them!  It's a brilliant collection of facing pages with much of the information coming from the illustrations, though of course it's the interaction between word and picture that create the humour.

The front cover, as you can see above, stars a book loving monkey; the back cover shows us a jackass, confidently sitting in a chair holding a book and confiring "No... it's a book." The inside pages show us how he discovered the book. 

The endpapers are a warm orange, reflecting the colour tones throughout the book.  (Interestingly the book featured in the story is also an orangly colour.)  We move from warm orange to a dusty blue past a simple dedication and no copyright page. The title page covers a double spread, introducing the characters: 'It's a mouse'; 'It's a jackass' and 'It's a monkey'.  The choice 'jackass', instead of 'donkey' is obvious, but it only hits you when you get to the final page.  

Lane Smith has described the monkey as traditional and the jackass as modern, and visually they are the opposites of each other too.  The pointedness of the jackass radiates speed, modern day efficiency, and relentlessness (using Smith's own word for his character), he's tiny too! The monkey's roundness oozes a slower life, a calmer, ponderous one.  He's enormous next to the jackass!  

Jackass asks lots of questions, 'How do you scroll down?; Do you blog with it?' 

This is one of my favourite facing sets, when we are introduced to the mouse. 'Where's your mouse?'  

Questions continue, 'Can you make characters fight?'  'Can it text?' 'Tweet?' 'Wi-Fi?' 'Can it TOOT?'  Calm traditional monkey keeps replying, 'No, it's a book.' Another fun page is the jackass' reaction to seeing a page of the book, (which is actually 'Treasure Island'). '

'Too many letters.  I'll fix it.' says the jackass! But jackass is eventually tempted to take a good look at the book and time flies, depicted not in the words, as there are none, but in a series of clocks which move from 12.05 to 16.35, but on a good old-fashioned clock with hands! 

The frustrated monkey ends up going to the library, and our mod-con jackass still seems to think the book needs charging.  Back comes our friend the mouse, from under the monkey's hat. 'YOU DON'T HAVE TO...' 

And we all know the answer to that ... 'IT'S A BOOK, JACKASS.'

Following my usual obsession with peritext, I particularly like the way the copyright page is at the back of the book, and includes a bit of bumff about Lane Smith.  Very cleverly done! 

The short, simple sentences in this picturebook are deceptive  - this is a book which works on many levels, playing on our commonly shared understanding of what computers and books do, as well as knowing a little about what certain books contain.  

Lane Smith contributes to a blog called Curious Pages, where he's written about 'It's a book', describing some of the options he made as an illustrator, with the help of his wife, who designs books.  It's well worth visiting.  And there's a book trailer on Youtube, which is fun too. But the book is better!

How could we use 'It's a book' in the classroom?  Well, it's an excellent picturebook for boys! Why not use it to begin discussions about before and after.  Many of our younger students don't know a life without technology, but they could ask parents and grandparents and think about the world before computers became part of everyday life.  Look at some of the verbs like blog, text, tweet, wi-fi ... and scroll ... what is a scroll, and how different is it from the verb to scroll.  I wonder what happened when books began replacing scrolls?  But most importantly, look at the book, read it together with your students and have a good old laff. 

A Christmas giggle!

I was in the city on Saturday and I noticed that the old part of town was getting ready for Christmas, with lights being set up in the trees.  "Oh no!", I thought ... "I blogged on a book for Halloween in August, I need to blog on a book for Christmas NOW!"  And so top of my 'To do' list is a blog post with a Christmas picturebook.  

I'm not religious, and I tend to look at Christmas in my English classes through the eyes of the consumer, we'll have fun with toys and talk about presents.  But here's a suggestion for something a little different, something that brings a bit of a giggle to the nativity scene.  Jesus' Christmas Party was called "The funniest, most endearing version of the nativity story for many years" by the Sunday Times when it came out in 1991.  Nicholas Allan 's website opens with frilly knickers hanging on a line, an illustration from his picturebook The Queen's Knickers.  There are no knickers in Jesus' party but Allan's brilliant slap dash water colour illustrations bring life, emotion and joy to the reader, alongside the chuckling you can't keep within when you turn some of the pages.  

No endpapers in my version, but there is a "Free nativity press out playset!" It interferes with the opening of the book, bringing the title page before the copyright page, which feels kind of odd.  

The illustration on the title page is of the three kings, sparingly illustrated, all in blue, smiling with their eyes closed, podgy hands gripping their gifts.  Blue is a recurring colour, with all the figures dressed in blue, shadows in blue and background washes in blue and bluey greens.  This blueness brings a wholeness to the artwork, but at the same time conveys a cool distance. 

There aren't many double spreads, but the narrative flows well through the facing pages.  The opening page faces the copyright page, there's nothing our innkeeper 'hero' doesn't like more than a 'good night's sleep', and we see him in his bed, fast asleep.    The narrative continues with a knock on the door, and we see the innkeeper looking cross, his candle lit and sitting up in bed - the facing page uses short, sharp dialogues, depicting a cross innkeeper.  "... 'There's only a stable round the back. Here's two blankets. Sign the register. So they signed it:'Mary and Joseph'".  The words play on our prior knowledge of the Christmas story and the illustrations  show us a surprised couple, seen looking into the inn from outside, (we are in, they are out).  The woman is holding her front carefully.  

And so it continues.  

The innkeeper  "... shut the door, climbed the stairs, got into bed, and went to sleep." only  to be awoken again by Joseph asking for a blanket, a smaller blanket. Each time the innkeeper opens the door, deals rudely with the situation and then "... shut the door, climbed the stairs, got into bed, and went to sleep." He's woken by a star (so he also closed his curtains), then three shepherds, who he rudely tells to go "ROUND THE BACK".  At each awakening the illustrations show him getting more and more frustrated, until  the kings arrive. 

The two facing pages I've photographed here are hilarious! The way both words and illustrations work together to make the meaning  is brilliant. Finally it is the chorus of singing that wakes him.  "RIGHT - THAT DOES IT!"   

The simple, minimal, cartoon-like illustrations show us the very cross innkeeper taking the situation into his own hands.  "... he got out of bed, stomped down the stairs, threw open the door, went round the back, stormed into the stable, and was just about to speak when - "

We turn the page and the blue has been replaced with warm browns and yellows. Look at the first of the double spreads, everyone has their finger to their mouth, and a light is emanating from within, casting shadows on the walls behind the figures.  "'Ssshh! whispered everybody, 'You'll wake the baby'"

And of course our cross innkeeper takes a peek at the baby in the manger, and his anger disappears.  The illustrations show his frown turning into a smile.  "...'Oh', said the innkeeper, 'isn't he lovely!'"  and so off he goes and wakes up the other guests in the inn.  

The illustrations show us their grumpy faces in contrast to the innkeepers wide open smile and sprightly step. The final spread depicts a joyous scene of smiling faces, the warm orangey, brown prevalent and all is jubilant, and "So no one got much sleep that night!"  

The final page, a verso page is illustrated with baby Jesus in a wooden crib, a round cartoon face with closed eyes and a smiling mouth and the light glowing from his halo.  "THE END" 

It's a very funny depiction of the well known story and the shared knowledge of the story, together with the cartoon illustrations make it appropriate for primary classes in countries where this is part of their culture.  

There is also a musical version, which would make an excellent play with a difference for a Christmas party. 

Whether you just read and look, or encourage the children to act out the story it's a wonderfully different way to celebrate Christmas in our English classes. 

I've worked with one other Christmas story, Little Robin Red Vest, which is about friendship and giving, and gives an explain as to how little Robins got their red chest.  It'snow out of print, but you can get second hand copies through the Amazon market place links. 

  

If you've used a picturebook at Christmas do let me know and I can include it in my festive list. 

What is a picturebook?

Opal Dunn , whose work in promoting the use of authentic children's literature in ELT is second to none, refers to picture books as 'realbooks' or 'real picturebooks'.  Opal uses this term to differentiate between reading scheme books and picture books.  Liz Waterland, who coined the term 'real books' became increasingly frustrated with the philosophical arguments she encountered about what being 'real' actually meant (similar arguments were had in discussions around using 'real books' in ELT) and I recently came across a chapter she wrote where she uses the terms 'free range' and 'battery' books!  I like the idea of picture books being 'free range'!

Gail Ellis and Jean Brewster of the 'Tell it again!' Longman resource book call picturebooks 'storybooks'.   And indeed all the picture book titles in their publication are picture storybooks.  But picturebooks are not just stories.  Picturebooks are very diverse in form – they include big books and little books, books in prose and books in verse, fiction and non-fiction, ABC books and counting books, board books and cloth books, pop up books, and books with moving parts … and there are picturebooks with no words!  They are so diverse that they have baffled academics in their search for a single definition.

So how does a picturebook differ from other illustrated literature? The American Caldecott Awards describe a picturebook as having a 'collective unity of story-line, theme, or concept, developed through the series of pictures of which the book is comprised.' Pictures and words are partners in picture books - codes that can both be read. What is so exciting about these two codes, the pictures and the words, is that they don't always tell the same story. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.  

Metaphors for how pictures and words inter-animate abound in the literature about picturebooks:

• A theatrical metaphor: they have been called a double-act;
• A musical metaphor: they are like a duet;
• They have been compared to textiles: interweaving to create the perfect cloth;
• To dancing a tango …  for you need two to Tango!
• By both influencing / being influenced by one another they have been referred to as an ecosystem;
• And finally the visual and the verbal texts in picture books are thought to work together in synergy - text and picture together produce a whole that is greater together than the sum of the individual parts.

But picturebooks are not just the inter-animation of pictures and words, there's a third element, design. Children’s publishing cleverly uses illustrators, authors, editors and book designers to ensure all the different parts of a book - front and back covers, dust jackets, endpapers, half-title and title pages, copyright and dedication pages - are brought together with the pictures and the words to produce a unified end product, the picture book as object.

So, what is a picture book? Barbara Bader's definition is the one I like the best, and that's why I've chosen it for this blog.  It's there at the top, permanently, to remind us!

“A picturebook is text, illustrations, total design; an item of manufacture and a commercial product; a social, cultural, historic document; and foremost, an experience for a child.  As an art form it hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning page.”  (Barbara Bader 1976:1)

A note on the spelling!  In the world of children's literature the spelling of 'picturebook' has come under great discussion.  Is it two words, 'picture book'? Is it hyphened,  'picture-book'? Or is it a compound noun, 'picturebook'? The spell check on my computer accepts only the first option, but you'll find 'picturebook' as a compound noun being used more and more, which according to David Lewis 'reflects the compound nature of the artefact'.  

• Barbara Bader 1976 American Picturebooks from Noah's Ark to The Beast Within. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. 
• Gail Ellis & Jean Brewster (2002) Tell it again! The new storytelling handbook for primary teachers. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited 
• Liz Waterland 1992 'Ranging Freely.  The why and the what of Real Books' in Styles, M, Bearne, E. & Watson, V. After Alice. London: Cassell
• David Lewis 2001 Reading Contemporary Picturebooks: Picturing text.  London: Routledge