more books the readers have seen, and the more films and plays and places, the more visually literate they will be and the easier it they will find it to interact with a book that requires engagement from the reader. In a clever book like this, the narrative also functions and entertains a young reader on the first level or layer and never turns into an academic exercise.
Wiesner echoes this interactive nature of the book by letting his three pigs return to their own story. They then interfere with it and manipulate the ending to shape an ending of their own choice. This book, even though it entertains and amuses on the surface, also emphasises an important strand of contemporary thinking: the meaning of a text is never fixed or finalized because context as well as the negotiating power of those involved in the process, will determine meaning of the art work.
Our third flight is that of Petr Horacek’s The Fly. The fly shows and tells us about a day in the life of a housefly. The pages are not filled with loads of detail, but focus on the information under discussion – alternating between the setting in the sky (or the ceiling) and the land, where the dangers in a fly’s day are lurking. The typography in the title as well as the body copy is also composed in swirly meanders that mimic the fly’s flight path.
One double spread turns reality upside down so that the reader is, with the fly, ‘sitting’ upside down on the ceiling, looking down at the boy with the fly swat. Whenever the fly swat strikes, Horacek zooms in to show the action close-up to exaggerate the dangerous moment.
A Lion in Paris is Beatrice Alemagna’s beautiful tale of a lion who leaves his known environment for the strange city. The large format of the book and the fact that the book has to be opened with the spine to the top sets the scene of displacement and alienation. Repetitions of arches, trees, buildings, rain and people create crowded city-scapes that overwhelm our main character. At times, Alemagna zooms in to show us a close-up of the melancholic lion and then again his format becomes small and insignificant in the bustle of the city. Sometimes human beings are amplified to signify the lion’s insignificance in this context.
Typography sits lonely on large open pages above each illustrated page. This results in sophisticated design, but at the same time echoes the displacement of the lion. Collaged photographs, combined with free and spontaneous drawing, add elements of reality to the fantasy and emphasise the setting of the story as real: an actual city. I believe fantasy becomes more convincing and more relatable when even the fantastical elements are somehow possible. Alemagna manages to convince brilliantly in this regard. Even the solution to the ‘problem’ that the narrative poses is believable and convincing. There is no quick fix or unsubstantiated solution for a lion in a city like Paris, but he can become a majestic landmark in a place and time that the illustrator has composed for the engaging reader.
Books mentioned: A Lion in Paris, Beatrice Alemagna, Tate Publishing, 978-1849761710, £12.99 The Three Pigs, David Wiesner, Andersen Press, 978-1849394055, £6.99 First Flight, Sara Fanelli Jonathan Cape, 978-0224064576, The Fly, Petr Horacek, Walker Books, 978-1406330731, £5.99
Piet Grobler is an award-winning picture book illustrator, joint course leader in Illustration at the University of Worcester and co-founder of the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society.
Books for Keeps No.216 January 2016 13
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