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Title: Inside Picture Books by Ellen Handler Spitz, Robert Coles ISBN: 0-300-08476-5 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: August, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.82 (34 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Inside Picture Books Review
Comment: Inside Pictures Books by Ellen Handler Spitz, is an informational narrative that immensely explores and psychoanalytically probes into the power of various picture books. It gives literary, as well as psychoanalytical, critiques and interpretations of numerous pictures and text found in children's picture books. Spitz finds underlying messages in books, not noticed at first glance, which she alerts her readers to. The purpose in writing this book is to make her audience aware that pictures book have the capability to inflict positive and negative affects upon its readers. Due to the vocabulary and topic at hand, this book is best suited for teachers, scholars, and parents.
This book centers on the interpretation of various picture books and the powerful effect of pictorial images in books on the psyche of children. Spitz finds and interprets several commonalities in many bedtime picture books. For example, she explains how books metaphorically use food and the moon to symbolize security and how rhythm is used to ease the transition from an active state to a restful state. She descriptively depicts illustrations and colors, and their aesthetic value and meaning to children. Besides bedtime picture books, Spitz also dissects and reflects on pictures books associated with death and how children cope with devastation and loss. For example, she goes into great depth in covering the story The Accident, by Carol and Donald Carrick. Through this coverage, she reveals the possibility that readers can mirror their personal responses of the book with the character's responses. However, it seems that the response one exhibits depends on their perspective and ability to empathize with others. In addition, she thoroughly explains how the illustrations set the mood and foreshadow later events in the story. She depicts behavior issues found in children's books and relates them to gender, children's needs and impulses, and human relationships. Spitz also analyzes books that praise uniqueness and implicitly and explicitly dispatch a message to their readers about self acceptance. Other underlying threads incorporated into this book include: how children's books portray gender bias's, race, and incorporate common childhood fears, relationships, curiosities, and displays of emotion like anger, fear, and love.
I find this book to be very insightful in understanding how children view pictures, identify with and find comfort in books, and are affected by the morals and themes intertwined in the text and the pictures of books. It suggests the possibility for books and pictures to contain underlying messages, either implicit or explicit, that have an immense impact in various aspects of a child's life. Although I do not fully agree with all of Spitz's critiques, and sometimes feel that she dove too deep into pictures and text to pull out unrelated and unassociated issues, I respect that they come from her point of view. I am left to wonder if her book interpretations parallel the intent of the different writers and illustrators incorporated into this book.
I enjoyed reading this book because of the memories it brought back of my own childhood with books. I would recommend this book to those interested in learning about the power that picture books have in the lives of children. Overall, this book forced me to consider other interpretations of children's book and to compare them to my own. I closed the book with new insights into various books and ways of analyzing the pictures and text found in those books.
Rating: 2
Summary: A Hard Reading Book
Comment: Spitz says this book is written for teachers, parents, and anyone else who deals with children on a regular basis, but her vocabulary is far higher than the average reading adult. She appears to be writing for her colleagues at the university. I feel, however, that she did an excellent job analyzing certain picture books, especially the psychological aspects as well as the obvious. When discussing a certain book, she makes reference to others and assumes we have read all these books. Half of them I had never heard of or even recall having them read to me as a child. This book is good if you are a college professor, but for the average reader, it needs work. S.D.
Rating: 4
Summary: Spitz comments on the classics
Comment: "Inside Picture Books" by Ellen Handler Spitz is a complete breakdown of the different kinds of childrens' picture books. Spitz comments on dozens of picture book classics and shows us why some will always be favorites and some will not. She does this by using each chapter to talk about a particular type of picture book, including bed time stories and "feel good" books. Some other topics spitz addresses are how picture books are illustrated, the message and the endings.
Although I found the first chapter of "Inside Picture Books" a bit dull, I quickly gained interest as I read on. I found myself in agreement with some of the author's themes, like how children have to surrender to sleep and how books relate. Other themes (sexual insinuations) were hard for me to accept. Overall, I found this book well written, intriguing and a little controversial, and recommend it to various audiences. If you read to children or just want to read an in-depth, competent writter this might be a good book for you.
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Title: From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Book by Kathleen T. Horning, Stacy Innerst ISBN: 006446167X Publisher: HarperTrophy Pub. Date: 31 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Garrett Bang ISBN: 1587170302 Publisher: SeaStar Books Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Uses of Enchantment : The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim ISBN: 0679723935 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children's Picture Books by Perry Nodelman ISBN: 0820312711 Publisher: University of Georgia Press Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Don't Tell, The Grown-Ups by Alison Lurie ISBN: 0316246255 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 20 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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