picture plane alive with rich textures and gestural sweeps of the brush, with colour used
structurally—coral flows the Thames. Mr Gumpy’s Outing (1970) (explored in detail by
Perry Nodelman in Chapter 9) shows the close linking of pictures to movement of the text,
as he offsets large colour plates against smaller hatched sepia drawings which act as a
commentary. In the late 1970s he exploited the bifurcated nature of the form differently,
with Come Away from the Water, Shirley (1977). This book has two sets of pictures on
each opening; to the left, pale drawings of and for the adults together with their spoken
words, contrasting with opposing full page vibrantly hued spreads of the child’s
imaginary world. Burningham withholds information as to how the two sequences of
images are related and his picture book narratives become increasingly challenging from
there on. In Granpa (1984), an exploration of the relationship between a little girl and
her grandfather, two typefaces and sepia drawings and colour spreads are used to carry
threads of conversation between the two voices and to portray memories, imaginings,
and events of the present. The gap between words and images widens so far in John
Patrick Norman McHennessy—The Boy Who Was Always Late (1987) a story about story-
telling, that their relationship remains wholly indeterminate.
Eric Carle. The physical attributes of the page itself is often a feature which is intrinsic
to the narrative in Carle’s picture books. He provides examples of skilful collage
technique, a concept book, and a book-as-toy, in The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), in
which the caterpillar eats its way through images of food, piercing a hole through the
page as he goes. A child’s finger inserted in the hole mimics the caterpillar, and enables
the translation of the text from word to action. Solving clues, the shapes of which are
mirrored by cut-out pages, takes the beholder on a mysterious journey to find a surprise
present in The Secret Birthday Message (1972). Imaginative application of thermography
(a process which uses non-toxic, chip-proof ink) enables children to feel with their
fingers as well as see with their eyes the web being built in The Very Busy Spider (1985).
Philipe Dupasquier has produced a number of wordless books with interestingly varied
narrational devices. In The Great Green Mouse Disaster (with Martin Waddell, 1987), a
hotel is reduced to chaos by an invasion of mice and every room is shown
simultaneously. For this visual assault course the viewer may look at a whole opening
at a time, or take one room at a time in a series of reviewings of the whole book. With
twelve words, twelve major illustrations, and an abundance of detailed strip pictures,
Dupasquier forms the picture book into an autobiographical visual calendar, recording
the effects of the passage of a year upon the seasonal activities of his family and the
appearance of the landscape, in Our House on the Hill (1987).
Monique Felix plays a poststructuralist game with her concept books about a little
mouse trapped in a book by introducing an interplay between the physical object and a
fictional escape by the image. To take one example from her highly original series; in
Alphabet (1992) the mouse eats its way through the pages, liberating random lower-case
letters, and meets up with a similarly trapped mouse doing the same with capitals which
together they gradually sort into order. The front case (cover) of the book is literally
‘nibbled away’, further factualising the fantasy.
Barbara Firth and the writer Martin Waddell have achieved a notable partnership.
Their collaboration Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? (1988), a perfect example of the
traditional bed-time book, now appears in eighteen languages. It features Little Bear
THE MODERN PICTURE BOOK 233