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Marta Aguilar
Professor Wong
AAS 113B
4/5/14
Childrens Literature: Look! Is it Real?
Through pictures, the world sees some of the greatest morals and messages behind the
colorful or not so colorful images of the universe. Certain aspects of visual images have led
many to believe that they create confusion and even grant children negative influences.
However, Peggy Albers makes a point by stating in the Journal of Literary Research, art has
everything to do with the rest of our lives..children learn to read characters, events, and action;
they build assumptions about the world and people in it.. (Albers 4) Albers creates certain
theory on how well children interpret visual images in literature. With this people can assume
that children can see morals and lessons through images. Some morals or lessons could be good
or bad. For example, if an image shows an older gentleman giving a child candy, this could send
a message about taking things from strangers. Another example could be if an image shows a
little boy apologizing to another little boy which shows compassion. Lets not forget though that
these children are in fact children, so yes they can read characters, events, and action but through
another type of mindset. The mindset they get from innocence. As Albers says, art will be the
primary guide that gets people through the rest of their lives, it should be believed by most
people in the world, as the world consists mostly of art. Early introduction to children on visual
images is extremely advantageous for children for the simple fact that the art can be conformed
into whatever the child perceives at that age. As the child perceives it, they can gain ideas and
even early stages of good moral through their minds. In this day and age, visual images make
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people believe in a certain message, could be good, could be bad, but the main thing is a lesson
will always be present. To media literacy, visual images are huge, by conducting societys
image. For example, when an advertisement shows weight loss commercials, it makes woman
more curious about their own weight. Usually, it is women who see these ads and could possibly
do positive or negative things to lose weight, but it could also be men to. Musical artists,
television shows, and films show moving images, but in some way still images will always be a
little bit stronger. Although people believe books with less pictures and distractions are fit for a
child to gain a mature mindset, visual images grant children the ability to the see the world in
another context and way, children are able to build their own ideas and perceptions earlier so
they can see later and remember what it was really about. Images help professionals see a childs
side, visual media engagement, children with disabilities, and the world by providing the artistic
value of life.
Some believe that visual images create a negative effect on children by making them
weak in a sense. Teachers especially see pictures in a book as a way for children to
underestimate their intelligence. Elizabeth Friese states in her article titled Visual Narratives,
A prevailing assumption in every group of these pre-service teachers is that books without
pictures are the more challenging texts students should strive to be reading. A corollary
assumption is that pictures are an aspect of books that readers need to be weaned from in their
quest to achieve mature literacyI admit it; I used to think this way myself. I thought of graphic
novels as a gateway to "more legitimate" reading -- until, of course, I sat down to actually read
one. (Friese) There can be many assumptions not just by teachers, but by the people in the
universe. The phrase dont judge a book by its cover is not only popular because if its
perception of people but because of real books as well. The term of mature literacy is such a
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poor way of looking at context in a moral or lesson. Imagination is key to finding even real
answers. Friese goes on to say that she actually reads a graphic novel and says, I found myself
wondering what the big deal was, and why people liked these books so much. I didn't even
understand half of what was going on. Then it hit me: My wondering was more true than I knew.
I honestly didn't understand half of what was going on in the book because I was reading only
the words. I wasn't reading the pictures. (Friese) Until she really glanced and looked at the
visual images in the graphic novel, she did not get the full picture of the book. This is because
the world is built on understanding visual art and how close they are with words on each and
every page in a book. When looking at a newspaper, or even a magazine, theres captions on the
bottom of the pictures. These words describe what the picture means. Words and pictures can
surely work together to provide a moral, but the picture provides more work.
In media literacy, media engagement is a huge part in the process. The creation of
moving images and even real life images through photography can be captured and shown to the
world by other people willing to share messages and morals. Bette P. Goldstone states in The
Reading Teacher, Much of the past research in visual literacy has been done using costly
equipment and complex programs. For example in Rochester, New York, a group of 1
st
grade
students were involved in an excellent program were they created their own films. In Vancouver,
the children were taught photography. (Goldstone 592) We see that some children are lucky
enough to have hands on experience with technology such as film equipment and even cameras.
This can show children that the world is not one big plain one minded solution, walking around
to gain an absolute truth, but that the world is comprised of many ideas that set off into an
adventure waiting to be discovered. The way that children can see this is by looking at different
images through these objects like cameras and story boards. For example, its like when a high
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school student gets to take college courses to gain credits for their future college degree. Yes,
children sometimes wont interpret the more detailed ideas that the world needs, but children are
intelligent and society cannot ignore what a child can perceive. The mind of a child runs wild
and presents ideas to which an adult or teen would not present.
Visual images can also guide a child who is of a disability. If a child is unable to speak or
hear, specifically deaf children, their imagination lessens causing them to feel like more of an
outcast. In an article by Marlon Kuntze, Debbie Golos, and Charlotte Enns, titled Rethinking
Literacy: Broadening Opportunities for Visual Learners, they state, The development of visual
engagement skills has other benefits as well. One is that they help deaf children become more
attentive to what is happening in their environment. As children develop, they need to learn how
to appropriately direct their attention, especially as their social circle grows and as they
increasingly understand the value of remaining aware of what is going on in their surroundings.
The more children are able to manage visual attention and engagement skills, the more
opportunities they will have for communicating, learning, and acquiring language and literacy.
(Kuntze, Golos, Enns). By stating this, they explain that presenting visual images to children that
are unable to speak or hear creates more understanding of society and the outside world. Not just
the outside world, but also learning literacy through imagination skills and being able to
communicate in an understanding way. This can be performed perhaps in drawings or in colorful
pictures and can cause the child to express how they feel through seeing visual images they
connect to.
Our population shapes the world into a not so boring place. Art is one of the most
powerful studies because it creates a form of understanding that many in the world cannot. For
example, children are unable to understand the words an everyday teen or adult can understand.
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Pictures and visual images help these words become easier by showing what the word actually
means. In an article by Phillip Nel titled The Fall and Rise of Childrens Literature, He states,
As Nodelman notes, we learn to read pictures just as we learn to read words, and, in picture
books, images and text have a complex relationship. (Nel) Here Nel analyzes Perry Nodelmans
books, Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children's Picture Books (first published in
1988) and Molly Bang's Picture This: How Pictures Work (first published in 1991), and what he
states in them. Images and text combine to create a story for the picture. Whether its describing
the value of life through showing, again, lessons and morals to guide a childs development into
society or simply stating a word by showing a colorful picture or presenting a phrase.
All in all, visual images have made the world what it is today. Why? Well because you
never know if a word is what it is. If someone reads that the London Bridge is ugly, they would
need to see a visual image to really judge it accordingly. Opinions, statements, facts, and more
can easily be interpreted through works of art, whether its the Mona Lisa or a simple cartoon
drawing of a monkey. The only way Children will see the morals and lesson written in black and
white, it through colorful pictures that show what it really means. Children will get nothing but
satisfaction, joy, and understanding through lines drawn together to create what I like to call a
simple work of imagination.






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Annotated Bibliography:
1. Albers, P. "Theorizing Visual Representation in Children's Literature." Journal of Literacy
Research, 40.2 (2008): 163-200. The reading presents a theorized idea of what visual
images exactly are and how they impact childrens literature through the actual visual
aspect. Including the phrase through what they see and how they see it.
2. Friese, Elizabeth E. G. "Visual Narratives." Knowledge Quest, 41.3 (2013): 24. This text
provides the necessary counterargument needed to convey the point in the essay. It
challenges visual images in childrens literature, and provides a point in the area of
mature literature that can be argued against clearly.
3. Goldstone, Bette P. "Visual Interpretation of Children's Books." The Reading Teacher, 42.8
(1989): 592-595. The text analyzes the effects of actual visual media, not just in images,
but also in images around the town and on television and how they affect children.
4. Kuntze, Marlon, Debbie Golos, and Charlotte Enns. "Rethinking Literacy: Broadening
Opportunities for Visual Learners." Sign Language Studies, 14.2 (2014): 203-224. The
article tells the audience of how visual images are especially important to those who cant
speak; deaf people, mainly children. It leaves us with many questions like how about the
deaf? It could give them an actual voice.
5. Nel, Philip. "The Fall and Rise of Children's Literature." American Art, 22.1 (2008): 23-27.
What Philip tries to tell the readers, is that without visual images, messages would not
come across as clearly to children as they the world may want them to. Instead, children
are forced to read words without any colors. Mainly, what they see is black and white.