The picturebook is a format which combines literary artistic technical and commercial
expertise. Apparently simple and innocent at first sight the genre can actually be seen as the
most complex kind of children's literature to date. Two art forms the literary and the
pictorial interweave to bring about the most astonishing results of intermediality. This
interanimation of text and pictures produces an iconotext a third space. The unique interplay
of verbal and visual storytelling offers infinite possibilities of meaning-making. Over the
last few decades the status of the picturebook has undergone radical changes: in the arts
education language acquisition and foreign language teaching and academia. From being a
rather conventional affair the picturebook has turned into a sophisticated product.
Significant changes in the publishing industry have made the postmodern picturebook much more
experimental in thematic linguistic and artistic terms. Literary theory likewise has
contributed to much innovation - a better understanding of the need for a new mode of
communication with new generations of child readers. So the picturebook is currently one of the
most heatedly debated genres. Dealing with English picturebooks in Germany requires
cross-disciplinary and cross-national intercultural approaches. It takes a background in
linguistics aesthetics art history and theory religion pedagogy psychology and
psychoanalysis the educational sciences literary studies film and media studies and
cultural studies to live up to the challenges of the format. This monograph considers -the
history of children's literature and children's literature studies-childhood studies-reading
research literacy development and reading pedagogy-the semiotics of the picturebook: narrative
and visual storytelling-the history technology and aesthetics of children's book illustration
andgraphic design-issues of multilingualism multiculturalism and interculturality-literary
didactics: using picturebooks in preschool in the primary EFL classroom and at university This
book addresses all lovers of picturebooks but in particular students aiming to improve their
analytical interpretative intercultural and teaching skills and teaching staff at preschool
school and university eager to professionalize their practice of using picturebooks. Contents
1. Introduction
.........................................................................................................
1 2. The History of Children's Literature and Children's Literature Studies .... 122.1
Introduction
.........................................................................................................
122.2 Children's literature as a challenge for academia
................................................ 132.3 The implications for a modern study of
children's literature ............................... 222.4 Shifts in paradigm in children's
literature studies ............................................... 252.5 New approaches to the
picturebook ..................................................................... 332.6 The
role and importance of children's literature..................................................
422.7 The place of children's literature studiesin English and American studies in Germany
..................................................... 452.8 Teaching children's literature at
school and university ....................................... 46 3. Childhood Studies
.............................................................................................
523.1 The time factor: literary history ..........................................
