ΤΑ ΣΥΝΑΙΣΘΗΜΑΤΑ ΣΤΟ ΕΙΚΟΝΟΓΡΑΦΗΜΕΝΟ ΒΙΒΛΙΟ ΚΑΙ Η ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΗ ΤΟΥΣ ΣΤΟ ΝΗΠΙΑΓΩΓΕΙΟ

Abstract

In picture books for young children, emotions are depicted in verbal and visual texts according to two basic trends: a) Issue books, where their central theme is the expression and management of the emotions. Those books are marked by a clear pedagogy (e.g. how to cope with anger, jealousy, etc.); and b) Stories in which emotions are important for their plots, because literature is always about strong emotions (e.g. Iliad is based on Achilles’ rage). This paper examines how emotions are depicted in children’s picture books regardless of their genre (e.g. fairy tale, fable, proverb) and ideological messages. It presents a series of teaching interventions in kindergarten; preschoolers decipher the visual and verbal codes, in which picture books express emotions, and create their own books in order to express their own feelings. The paper focuses not on the management of emotions in their everyday lives, but on the ways of their communication in the multimodal genre of picture books. Through their picture books children learn how to read the emotions outside of them, into the world, and also inside them, into themselves, in a literature that functions both as window (how do others feel) and mirror (how do you feel).