The pleasure of the text: playful techniques in written and visual texts in metafictional picturebooks

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Published: Dec 22, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/icw.37036
Eleni Paschalidou
Preschool Education Consultant, 1st position, East Attica
Abstract

Children's book today has many different forms, following the social and cultural changes around it. In recent years there has been an increase in picture books with special, innovative features. Some of them have digital features and are linked to television and the information society. Some parodies past works, and others see reality as a culture of recycled images. Metafictional picturebooks can be self-referential, i.e. referring to the text itself as a construction, or self-conscious, where the book's characters become aware of their existence as fictional characters and converse with their readers. They have a suggestively parodic tone and aim to transcend the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Authors and illustrators use techniques such as metalepsis and intertextuality, exploit the materiality of the book, and use design in ways that put the reader in the player's shoes and turn reading into a literary game that explores the rules of narrative.

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