How Should a Picture Book Behave?#
Week 1 — Picture Books That Misbehave#
“What happens when a picture book refuses to behave like a normal book?”
The core rule#
A picture book should make itself easy to read.
- guide your eye
- tell you where to look first
- never leave you unsure what happens next
Where the rules hide (1)#
- gaze and reading order
- left page versus right page
- words and pictures
- page boundaries
Where the rules hide (2)#
- page turns
- the narrator
- reader expectations
Gaze and reading order#
Most readers scan left to right, top to bottom. On a spread, the left page is usually read before the right — before a single word is read.
Words and pictures#
Text and image are expected to agree. If the words say a dog barks, the picture shows a barking dog.
Page turns#
A page turn is a promise. Something changes underneath it — a reveal held back, a beat of time passing, a joke delayed one breath.
Today: Rule Hunt#
- choose a familiar picture book
- find five implicit rules it follows
- pick one
- make one rough alternative spread showing what happens when that rule disappears
This Week’s Misbehaviour — Find a Rule#
- notice one usually invisible convention
- record it in a sentence
- briefly test what changes when you interrupt it
- 15–30 minutes, rough is fine
Why bother noticing?#
You cannot deliberately break a rule you have not noticed yet. Everything the rest of this course asks you to do starts here.
Next week#
The Picture Isn’t What You Think — does an image ever just show you what’s there?