The Instantiation of Narrative in Picturebook Forms

Narratives have been instantiated across an array of materials, media, and modalities, including oral storytelling, film, novels, tapestries, comics, theatre, and children’s picturebooks for centuries. Narrative picturebooks come in many different forms, contain a variety of modalities, primarily written and oral language, visual images, and design elements, and are produced using an array of material and production technologies. Like the continuing evolution of narratives in general, narrative picturebooks are part of an extended history of visual and multimodal communication and have been instantiated as printed codices, moveable or pop-up books, volvelles, electronic books, and as digital and augmented reality software applications. This article focuses on the semiotic, material, and ideological aspects of the instantiation of narrative in picturebook form and examines how narrative picturebooks are embedded in an array of social, cultural, and literacy practices. Additionally, the article proposes a framework from which to consider the syntactical, modal, compositional, mediational, material, technological, historical, and sociocultural aspects of the instantiation of narrative in picturebook forms.