Graphic Routes to Electronic Literacy: Polysemy and picture books

Abstract

New media and technologies operate in polysemic formats that make complex demands on readers. During a time of constant change in ways of communicating, the familiar form of the picture book offers readers of all ages a route into sophisticated polysemic reading. Contemporary picture books provide both the comfort of the known and the potential of the new. As texts that use multiple semiotic systems, picture books also manifest the chief virtue of print on paper: they are 'a resting place for words' in Derrick de Kerckhove's phrase. Unlike online readers, picture book readers are literally able to get their hands on key words or pictures, literally able to trace the flow of the story. Within this well-known form, many contemporary picture books subvert literary conventions and explore challenging aesthetic and social questions.