Wordless picturebooks

Who benefits from wordless picturebooks? (crossing boundaries)

Being wordless in nature and thus less restrictive in crossing linguistic boundaries, picturebooks have wide appeal and can be used in a variety of educational and clinical settings.

According to Pope Gregory the Great (circa 600) even the uneducated can understand messages conveyed by pictures (in Brown, 2011, p. 37).  Images cross cultural, social , national and economic boundaries admits Protheroe (1992, p.7) states they also compromise development of mathematical and reading skills, scientific imagination and overall cognitive capabilities.  Many scholars argue for the benefits of the picturebook to educational and social learning, and we have seen that images have always played an important role in storytelling.

Werner (1984, in Graham, 1990) explains it is possible for even a blind child to experience picturebooks; though their minds must work harder to formulate images through utilising other senses.  Comprehension can be achieved not only through Braille, but by deployment of interactive features (flips, wheels, pop-ups); accompanying audio; 3D printing and textured pages in wordless picturebooks.  Tom Yeh, creator of the Tactile Picture Books Project is developing software allowing users to create 3D versions of any picturebook, and has already produced famous titles such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle, E., 1969, in Goodreads.com, 2008) and Noah’s Ark (fig. 1);showing raised image as well as Braille.  

Fig. 1: Yeh, T., et al, Noah’s Ark image reproduced in 3D, n.d. (Source: Dezeen.com, 2016)