Learning & Development: Picture Books - Happy endings

Encouraging children and adults to value and enjoy sharing picture books is the aim of new children's laureate Anthony Browne, whose popular books include Gorilla, Little Beauty and Willy the Wimp. The award-winning author and illustrator is concerned that we are turning into a 'visually illiterate nation'.

'I think that some parents are pushing their children quicker and quicker to move away from picture books on to what they call "proper books" because they think educating their children is about moving on to words and leaving picture books behind them,' he says.

'I think a rounded child, and a rounded person, should read both pictures and words. I think picture books are so special and there is such a bond between a parent and child, or carer and child, when sharing picture books. It is not just about reading pictures or words, it is all about the interaction between the two of them. They can look at the pictures and look at the associations and spin-offs, and things in the pictures can be many-layered.'

SURREAL TOUCHES

This is certainly the case for Anthony Browne's own work, with the strongly narrative watercolours blending realism with intriguing, surreal touches. Revisiting his pictures brings many fresh surprises - a banana posing as a microphone or substituting for ballet shoes, references to famous works of art incorporated into everyday modern scenes and sly touches of humour hidden in the background detail.

It's with sadness that he notes, 'A lot of adults look at a picture and then turn the page, whereas children can see so much in them. For a lot of children, just looking at picture books is a very pleasurable experience.

'I want to achieve respect for picture books and encourage people to look and to value looking. We do live in a visual age, but a moving visual age with computer games, film and television. I don't think we value sitting down and really using our eyes and looking at images.

'Someone said that on average, a person spends 30 seconds looking at a painting in a museum and then they look considerably longer at the caption that goes alongside it. We are losing the ability to look and with that, we are losing the ability to draw. Adults will so often state that they can't draw, and yet when I go into schools and visit children who are five and six, they can all draw.'

ESSENCE OF CREATIVITY

Anthony Browne has refused to join other children's authors' recent calls to boycott school visits under the new Vetting and Barring scheme, saying that if all people who work with children have to be checked by the police then authors should be no exemption, though he does question the £64 fee.

A game he talks a lot about when he meets children is 'the Shape Game'. As a child he played it with his brother and he later turned it into a book of the same name, following his experiences as Illustrator in Residence at the Tate Gallery.

'I play the Shape Game with children because they start to believe they can't draw. But they can naturally, instinctively draw. Drawing is about communicating. It is not about producing perfect representation, but about communicating ideas, and the Shape Game encourages that.

'It is a simple but fun game. Ultimately, it is the essence of creativity, because every time we create a picture, write a story, compose a piece of music, or we have taken something that we have seen, heard or read, we have transformed it into our interpretation, something of our own.

'It may be that at the same time that children start to say "I can't draw", they are pushing away the picture book. We don't value looking. I think we are quite a visually illiterate nation.'

ANIMAL ANTICS

Drawing gorillas is a particular passion for Anthony Browne and they feature in many of his books. 'They are fantastic things to draw,' he says, 'in the way that old people's faces are expressive and are more interesting to draw than young people's faces, or an old, gnarled tree is more interesting than a young tree.

'There is so much there when you look into a gorilla's eyes. It almost seems like there is a human being looking out at you- you can imagine or feel the intelligence and emotion and sensitivity. We continually discover more and more about how close to them we are.'

Gorillas also remind him of his beloved father, who died in front of him when he was just 17. He recalls, 'He was not like me, he was a big man, a physical man. He had been a boxer and he encouraged my brother and me to do physical things, but he also sat and drew pictures and wrote poems with us. He was a lovely contrast of someone who was big and powerful and strong, but also sensitive and gentle, and gorillas are rather like that.'

Despite his love for his father, Anthony Browne's depiction of father figures in his books can often appear quite harsh, something that he says was not deliberate. 'In Zoo the man is seen as a bit of a monster; he's irritable and makes terrible jokes. But I actually felt sympathetic towards him because he was struggling with his role as a father and a husband and he was not finding it easy. But some people saw that as attacking him. There happen to be males in particular stories who are struggling to cope with their lives, I certainly don't see them as monsters.

'Maybe My Dad was a watershed for me. I found my father's old dressing gown and it took me back to feeling like a small boy who thought his father was wonderful and who could do anything. I was then able to write a book with the first really warm, positive father, based on my Dad and that dressing gown.

'I think it freed me, although I never thought I bashed dads or males. I had previously wanted to do a book about a warm father, but because I was a father of young children I found it difficult. Everyone assumes that your characters are you. I thought that if I did a really warm, loving, fantastic father, then people would think I was suggesting that I was. I felt embarrassed. As my children got older - they are 24 and 26 now - it became less of a problem, and when I found my Dad's dressing gown it freed me.'

THE END

During the next two years in his role as Children's Laureate, Anthony Browne hopes that his passion for picture books will help children, adults and the publishing industry all appreciate them for what they are - works of art.

He says, 'I'd like to see teachers showing picture books to all ages, talking about books, encouraging children to notice things and to look and maybe to revisit books and find new things on the second, third, fourth read.'

Now that really would be a happy ending.

BIOGRAPHY

Anthony Browne was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, in 1946 and grew up near Halifax. After he finished school he attended Leeds Art College, graduating with a graphic arts degree in 1967. Before focusing full- time on children's books, he worked as a medical illustrator and illustrated greeting cards.

His first book, Through the Magic Mirror, was published in 1976 and he now has nearly 40 titles to his name. Gorilla, published in 1983, won an unprecedented number of awards, including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award, the New York Times Best Illustrated Book and the Boston Globe Book Award.

He was also awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal for Zoo (1992) and Alice's Adventure in Wonderland (1988), and Voices in the Park (1998) also scooped the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award. In 2000 he received the Hans Christian Andersen Award for his services to children's literature - the first British illustrator to gain the international honour.

One of his best loved characters is the chimp Willy, who has appeared in Willy the Wimp, Willy the Champ, Willy and Hugh and Willy the Wizard.