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Depicting the city for all: The textual-visual narratives of Hong Kong picture books
Author(s)
Date Issued
2024
Citation
Chan, C. Y. (23 Nov 2024). Depicting city for all: The textual-visual narratives of Hong Kong picture books. 2024 Taiwan Children’s Literature Research Association (TCLRA) International Conference, Soochow University, Taiwan.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
The addresses of children’s literature can be divided into single address, double addresses and dual addresses, theorized by Barbara Wall in 1991. The roles of adults are, in general, relatively limited to the ones of parents, educators, librarians, writers and publishers. Adults are the mediators or in-betweeners who play the part in creating, selecting or even censoring books for children (Ewers 2009; Bullen and Nicolas 2001). Nonetheless, the growing maturity of children’s literature is clearly defining the genre beyond its target readers– children. More and more writers and illustrators are creating children’s books, particularly picture books, for adult readers. Hong Kong literature, in general, embraces some traces of realism in their writing and concerns with contemporary social and cultural contexts. Like so, Hong Kong picture books have become one important medium of depicting the city and its residents, addressing the essentiality of childlikeness for readers of all ages and showing how the life in the city is collectively shared among all members. While it is true that the city is still in
the initial stage of developing its picture books, there is a growing number of publications that handle a wide range of subjects. They deal with issues such as life/death matters, human-animal relationships, the busy lifestyle of the commoners, and other relevant subjects concerning both adults and children in the city. These books depict the sharing of memory and duty, understandings between different parties, and the interactions among family members and neighbors. In this presentation, a number of Hong Kong picture books will be studied, focusing on how the textual-visual narratives have portrayed the collectiveness of Hong Kong people with a sense of childlikeness.
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