Picture books are a specific type of book where the content is tightly intertwined with illustrations and in the best case they are inseparable. Crossover picture books are not yet well recognized in Slovenian literature and we have difficulties distinguishing them from classic picture books which is why we consider them mostly as literature for young children.
The purpose of this master’s thesis was the analysis of a few crossover books and a comprehensive design of a picture book on the topic of growing up with an abstract representation that could be interpreted by both children and adults. We analysed four books – The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery), Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak), The Chained Elephant (Jorge Bucay, Gusti) and The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Charlie Mackesy). Within the analysis we focused on the content and the design aspect of each book. With the help of this overview we designed our own crossover picture book. We wanted to ensure a “tight bond” between the words and pictures which is why writing and illustration took place simultaneously. We have created a picture book with the title Mosaic, which we also printed and analysed with the help of volunteers of two age groups – children aged 5 to 10 and adults aged 20 to 60. Lastly, with the overview of the results of the analysis we evaluated the picture book and assessed how successful we were with addressing both younger and grown-up readers.
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