AustLit

This paper looks at how postmodernism can be used as a discourse to theorise the picture book, by focusing on the 'self-conscious crossing of boundaries' which in postmodernist fictions 'problematises the truths of fiction and reality' (15). Far from being 'simple' texts, picture books contain two forms of signification (picture and text) and are frequently 'playful and subversive' despite the fact that they are rarely perceived as 'unconventional and exceptional creations' (16). Grieve discusses a large range of children's picture books from the United States, Great Britain and Australia, including the work of Allan Baillie (Drac and the Gremlin), Susanne Ferrier (Ned, a Leg End : A Thoroughly Misleading Account of His Life and Times; Lola : A Doubtful Documentary...) and Libby Gleeson (Where's Mum?). Her examination leads her to conclude that 'there is a growing body of picture books which utilize their complex pluralistic nature and their unique physical qualities to present self-conscious, parodic, intertextual, interrogative texts that can be described as postmodernist' (24).