Image and imagination in education. Visual narrative through children’s literature

Abstract

When we talk about picturebooks, by now we refer to visual narrative, i.e. to that publishing production of books made up of text and pictures or just pictures – silent books or wordless books. The research, through a short historic excursus, ranges between the literary field – the stories – and the iconographic field – illustrations – in which epic tales, myths, traditional and folk tales, figures of the imagination and “fictions” originate. Therefore, we will analyse mostly literary works that include written tales and printed illustrations, critical references and compendia on pedagogical studies. In particular, we will privilege picturebooks for children that have been published both on a national and on an international level.