At the Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature, the visiting authors were treated to a seminar about picture books and the ipad.
We saw how cute the Winnie the Pooh app was when apples could be shaken off the tree – little interactive tricks where children could play with the illustrations.
But we of the old school, came away shaking our heads.
What happens, we asked, to the rhythm of the words, the flow of the text that the author so painstakingly worked on?
What happens to a child’s imagination?
But there is a place for the picture book and the ipad. And this TED talk shows how.
No words, just wonderful illustrations by Raghava KK that will open up a child’s heart.
wow that was charming and thought-provoking. thanks for posting, gabi.
I love Ted!
That is really interesting.. I’ve been doing a talk on using picture books to teach point of view – which leads into “discourse” in secondary English. I usually show picture books which have two conflicting visual narratives at once, or a visual narrative which is different to verbal narrative. This is the first time I’ve seen how this might be done on ipad! in a totally unique way.
Thanks Gabrielle. has my mind in a spin, now.
Narelle
Yes, certainly some big things to think about there. Personally, I don’t believe politics should enter the world of children’s books, but hopefully there will be enough room in the future for children to read picture books on ipads and laptops (and on whatever hasn’t been invented yet), but also to always be able to turn the real paper pages of a beautiful picture book that smells, is tactile, colourful and real.