Crossover Picturebooks: An Invitation to Shift Perspective and Think Differently About Childhood, Children’s Literature, and Curriculum

By: William Bintz & Meghan Valerio

Picture books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older. (Anthony Browne, 2019)

​Diamonds (Greder, 2020) tells the story of Carolina, a young, White girl, curious about Mama’s new diamond earrings. She asks, How much do they cost? Mama doesn’t know, just a loving gift from her uncle. Where do diamonds come from? Mama doesn’t know, but thinks Africa. Carolina wonders why Amina, their maid, has no diamonds. After all, she comes from Africa. Mama quickly ends her questioning and leaves for an elaborate party. That night, Carolina dreams of Amina digging in a diamond mine, surrounded by intimidating gun-toting men who mistreat the miners. She also dreams, illustrated through a chronology of vivid black-and-white scenes, the journey of diamonds, progressing through a variety of people who take their profit slice. Then, the diamond earrings appear in Mama’s hands. Finally, Carolina awakens, crying, as if from a nightmare, but is comforted by Amina, not Mama.

This intriguing diamond industry story depicts the controversial journey of diamonds from source to customer, including the appalling conditions, black market, and blind ignorance of customers rich enough to purchase them. It is a disturbing and evocative depiction of how the diamond industry, historically and contemporaneously, feeds an insatiable appetite for diamonds, and in the process, also perpetuates inequality, conflict, and corruption. Metaphorically, this visually unsettling book removes the sparkle from diamonds.

Diamonds (Greder, 2020) is not a novel, short story, nor poem. It is a picturebook, with approximately 32 pages, minimal text (195 words), and single and double-spread illustrations. It is not, however, a traditional picturebook – it is a crossover picturebook (see Table 1 for more examples).

Crossover Picturebooks

Crossover picturebooks is a category of books that operate simultaneously in two age systems, child and adult (Shavit, 1986). These books are referred to as “dual audience books” (Falconer, 2008), “all-age books” (Evans, 2015, p. 10), “bridge books” (Rosen, 1997), and “kiddult” texts (Falconer, 2008). Harju (2012) captures a fundamental difference between traditional and crossover picturebooks:

Traditional reading boundaries exclude, segregating readers into distinct camps (e.g. literature for children vs. literature for adults). Crossover picturebooks, alternatively, offer an open invitation to story, attracting readers of all ages by reflecting a continuum of experience between child and adulthood (p.17).

Our first blog entry on January 19, 2021 acknowledged concerns over reading books on challenging or controversial ageless topics. There are, however, benefits to using these boundless texts.

Table 1. Crossover Picturebooks

• Beaty, D. (2013). Knock knock: My dad’s dream for me. Little Brown Books.
• Bunting, E. (2001). Riding the tiger. Clarion.
• Disalvo-Ryan, D. (1997). Uncle Willie and the soup kitchen. Harper Collins.
• Erlbruch, W. (2016). Duck, death, and the tulip. Gecko Press.
• De Haan, 2003). King and king. Tricycle Press.
• Franklin (2017). My daddy sleeps everywhere. Lionheart.
• Hathorn, L. (1994). Way home. Knopf.
• Laminack, L. (2018). The sunsets of Miss Olivia Wiggins. Peachtree.
• Ringtved, G. (2016). Cry, heart, but never break. Enchanted Lion.
• Tan, S. (2003). The red tree. Lothian.
• Vigna, J. (1998). I wish daddy didn’t drink so much. Albert Whitman.

Benefits of Crossover Picturebooks

Crossover picturebooks invite teachers to shift perspectives and think differently about the nature of childhood and the purpose of curriculum.

In terms of childhood, crossover picturebooks posit that teachers Never Read Down, Always Read Up to children. Reading down sees the child as innocent and in need of protection; reading up sees the child as capable of understanding sophisticated topics (Dressang & Kotrla, 2009). Reading down suggests that limiting or eliminating access to controversial issues protects the innocence of children; reading up conceives the danger of withholding information from youth as exceeding the danger of providing it (Dressang, 1999).

Curriculum utilizing  crossover picturebooks is rooted in an inquiry-based model. This model builds on curiosity and supports inquiry for teachers and students. Within this model, instruction based on crossover picturebooks:

• Offers multiple layers of meaning for multiple audiences, e.g. students and teachers;
  
• Invites students and teachers to collaboratively engage in the learning process, e.g. learn with and from each other;
  
• Supports interactive and transformative instruction, e.g. Did students learn what I taught? vs. What did my students actually learn?;
  
• Highlights reflection, e.g. How has our thinking changed about diamonds and the diamond industry? How are we better thinkers after reading this book?;
  
• Encourages reflexivity, e.g. What new questions can we now ask that we couldn’t before reading this book?
  

A Concluding, But Not Final, Thought

Picturebooks are synonymous with children’s literature. But is this a necessary condition of the art form itself? Or is it just a cultural convention, more to do with existing expectations, marketing prejudices and literary discourse? There is no reason why a 32-page illustrated story can’t have equal appeal for teenagers or adults as they do for children (Tan, 2003, np).

​We end with a concluding, not a final, thought, because we hope this post will start new conversations, not close them down. This thought is eloquently expressed by internationally renowned author and illustrator, Shaun Tan. Yes, picturebooks have been, and continue to be, synonymous with children’s literature. Is it time to shift perspective and think differently about this kind of literature? If so, we believe crossover picturebooks are a good conversation starter for readers of all ages.

References

• Browne, A. www.tes.com, February 12, 2019.
• Dressang, E.T. (1999). Radical change: Books for youth in a digital age. Wilson.
• Dresang, E. T., & Kotrla, B. (2009). Radical Change Theory and Synergistic Reading for Digital Age Youth. The Journal of Aesthetic Education.
• Evans, J. (2015). Challenging and controversial picturebooks: Creative and critical responses to visual texts. Routledge.
• Falconer, R. (2008). The crossover novel: Contemporary children’s fiction and its adult
• readership. Routledge.
• Harju, M. (2012). Being Not Alone in the World: Exploring Reader Responses to Crossover (ca/thesisfile114287). [Doctoral Dissertation, McGill University].
• Rosen, J. (1997). Breaking the age barrier. Publishers Weekly. 243 (6).
• Shavit, Z. (1986). Poetics of children’s literature. University of Georgia Press. Tan. S. www.shauntan.net/images/whypicbooks.pdf.​

Meghan Valerio is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction with a Literacy emphasis at Kent State University. Meghan’s research interests include investigating literacy and cognitive development from a critical literacy perspective, centering curricula to understand reading as a transactional process, and exploring pre- and in-service teacher perspectives in order to enhance literacy instructional practices and experiences.

William Bintz​ is Professor of Literacy Education in the School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. His professional interests include the picturebook as object of study, literature across the curriculum K-12, and collaborative qualitative literacy research.