Picture Books and the Art of Collage‪.‬

Close your eyes and imagine you are listening to someone reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1969). In your mind you see the little egg that lies on the leaf and the vibrant blue-green circles that form the caterpillar. As the story continues, you visualize all the different foods the caterpillar eats and the cocoon he builds around himself. Finally, you picture the "great big beautiful butterfly." Carle's illustrations are as much a part of the story as are the words. The images he created are forever linked to the words he wrote. Picture books create meaning by blending art and text. As visual representations of the words, illustrations add to the information and help make the text more understandable (Huck, Hepler, Hickman, & Kiefer, 2001). In picture books, the illustrations are more than background for the authors' words; they act to engage the reader cognitively and emotionally as the story progresses. Illustrations add a richness and depth to an author's words by creating the setting and heightening the mood. They help us flesh out our understanding of the characters by vividly depicting their actions, challenges, and triumphs. Patricia Polacco's The Butterfly (2000) serves as a perfect example. The illustrations capture the fear, sadness, and ultimate joy of her characters, who are living in France during the time of Nazi Germany's occupation. We understand a little better how frightening that period of time was, and why we must always remember it.