I love picture books!
Picture books can address any topic- from the silly to the serious. They are fiction, folklore, mythology and nonfiction including biography, science, and history. The amount of text is controlled to convey a succinct story or set of facts. Picture books have very clear themes or main ideas. They often employ oral storytellers’ favorite tools of rhyme, rhythm, and/or repetition. Picture books include drawings, photos, or graphics that enhance the text content, and offer ideas for oral storytellers to build on for imagery and sensory details. We should all be celebrating authors of good picture books.
When I look for a picture book turn into an oral story, I have to really like the book. Just like looking for folktales, myths, legends, or hero stories to tell, the teller has to love the story or the listeners will know somethings not working. I once read a picture book to a preschool class that I didn’t really like, but the title was part of the preschool curriculum. I felt like I was droning on and on, and I shouldn’t have been surprised when the three- and four-year-olds started to get squirmy and distracted. They were quick to tell me that they were bored or didn’t understand the story very well. I know my reading performance fell flat for the kids because I personally didn’t like the book (and I didn’t really think it was well-written).
Choosing a picture book that features a folktale, myth, or legend is easy for me. Those stories came from the oral tradition, so they easily translate back into the oral tradition for telling.
Choosing a modern, original picture book story to tell orally is a bit more difficult for me. So far, I have found that stories that very heavily rely on the pictures as opposed to the text to be the most challenging
For example, I love the picture book Sam and Dave Dig a Hole.
The boys, Sam and Dave, are so relatable. These two explorer boys, and their adorable little dog, start to dig a hole. They are going to dig through the earth to the other side. What kid hasn’t thought about or tried that?
The end papers of the book are mirror images of each other, but with slight differences. In the beginning of the book, the two boys are leaving the house and shows a cat with a red collar and an apple tree. At the end of the book, the pictures show the boys returning to the house, but the cat has a blue collar and there is a pear tree. These differencing mirror images imply that each end of the book is on the opposite side of the world or that the world or the boys have changed over the course of their journey. But do I include those awesome end pages into the story? Are they necessary? How would I do it?
As the boys dig, a great deal of the story is told in the pictures and text is used sparingly. Readers can see that Sam and Dave are coming close to all kinds of wonderful hidden treasures like gems or dinosaur bones. The little dog is depicted as being attentive to hidden treasures that Sam and Dave don’t know are there. And then the pictures show Sam and Dave digging in such a way that they miss all the treasure, creating some ironic humor for readers.
How do I talk about the visual information in the pictures and create the images orally and keep the humor and the irony without overexplaining? I am sure that lots of planning, practice, and revision will be involved.
I’ve also seen that some of the best activities to accompany this story. For example, kids can draw their own hole maps and include the treasures that they value and would love to discover on such an adventure. Here’s one example from an adult to role model for kids.
Now that I’ve written this post, I’ve convinced myself that I can and should try to turn this picture book into a story. It might be challenging, but it will be fun, too. Stay tuned for my oral rendition in the future.
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