In the previous chapter we explored visual resources used to build experiential meanings in narratives. These meanings have to do with the content of the narrative as they allow writers and illustrators to shape the story world: they define what characters are like, what they do and the circumstances in which they act. In this and the following chapter, however, we turn to analysing groups of resources that serve a more interpersonal meaning as they help establish relationships and express attitudes. Here, we take a look at the resources that invite readers into the story world by building the relationship between readers and characters.

When reading picture books, we are sometimes placed as outside observers, far away from the characters and the story world. In other picture books, however, we are made to feel part of the story world or may even be positioned as one of the characters to experience the story world from within. These different options have a direct impact on the way we relate to the story and the characters. Are we just observing characters’ actions and attitudes from a distance, or are we with them, experiencing what they are going through first-hand?

The way illustrators choose to represent the characters and their world can make readers feel more or less close to them. Certain tools allow illustrators to position readers in a more distant relationship with the characters and the story world. In such cases, readers are ‘outsiders’ who merely observe the events in the story and the characters’ actions, and possibly learn from them. This is typical of picture story books aimed at younger readers, who find it easier to observe the behaviour of others and learn from a distance (Painter et al., 2013, p. 19). In contrast, illustrators can place the readers in a closer, more intimate relationship with the characters, allowing them to experience events as if they were inside the story. Picture books which allow readers to come into the story world typically do this at particularly tense moments in the narrative. This proximity gives readers a higher sense of involvement with what is going on, and thus, allows them to empathise with the characters more easily. These books are generally targeted at older readers, who can put themselves in others’ shoes and imagine more clearly what it would be like to experience the events in the story themselves.

We have grouped resources from different systems presented by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) and Painter et al. (2013) that contribute to establish a closer relationship between readers and characters under the macro meaning Inviting readers into the story world. This macro meaning has an overall interpersonal function, as it helps to establish the relationship between readers and characters.

In this chapter, then, we will take a look at the resources illustrators can deploy to invite readers into the story world. We have divided these resources into two sets. First, we will explore those resources commonly used to position readers closer to the characters, as if they were interacting with them. Second, we will look at those that help readers enter into the story world ‘physically,’ as if the illustrator were opening a door to let readers inside the world of the story.

3.1. Positioning readers in interaction with characters

As we said before, readers are sometimes invited to relate to the characters in the story in a closer, more direct way. When positioned either as if interacting with characters or at a close distance from them, readers are made to participate in the story world more actively. This participation helps readers become more empathetic towards the characters. It becomes quite difficult to ignore the characters’ reality or feelings when being involved in interaction or in a close relationship with them.

Illustrators can position readers in interaction with characters by making one or more of the following choices:

• establishing eye contact between characters and readers (system of focalisation);
• placing characters facing readers (system of involvement);
• representing characters from a close/intimate distance (system of social distance);
• positioning characters in a particular power relation with respect to readers (system of power).

3.1.1. Focalisation: eye contact

When reading the images in a picture book,

the viewer (…) come[s] to know the story world by seeing it; but the viewer can be positioned to assume different viewing personas –either that of an outside observer or alternatively of a viewer ‘participating’ fleetingly in that world through a relationship with, or identification as, one of the characters. (Painter et al., 2013, p. 18)

The system of focalisation deals with how the reader is acknowledged by the characters in the story and also with the point of view assigned to the reader. In this section, we will only consider the first aspect of this system, which has to do with the way in which the reader is addressed by the characters. The other aspect will be discussed in the following section.

One clear and direct way of having characters address readers is through eye contact. Illustrators can use observe images, in which there is no eye contact between the participants, or contact images, in which the character makes eye contact with the viewer.

The most common type of images in picture books are observe images. Image 1 below is a clear example of this type of images as there is no eye contact between characters and readers. Here, characters are not interacting with readers but involved in action or interacting with other characters. This option positions readers as outside observers of what is going on in the image. As Painter et al. observe, “many acclaimed picture books for younger readers (…) use only the observe option throughout the story, keeping the reader outside the story world to observe and to learn from what goes on within it” (Painter et al., 2013, p. 19).

However, in many picture books, contact images are used at specific moments in the story to ‘address’ readers. For example, in the following images the characters are making eye contact with readers:

In these images, readers are positioned to engage with the characters as if directly addressed by them. In contact images, the character “acknowledges the reader explicitly, addressing [him/her] with a visual ‘you’” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 117). This acknowledgement gives readers a very clear sense of interaction with the character, which in turn encourages them to take on a more active role, and in most cases, to emotionally engage with the character’s reality more easily and strongly. In Images 9 and 10, for example, it would be very hard to ignore any of these characters’ feelings because they are making direct eye contact with readers. The fact that they are looking into their eyes gives readers the impression that they are somehow more involved with what is happening to the characters, and it is easier for readers to empathise with them.

In picture story books, we can typically find images like these after conflicts or significant events “to heighten identification or empathy at key moments in the story” (Painter et al., 2013, p. 20). In cases like these, eye contact is generally combined with close-up images (see social distance below) to help readers appreciate the characters’ feelings more clearly.

Contact images are also frequently used to present characters at the beginning of the narrative. As characters make eye contact, they connect with the readers and hold their attention as they are presented by the narrator or as they introduce themselves. For example, in Zoo, by Anthony Browne (1992), the story opens with the four main characters introduced in different images that simulate portraits and each of them makes eye contact with readers. In the second page of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith (1996), the main character and narrator of the story, Alexander T. Wolf, introduces himself while making eye contact with readers.

3.1.2. Involvement

Another way in which readers can have a strong sense of interaction with the characters is related to the position from which they can perceive the characters.

When interacting with someone, we are generally facing the other person, and our bodies’ frontal planes are parallel to each other’s. In contrast, when we observe others interact, we are generally looking at them from a side and their frontal plane is not parallel to ours but to whomever or whatever they are interacting with. In the analysis of images, this distinction is captured in the system of involvement that includes images in which there is involvement, when characters face readers, and detachment images, in which the characters are shown from an oblique angle, facing sideways or showing their back to readers (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 133).

In Image 1 above we see a dog chasing a cat from the side. Neither of these characters is facing readers but they are seen from an oblique angle instead. The characters are not represented from an angle that would give the reader a sense of involvement with them. Therefore, the reader is not positioned to interact with the characters but rather to observe what they are doing.

But what would happen if the characters’ frontal planes were parallel to ours? Images 9 and 10 above show characters facing readers, with their frontal plane aligned to that of the readers’, ready to interact with them. In these cases, there is a “maximum sense of involvement with [the characters] as part of our own world” (Painter et al., 2013, p. 17). Besides, images that show involvement are typically, though not necessarily, contact images, as is the case of Images 9 and 10 above. Both images show characters facing readers and making eye contact with them at the same time. This combination of resources heightens the sense of interaction.

The angle chosen to depict characters, then, places readers in a position to either feel a very strong sense of involvement (when the characters’ frontal plane is parallel to the readers’) or to observe the characters from outside without feeling involved in interaction with them (when the characters’ frontal plane is oblique to the readers’).

3.1.3. Social distance

In our everyday lives, one factor that indicates how close our relationship with other people is is the social distance we keep from one another while we interact. The closer we position ourselves as we interact with the other person, the more intimate our relationship is.

As Kress and van Leeuwen (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 124) explain, in images, social distance is represented by the size of the character in relation to the frame or edges of the image. Characters can be seen from a closer distance, in which case we can only see a part of their body, or from farther away, where we can see their whole body occupying the height of the frame or less. These different distances from which characters are depicted have a direct impact on the way readers relate to and can empathise with characters. When characters are depicted at a close distance from readers, a more intimate relationship is established between them, and readers can better appreciate the characters’ feelings.

In Images 9 and 10 above, for example, we can see the characters from an intimate distance. Image 9 is an example of a close-up, in which the characters are shown from the shoulders up. Extreme close-ups show only part of the face of a character, as in Image 10. In these images, the close distance from which readers are allowed to observe the characters suggests they share an intimate relationship. This sense of intimacy, of course, has an impact on the relationship between readers and characters, as readers are encouraged to relate to them at a more personal level and to empathise or identify with them. Besides, intimate images allow readers to scrutinise the characters’ facial gestures in detail. These, in turn, reveal the characters’ feelings and attitudes.

In images with social distance, which portray a less intimate but still friendly or informal relationship between characters and readers, characters are captured from a mid-shot. At this distance, characters are depicted somewhere between up to their waist and their full figure. Examples of mid-shots are Images 11 and 12 below. Readers can still relate to the characters, but they are not positioned at an intimate distance from them. Besides, they are able to appreciate some of their facial expressions, although not as clearly as from an intimate distance.

Finally, Image 1 is an example of impersonal distance, in which the characters’ whole body is depicted occupying half of the height of the image or less in a long shot. This distance makes it more difficult for readers to relate to the characters at a personal and intimate level. Sometimes characters are so small that instead of being perceived as individuals, they become part of the context, as if they were one more object or element in the setting. That is why impersonal distance is considered to be an objectifying perspective from which to relate to the characters. Moreover, it becomes much harder or impossible to clearly read the characters’ expression. Therefore, readers have more difficulties identifying or empathising with characters depicted from this distance. In long shots, then, readers tend to perceive the characters as strangers and it is more difficult for them to feel identified with characters or be affected by their feelings since they are not clearly revealed to readers (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 126).

3.1.4. Power

Whenever we relate to others, we do so in terms of power relations. These are established on the basis of differences in age, physical strength, social or economic status, cultural heritage and acquired knowledge. These factors position people in certain roles, which affect, of course, the way they relate to each other.

Power relations can be visually represented between characters and readers when we consider the angle from which the character is depicted along the vertical plane. When characters are placed at readers’ eye level, they seem to have equal power. In other cases, characters are depicted from a high angle, which gives readers the sense that they have more power than the characters. In such cases, the characters are placed in a position of vulnerability or helplessness. Conversely, when characters are depicted from a low angle, they come across as powerful and imposing. These choices along the vertical angle are captured in the system of power (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 140) and exemplified by the following images:

In image 6, where there is equal power, the young boy is placed at eye level with the reader, which helps depict a relationship of parity between them. In the second image, however, there is viewer power, as the boy is seen from above. This gives readers a sense of power over the represented character and at the same time portrays the boy as rather powerless and vulnerable. Finally, in the third image, we see his mother from a low angle. From this perspective, called representation power, she is represented as having power over the reader, who in this case is in the position of the young son, seeing through his eyes. Here, the mother is represented as dominant and superior in strength and power. She looks imposing to the boy and, therefore, to the reader.

Whenever readers are placed at eye level with the characters in a position of equality, which is the default option, they are not necessarily being included in the character’s world through the system of POWER. However, whenever the character is represented either from above or below, readers are automatically assigned a determined role of power in relation to the character. In other words, the fact that in Image 11 the character is portrayed as powerful over readers means that readers are being made to relate to the character from a position of weakness or helplessness. Therefore, power relations represented in images through the vertical angle also help create a sense of interaction between characters and readers. We believe that every time readers are assigned a role of power in relation to the character in the image, whether this be of superiority or weakness, they are already interacting with characters and, thus, being made part of their world.

3.1.5. Coda

There are several resources for illustrators to place readers in interaction with characters, and thus, make them feel part of the story world and help them empathise more easily with the characters. In the following table, we list the choices that position readers in a close relationship with characters and make them feel as if they were inside participants of the story world, and those that position readers as outside observers to experience what happens in the story from a distance. These choices may be used in isolation or together in combination to invite readers into the story world or keep them at a distance.

Table 2 – Readers as participants or observers.

Direct eye contact, higher involvement (by having characters face the readers), closer or more intimate social distance and a high or low angle from which to view the characters, allow readers to experience certain events in the story as if they were partaking in the action. Direct eye contact gives readers the impression that they are more actively involved in the story as they are directly addressed by the characters. It also makes it very hard for readers to ignore the characters’ feelings. High involvement contributes to heightening this sense of direct interaction between readers and characters. Placing characters at an intimate distance from readers helps them feel they share an intimate relationship with the characters and allows them to appreciate the characters’ facial gestures, which reveal their emotions. This, in turn, allows readers to easily develop empathy for the characters. Finally, a particular position of power assigned to readers places them in direct relation with represented characters, making readers feel part of the story world.

3.2. Bringing readers into the story world

To invite readers into the story world, illustrators do not only have tools to create a close relationship between characters and readers. They can also create a sense of belonging in readers by making them feel there are no boundaries separating the story world from theirs. Illustrators can invite readers to ‘step into’ the events taking place in the story and experience the action first-hand while accompanying the characters. Sometimes, they may even position readers to step into one of the characters’ shoes.

These choices, of course, help readers feel more involved in the events of the story as they are closer to the characters’ reality, experiencing the action from within. It also makes it easier for them to empathise with the characters, especially when they live part of the story from a character’s perspective.

The resources available for illustrators to invite readers ‘physically’ into the story world are:

• the elision of margins and frames (system of framing);
• the use of a character’s perspective to represent events (system of focalisation).

3.2.1. Framing

As Painter et al. (2013, p. 103) suggest, the system of framing can help illustrators include readers in the story world through the lack of frames and margins that separate the story world from the readers’ world. Images in picture books sometimes have margins and frames that enclose them. The margin is the white space that surrounds the image, and the frame is the black line that delineates the image. Images that have margins are called bound. In them, the margins “demarcate the story world as more distinctly separated from the reader’s world.” Margins can also be seen as “contain[ing] or confin[ing] the character” (Painter et al., 2013, p. 105). The use of margins and frames, then, serves to distance the reader from the characters and their world. The thicker the margin or frame is, the further away from the story the viewer is positioned.

In opposition, images can have no margins. These are called unbound images as they present no boundaries that separate the world of the reader and the story world. In images of this kind, the reader can have a stronger sense of belonging to the story world or a more active participation in the events as there are no borders that divide and put distance between the reader’s world and the story.

So far, we have seen examples of both types of images: images 1 and 12 are examples of bound images, in which the readers’ world is separated from the story world, while the rest are unbound images with no margins and frames. This second type of images gives readers the sense they can step into the story world and experience action from within.

While bound images (that are framed) and unbound images in this system represent opposing extremes, there are some other choices within bound images that serve as middle grounds between these two options. First, bound images can be contained or breaching. Compare images 1 or 12, which have margins that limit and contain the elements of the story world within the boundaries of the image, to what happens in the following image:

Images 1 and 12 are examples of a contained image. This type of images are those in which the characters are enclosed within the edges of the image, determined by the frame surrounding the image or contrast in colour between the image and the margin in images without frame. Contained images clearly put distance between the viewer and the story world; the reader is an outside observer of the characters and events, which are confined within the frames of the image. In image 12, for example, readers are allowed to observe the characters and what they are doing, but they are not being actively invited to enter this other world and participate in this special moment that belongs to this couple.

Conversely, in breaching images, such as image 14, the character(s) and/or elements in the background break out of the edges of the image and invade the margins. This brings the story world and/or characters closer to the readers, breaking the limits that demarcate the characters’ world (Painter et al., 2013, p. 106). In Image 14, the limits that contain the story cannot hold this character; the dog is coming out of the story world, breaching its boundaries to invade the readers’ world. When characters are breaching, sometimes it helps portray them: they may break the boundaries of the image because they are too strong, too powerful, or too energetic to be contained. In this case, the fact that big, sharp claws are breaching the limits enclosing the story world highlights the menacing and dangerous nature of the dog.

The use of a bound: breaching image in this case, then, together with other resources that help position the character in interaction with readers (eye contact, involvement, social distance, and power), helps create the impression that this dog is much more a part of the readers’ world than the animals in image 1.

Characters, however, are not the only elements in the story world that can break out from the frames. The setting or background of the image, that is the story world itself, can be depicted as if coming out of the boundaries that contain the story. A very good example of how breaching images can be used to bring the story world closer to the readers is what happens in Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963). In this picture book, there is a gradual but clear passage from bound to unbound images as the boy goes from his room to the place where the wild things live. At the beginning of the story, when the boy is in his house and room, the readers are detached from him by quite thick margins. The story world is clearly demarcated and separate from the readers’. However, as the narrative advances, the images slowly turn into bound: breaching as the leaves of the trees break out of the picture. This brings the story world closer and closer to the readers, until finally they are fully invited to enter into the story when the boy arrives to where the wild things are. This section of the story is represented with unbound spreads.

Another set of options within bound images is whether they are surrounded or limited. While surrounded images have margins on all four sides, limited images do not. For example, let’s look at image 15 below.

In limited images, although the story world is still bound, there is a point of contact between the two worlds because there is at least one side of the image that is not separated from the readers’ world by a margin.

In Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak (1963), for example, as the forest invades the margins, some margins begin to disappear. This picture book shows a very clear use of the different choices in the system of framing to gradually bring readers into the story world. Bound: contained, limited images progressively turn into bound: breaching, limited images, till we find unbound images.

To sum up, in the system of framing, margins and frames separate the story world from the readers’ world. The different options in this system can be placed in a continuum that goes from bound images, which keep the story world clearly demarcated and separate from the readers’ world, to unbound images, which pose no boundaries between both worlds.

Figure 1 – Readers as participants or observers.

In between these two extremes there are some choices that offer some points of contact between the two worlds: bound: breaching images, in which the character(s) and/or elements of the story world break out of the frame, or bound: limited images, in which some margins disappear, bring readers somewhat closer to the story world. Represented characters and their world are still positioned within limits that bound them, though some contact between the story world and the readers’ world is established.

3.2.2. Focalisation: point of view

As said before, the system of focalisation as presented by Painter et al. (2013, p. 18) deals with two aspects. It has to do with how readers are acknowledged by the characters in the story, which we already discussed in the previous section, and it is also connected with the point of view assigned to readers.

Choices in focalisation allow the illustrator to place the reader as different ‘viewing personas’, that is, to view the story from different points of view. These perspectives will, in turn, allow the reader to become part of the story world or remain as an outsider.

Most commonly, images depict action or characters from a neutral point of view. Whenever that is the case, readers maintain their own viewpoint as they relate from their own perspective to the characters in the images. These images are called unmediated. Images 1, 12, 13 and 16 above are clear examples of unmediated images, in which characters are shown from a neutral point of view.

However, at some particular moments in the narrative, illustrators may decide to depict a character or an event from one of the characters’ perspectives in what Painter et al. have called mediated images. This can be done explicitly or implicitly. Let’s consider the following examples:

These two images are depicted from one of the character’s point of view. These are considered mediated images. Image 16, for instance, shows an action through the eyes of the character carrying it out. In this case, readers are explicitly shown whose viewpoint they are assuming by the position of the character’s paw. Including a character’s body part (particularly extremities) or its shadow viewed from a position that could only mean the readers are taking the character’s perspective is one way of explicitly giving them the chance to stand in a character’s shoes. These images are called mediated: as character.

Image 17 represents another option within mediated images but in this case, readers see the event from over a character’s shoulder or head. This allows them to appreciate what the character perceives even though readers do not see the event through the character’s own eyes. It is also considered an explicit way of showing a mediated perspective. This is because the point of view from which readers see the event is made explicit by showing the back of the character’s head. This option is called mediated: along with character.

Finally, this effect can also be accomplished by using a sequence of images, in which readers can deduce whose viewpoint they are taking in an image because of what has been depicted in the previous image. This implicit realisation can be appreciated in the pair of images below.

Readers can assume that they are taking the young boy’s point of view in image 11 because in the previous image he is looking up at his mother and appears to be making eye contact with her. The mother’s body posture, which coincides with the one depicted in the first image, helps readers know that in image 11 they are looking at her from her son’s perspective. As this example shows, the use of other resources included in the section positioning readers in interaction with characters can also help determine the perspective. In this case, the options of representation power, eye contact, involvement, and social distance help readers realise from whose perspective they are being positioned to experience the event. In this third type of mediated images, the point of view from which they see the character is inferred or implicit. In image 11 there is nothing that explicitly marks from whose point of view readers are observing the situation. They need to consider the sequence in which the image is inserted to know that they are seeing through a character’s eyes.

Mediated images allow viewers to become part of the story by experiencing sections of it from a character’s perspective or by accompanying the character closely, seeing the story world from over the character’s shoulder. This possibility allows readers to enter into the story world, heightens their sense of involvement, and helps readers empathise with characters more easily, to feel what they are feeling.

3.2.3. In short: Bringing readers into the story world

In this second section we have looked at some of the resources that illustrators can use to bring readers physically into the story world. While the existence of margins and frames in bound images, together with the use of unmediated images keep readers separate from the story world, the choice of unbound images, where there are no frames or margins, in combination with mediated images bring readers into the story world and help them experience the events from inside.

3.3. Combining resources

So far, we have gone over several options within different systems that convey meanings in images. They all contribute to establish the particular distance from which readers will see, interpret, and feel the happenings in the story. But how do these options work together in picture books?

In general, they are used in combination to heighten the readers’ sense of partaking in the story and closeness to the characters or to distance the reader from the story to observe the events as an outsider. Let’s consider the following sequence of images as an example.

The illustrator of the sequence of events in images 19 and 1 presents bound images with thick white margins that contain the characters and separate the world of the story from the readers’ world. The point of view from which readers can see the event is from their own as outsiders. There is no eye contact between the characters and readers; readers are mere observers of what happens. Besides, the characters are at a considerable distance, which creates a sense of an impersonal relationship between readers and characters and makes it difficult for the readers to appreciate the expressions and feelings of the animals. Both animals are perceived from an oblique angle, which presents detachment and readers are not placed in any particular power relation with the characters, neither of weakness nor of power.

A possible way of completing the sequence would be to keep all these options unchanged in a subsequent image. Readers could be kept as outsiders. They are not active participants in the story but observe the events from outside the characters’ world. Although it is more difficult for readers to relate to any of the two characters in the story, maybe that is not the particular effect the illustrator and writer of the story want to achieve. As some authors have suggested, readers are typically positioned as mere outside observers of what goes on in picture story books that are aimed at young children. This is done to position them farther away from characters so that they can learn from the character’s actions from a distance (Painter et al., 2013, p. 19).

But what would happen if the illustrator chose to change some of these features in a subsequent image? Let’s take a look at these two possibilities:

In image 18 we see that several options have changed. The image is bound but breaching, as the character is breaking out of the frame. Besides, this is a mediated image, and we can infer that we are seeing the dog from the cat’s perspective because of what happened in the previous images, which allows us to relate to the cat much more easily than in images 1 and 19. There is eye contact with the dog in this case and we are at an intimate distance from it, allowing us to see and interpret its facial features much better. This contact plus the fact that the dog is breaching the frame of the image helps readers appreciate what the cat would be feeling facing this big, menacing dog, which is not constrained by the limits of the story world. This feeling is emphasised by the maximum sense of involvement present in this picture as the dog is facing us. The only feature that has not changed is the fact that we are at eye level with the dog. In this image, then, readers are placed as one of the characters, led to experience this happening as if they were part of the story world. They are encouraged to react and be much more actively involved in the event.

Image 19, although similar to image 18 in many respects, goes a step further in allowing readers to step into the story world. In this case, the image is unbound, with no frames or margins to separate the world of the story from the readers’ world. This image is also mediated but this time the point of view from which we see the event is explicitly marked as the cat’s. The position of the paws against the dog’s chest lets us know that we are looking at the dog from the cat’s perspective. As in image 18, there is eye contact and involvement with the dog, and we are at an intimate distance from it. Perhaps in this last image, however, we have a stronger impression that we are not at eye level with the dog but that the dog has power over us. All these options used in combination help give readers a maximum sense of partaking or involvement in the story. It is as if they were compelled to react more actively. They are being invited to step into the story world, in this case in the cat’s shoes, experience the event first-hand and interact with the characters. In addition, readers’ empathy or possible identification with the characters is strongly evoked or motivated.

3.4. Coda

It is clear that all of these visual choices discussed above help shape the way viewers interact with the characters and their world. They are generally combined to either create a greater sense of belonging to the story world and of intimacy and identification with its characters, or to establish a more detached relationship between readers and the story world. These different choices affect the way readers experience the story, namely as insiders or outsiders.

As we have said before, some of these choices can remain the same throughout the story or they may vary along the narrative to involve readers gradually in the character’s world and help them feel closer to the characters and their emotions at particularly tense or reflective moments in the story.