Pictures at Play: Metafiction in Art Eric Carle Museum

 

Image from Julie Morstad It Began with a Page

Pictures at Play: Metafiction in Art

Metafictive books: those that tell stories about stories and about the art of storytelling itself. Artists experiment with styles, typography, and page design to delightfully disrupt the rules of how books usually work. 

Metafiction is not a new concept. Also on display are such classic titles as Peter Newell’s The Hole Book (1908), Dorothy Kunhardt’s Pat the Bunny (1940), and Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955).

The exhibition at the Eric Carle Museum is from May 4 - November 3, 2024 and it will feature the work of 29 illustrators. Wish I lived there so I could go! Read more here. [There is a bonus surprise at the bottom of this post]

I have added links to the illustrators webpages:

Aaron Becker, Richard Byrne, Lauren Child, Jason Chin, Raúl Colón, Lulu Delacre, Tony DiTerlizzi, Deborah Freedman, E.B. Goodale, Ekua Holmes, Oliver Jeffers, Barbara Lehman, Brian Lies, David Macaulay, Barbara McClintock, Oge Mora, Yuyi Morales, Julie Morstad, Christopher Myers, Kathryn Otoshi, Brian Pinkney, Jerome Pumphrey, Jarrett Pumphrey, Peggy Rathmann, Adam Rex, Dan Santat, Lane Smith, Melissa Sweet, Don Tate, Corey Tabor, Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, Mo Willems, Pamela Zagarenski. 

My posts:

• Aaron Becker
• Deborah Freedman
• EB Goodale (she did the cover for the US edition of We are Wolves by Katrina Nannestad).
• Oliver Jeffers
• Brian Lies
• Oge Mora
• Melissa Sweet
• Chris van Allsburg
• David Wiesner

The exhibition has three thematic sections:

Speaking Out. While characters typically speak to each other in picture books, sometimes they break the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader.

Pictures within Pictures. Metafiction creators love the idea of infinity—infinite ways of reading and infinite meanings of a book.

Books about Books. Metafiction plays with the physical parts of a book. Characters can misbehave or battle each other across the pages, they can disappear into the gutter, or readers can even see themselves holding the same book they just opened.

You're finally here!

Here are a few books that match the topic of this exhibition:

Wordless books by Barbara Lehman

This is a Dog

Bear Hunt

Zoom

Press Here

The Wall in the Middle of the Book

Open this Little Book

Do not open this book!

This might be a bit of a stretch but our 2024 CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) slogan is Reading is Magic and I think you could add in some books from this post.  My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything (see below) has been exploring this theme in a variety of very creative ways but perhaps another idea might be look at books that 'break the fourth wall' - they certainly are examples of book magic!

KINDERBOOKSWITHEVERYTHING - explore these links - they are fabulous:

Reading is Magic: Magic: Everyday Items

Reading is Magic: Magical Creatures: Genies

Reading is Magic: Vocabulary

Reading is Magic: Potions, Spells, Charms and Curses

Reading is Magic: Magical Creatures: Magicians vs Wizards

Reading is Magic: Magical Creatures: Fairies