From Metaphorical to Literal Door-Openings in Children’s Literature… and Back

Abstract

Children’s literature has famously been described as “windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange”, and sometimes also “sliding glass doors” that readers have to “walk through in imagination” (Bishop, 1990: ix). In other words, children’s literature is often depicted as being able to metaphorically open doors for their readers, i.e., open up vistas and broaden horizons. In this article, I pay attention to picturebooks with literal door-openings: Haunted House (1979) by Jan Pieńkowski, Jane Walmsley and Tor Lokvig, Knock Knock Who’s There? (1985) by Sally Grindley and Anthony Browne, Shhh! (1991) by Sally Grindley and Peter Utton, Postman Bear (2000) by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, Doors (2004) by Roxie Munro and What’s Next Door? (2017) by Nicola O’Byrne. I examine the various strategies implemented to get child readers to open (paper) doors—whether by focusing on the book-as-object with its flaps, door-like pages and cut-out pages, or by working on the book-as-discourse with, in particular, the use of direct addresses to the flesh-and-blood reader. I argue that door-openings in picturebooks help child readers achieve three main goals: (1) to become an experienced liseur, to take up Picard’s terminology, who finds pleasure in the page-turning event, (2) to discover how accessible and enjoyable the world of fiction can be and thereby become lu, and (3) to become a lectant, aware, namely, of the key-role of the page break in the economy of the picturebook. Literal door-openings in children’s books thus open up large metaphorical horizons for their child readers, that include emergent literacy, pleasure reading and forms of agency.