Abstract
Picture books are important mediums for transformation and learning. They offer both the tools and the truths for readers to critically engage with important issues, such as the reality of death and dying. The primary purpose of this study is to inspire engaged and deliberate conversations about mortality, dying, and grief in the context of picture books. I also present a new methodology of analyzing the cover arts of death-themed picture books. This method is influenced by M. M. Bakhtin’s (The dialogic imagination: four essays. The University of Texas Press, Austin, 2006) dialogism and Lois Rosenblatt’s (The reader, the text, the poem: the transactional theory of the literary work. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1978) work on transactional theory and aesthetic reading. In order to gain a deeper understanding of how death is portrayed/represented through visual or linguistic expressions, my inquiry centers on the following questions: In what ways do artists/illustrators use text and images to depict death on the covers/jacket design of picture books related to death and dying? Through a dialogic, aesthetic engagement with death-themed book covers, what meaning can arise related to death as a phenomenon and a social construct? Also, how this meaning can lead to individual transformation and new ways picture books are used in personal and educational settings?
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