A pioneering study of a unique narrative form, Words about Pictures examines the special qualities of picture books--books intended to educate or tell stories to young children. Drawing from a number of aesthetic and literary sources, Perry Nodelman explores the ways in which the interplay of the verbal and visual aspects of picture books conveys more narrative information and stimulation than either medium could achieve alone. Moving from "baby" books, alphabet books, and word books to such well-known children's picture books as Nancy Ekholm Burkert's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gerald McDermott's Arrow to the Sun, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and Chris Van Allsburg's The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, Nodelman reveals how picture-book narrative is affected by the exclusively visual information of picture-book design and illustration as well as by the relationships between pictures and their complementary texts.

This volume represents the current state of research on picture books and other adjacent hybrid forms of visual/verbal texts such as comics, graphic novels, and book apps, with a particular focus on texts produced for and about young people. When Perry Nodelman’s Words about Pictures: the Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books was published almost three decades ago, it was greeted as an important contribution to studies in children’s picture books and illustration internationally; and based substantially on it, Nodelman has recently been named the 2015 recipient of the International Grimm Award for children’s literature criticism. In the years since Words About Pictures appeared, scholars have built on Nodelman’s groundbreaking text and have developed a range of other approaches, both to picture books and to newer forms of visual/verbal texts that have entered the marketplace and become popular with young people. The essays in this book offer 'more words' about established and emerging forms of picture books, providing an overview of the current state of studies in visual/verbal texts and gathering in one place the work being produced at various locations and across disciplines. Essays exploring areas such as semiological and structural aspects of conventional picture books, graphic narratives and new media forms, and the material and performative cultures of picture books represent current work not only from literary studies but also media studies, art history, ecology, Middle Eastern Studies, library and information studies, and educational research. In addition to work by international scholars including William Moebius, Erica Hateley, Nathalie op de Beeck, and Nina Christensen that carries on and challenges the conclusions of Words about Pictures, the collection also includes a wide-ranging reflection by Perry Nodelman on continuities and changes in the current interdisciplinary field of study of visual/verbal texts for young readers. Providing a look back over the history of picture books and the development of picture book scholarship, More Words About Pictures also offers an overview of our current understanding of these intriguing texts.

In this unprecedented book, a gifted animal scientist who is also autistic, delivers a report on autism, written from her unique perspective. What emerges is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who bridges the gulf between her condition and our own, shedding light on the riddle of our common identity.

Text and image are used together in an increasingly flexible fashion and many disciplines and areas of study are now attempting to understand how these combinations work.This introductory textbook explores and analyses the various approaches to multimodality and offers a broad, interdisciplinary survey of all aspects of the text-image relation. It leads students into detailed discussion concerning a number of approaches that are used. It also brings out their strengths and weaknesses using illustrative example analyses and raises explicit research questions to reinforce learning. Throughout the book, John Bateman looks at a wide range of perspectives: socio-semiotics, visual communication, psycholinguistic approaches to discourse, rhetorical approaches to advertising and visual persuasion, and cognitive metaphor theory. Applications of the styles of analyses presented are discussed for a variety of materials, including advertisements, picture books, comics and textbooks. Requiring no prior knowledge of the area, this is an accessible text for all students studying text and image or multimodality within English Language and Linguistics, Media and Communication Studies, Visual and Design Studies.

The screen has never been merely a canvas for the images to be displayed but also – to quote Jean-Luc Godard – “a blank page”, a surface for inscriptions and a “stage” for all kinds of linguistic occurrences be their audible or visual. Word did not come into the world of cinema at the time of the talkies but has been a primordial medial “companion” that has shaped the cinematic experience from its very beginnings. This volume offers a collection of essays that question the role of words and images in the context of moving pictures covering a wide area of their interconnectedness. How can we analyse literary adaptations? What is the role of adaptations in the evolution of specific national cinemas? In what way are written texts used in films? Is the model of the word and image relations used in silent films still applicable today? What major paradigms can be discerned within the multiplicity of ways Jean-Luc Godard’s cinema plays with words and images? Are these models of modernist or postmodern cinema reflected in films of other directors like R. W. Fassbinder? How do avant-garde works deal with the word and image debate? What are the connections of animation or computer games with verbal text and narrative? What is the phenomenon of jet-setting and how does it connect to the ideological implications of the relations between the culture of books and films? What happens when Hamlet is completely rewritten reflecting the ideology of late capitalism? What happens from the point of view of literariness or rejection of literariness when films are made vehicles of national propaganda? How do words get mediated through images? These are some of the questions addressed in the present volume by in-depth case studies of cinematic intermediality or more general surveys regarding cinema’s long lasting liaisons with language or literature.

Verbal descriptions of life have been around for centuries, but the digital age has made access to those descriptions even more important. Dr. Joel Snyder, an audio description pioneer, has created a book and website offering the first overview of the field, including its history, application to a range of genres, description of training techniques, and list of resources. Audio description brings the visual world to life, making theater productions, television shows, films, visual art and events accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Describers employ succinct, vivid, imaginative words to convey visual images those with sight take for granted. Although countries worldwide have taken up the cause, the United States has fallen short on research and institutions to study the field. Dr. Snyder’s book helps fill in some of those gaps. “For decades, Joel Snyder has combined his astonishing command of language with his keen attention to detail to create word pictures that stir the mind’s eye, especially for patrons of the arts whose physical eyes cannot see. [...] His book has been long-awaited, and no doubt will become the standard for prospective audio describers around the world.” -Kelsey Marshall, Founding Director of Accessibility, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC Dr. Joel Snyder is known internationally as one of the world’s first “audio describers,” a pioneer in the field of audio description, making theater events, museum exhibitions, and media accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Since 1981, he has introduced audio description techniques in 36 states and D.C. and in 35 countries. He holds a PhD in accessibility audio description from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Dr. Snyder’s company, Audio Description Associates, LLC (www.audiodescribe.com) uses audio description to enhance a wide range of arts projects including video and film, museum exhibitions, and live events. As Director of Described Media for the National Captioning Institute, he supervised the production of descriptions for Sesame Street and dozens of feature films and nationally broadcast television; his descriptions can be heard at Smithsonian Institution exhibits, the Getty Museum, the Albright-Knox Gallery, and throughout the country at National Park Service visitor centers. As Director of the American Council of the Blind’s Audio Description Project (www.acb.org/adp), Dr. Snyder voiced description for network coverage of President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and 2013, and recently produced the first-ever audio-described tour of The White House. The ADP website is the nation’s principal provider of information and resources on audio description.