Ethos in Steig's and Sendak's Picture Books: The Connected and the Lonely Child

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Title: Ethos in Steig's and Sendak's Picture Books: The Connected and the Lonely Child
Language: English
Authors: Spitz, Ellen Handler
Source: Journal of Aesthetic Education. Sum 2009 43(2):64-76.
Availability: University of Illinois Press. 1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. Tel: 217-244-0626; Fax: 217-244-8082; e-mail: journals@uillinois.edu; Web site: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/main.html
Peer Reviewed: Y
Physical Description: PDF
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2009
Document Type: Journal Articles
Opinion Papers
Descriptors: Childrens Literature, Picture Books, Authors, Artists, Children, Psychology, Childhood Attitudes, Child Psychology, Child Development, Aesthetics
ISSN: 0021-8510
Abstract: Picture-book characters spring to life in both verbal and visual registers. Moving about the page before our eyes as well as speaking and acting in their respective stories, they often make a long-lasting impact on children. Pictures and words, moreover, may overlap but are never commensurate; like the words and notes of a song, they mean and evoke differently even while being experienced together. This brief essay considers a small selection of works by two distinguished twentieth-century American authors-artists: William Steig (1907-2003) and Maurice Sendak (b. 1928). It argues that, with their artful words and pictures, Steig and Sendak construct very different--even contrasting--visions of childhood. By "ethos" in this context, the author means to suggest a vision of what a child is, a sense of what it means both to be a child and to address one. Such visions differ not only through the ages and from one culture and locale to another, but also from one author-artist of the same period and locale to another. By bracketing a small selection of Steig's and Sendak's works and limiting only to extracting a tentative underlying ethos from them, the author takes the position that to write psychologically, one need not mention or exploit a creator's personal life. This essay points gently toward psychological approaches that ask what people can see when they look carefully at the pages of Sendak's works. (Contains 27 notes.)
Abstractor: ERIC
Entry Date: 2009
Access URL: https://jae.press.uiuc.edu/43.2/spitz2.html
Accession Number: EJ837073
Database: ERIC
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  Data: Picture-book characters spring to life in both verbal and visual registers. Moving about the page before our eyes as well as speaking and acting in their respective stories, they often make a long-lasting impact on children. Pictures and words, moreover, may overlap but are never commensurate; like the words and notes of a song, they mean and evoke differently even while being experienced together. This brief essay considers a small selection of works by two distinguished twentieth-century American authors-artists: William Steig (1907-2003) and Maurice Sendak (b. 1928). It argues that, with their artful words and pictures, Steig and Sendak construct very different--even contrasting--visions of childhood. By "ethos" in this context, the author means to suggest a vision of what a child is, a sense of what it means both to be a child and to address one. Such visions differ not only through the ages and from one culture and locale to another, but also from one author-artist of the same period and locale to another. By bracketing a small selection of Steig's and Sendak's works and limiting only to extracting a tentative underlying ethos from them, the author takes the position that to write psychologically, one need not mention or exploit a creator's personal life. This essay points gently toward psychological approaches that ask what people can see when they look carefully at the pages of Sendak's works. (Contains 27 notes.)
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      – Text: English
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        PageCount: 13
        StartPage: 64
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Childrens Literature
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Picture Books
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      – SubjectFull: Authors
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      – SubjectFull: Artists
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      – SubjectFull: Psychology
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Childhood Attitudes
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      – SubjectFull: Child Psychology
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      – SubjectFull: Child Development
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Aesthetics
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Ethos in Steig's and Sendak's Picture Books: The Connected and the Lonely Child
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