Prompt 8
Upon researching the hashtag #picturebooks on Tumblr, I was astonished by the amount of beautiful and unique illustrations. It highlighted to me the value of social media as a platform for unknown and new illustrators and authors to be discovered. I wonder how many creators have been discovered by picture book publishing houses since the rise of social media?
Two posts in particular caught my attention. These posts both consisted of multi-modal texts. This encouraged me to reflect on how digital media and technology has really transformed the concept of the simple âpicture bookâ.
Nilbert the Introvert The first post included a sneak peak of the trailer animation for the published picture book Nilbert the Introvert (reblogged below). It was intriguing to view some of the process behind the creation of a multi-modal text. To my surprise, the owner of this Tumblr is Shiyoon Kim, a talented character designer from Disney who has worked on films such as Tangled, Frozen and Wreck it Ralph! With a little research, I was able to find the published trailer of the story! (embedded below). I believe trailer animations could be used as effective tools in promoting student interest and engagement before reading. Teachers could utilize animation trailers during front loading as a substitute to using front covers when asking students to predict what the story may be about. To see more of this creatorâs work, head to http://shiyoonkim.tumblr.com/.
Cloud Country The second Tumblr post belongs to illustrator Noah Klocek, and featured an animated front cover of the picture book Cloud Country. This particularly interested me as I have never seen digital media used to promote a front cover before. This technique makes the story come to life before even reading the first page. Klocekâs Tumblr feed enables his audience to view his process of creating Cloud Country. It includes sketches, animations, posters, the text in different languages, and more. To follow Klocekâs process, head to http://imageblock.tumblr.com/.
Itâs amazing to see how far picture books have come with the evolution of digital media just through the search of a simple hashtag. I ponder, will multi-modal picture books ever replace physical picture books? I hope not. I believe there is something much more personal and satisfying about physically reading a story to children. Perhaps itâs the fact that the process of reading to the class enables social interaction between teachers and students. None the less, I can see the great learning potential in using a combination of multi-modal and physical texts within the classroom.
References Nilbert trailer 2016, YouTube, Shiyoon Kim, 26 August, retrieved 23 September 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AERrtVMguzA>.














