Towards a post-age picturebook pedagogy

The study addresses the tension between prevalent age-transgressive practices (e.g., crossover reading/writing and picturebooks appealing to all ages) and persistent ageism that ties abilities and behaviors rigidly to age categories. In children’s literature and especially picturebooks, adults increasingly read texts traditionally seen as for children, yet concerns about infantilization/adultization persist. The author questions strict age-based categorization in light of cognitive and developmental research showing varied developmental trajectories and multicomponent models of reading. The purpose is to explore how children and adults respond to two thematically similar yet stylistically different picturebooks (How to Live Forever and Grandpa Green) and to identify patterns of similarities and differences in their responses. Research questions: (1) How do children and adults respond to Forever and Grandpa? (2) What is the pattern of similarities and differences in their responses? The goal is to inform and facilitate a post-age picturebook pedagogy that loosens age-based expectations while acknowledging differences, shared humanity, and individuality.

Picturebooks afford holistic learning opportunities across cognitive, affective, aesthetic, and material dimensions. Prior research highlights gains in language, concepts, multimodal literacy, empathy and identification, and attention to formal elements (layout, typography, frames, endpapers) that foster literary understanding; material affordances (physical, multisensory, interactive experiences) are underexplored. Contemporary picturebooks often appeal beyond children to adults (crossover picturebooks), with European and Scandinavian markets showing titles that address existential and adult-oriented issues. While some celebrate picturebooks’ universal appeal, others differentiate child versus adult readings (e.g., intertextual complexity), risking a binary of simple child versus sophisticated adult. Empirical work with adults is scarce and typically casts adults as facilitators in shared reading rather than readers for their own benefit. These developments call for rethinking picturebook pedagogy to include adults as readers and to move beyond rigid age-based assumptions.

Design: Collective, instrumental multiple case study of four readers (each reader = one case) to compare patterns informing a post-age pedagogy. Conceptual framing: Marah Gubar’s kinship model (acknowledging biologically determined differences, shared humanity, and idiosyncrasies) and insights from cognitive literary studies (e.g., metacognition development, conceptual blending, embodiment). Texts: Two picturebooks on mortality with contrasting styles: Colin Thompson’s How to Live Forever (1995) and Lane Smith’s Grandpa Green (2011). Forever has denser verbal text, realist images with many mini-scenes, and largely complementary word–image relations; Grandpa has sparse text, watercolor/pencil elliptical style, varied and sometimes counterpointing word–image relations; both feature intertextuality. Participants: Purposeful sample from a UK town with several academic institutions. Final sample: 4 readers—two children (Oliver, male, 8; Lucy, female, 9) and two adults (Rihanna, female, 24; Sophie, female, 30), with diverse national/cultural and educational backgrounds. Procedure: Each participant read both books in two encounters. First encounter: open-ended, think-aloud or self-probed retrospection; second encounter: follow-up, deeper discussion of salient issues. Individual semi-structured interviews (four sessions per participant across both books) were videotaped. Data collection: Think-aloud or self-probed retrospection with marginal marks/post-its; readers encouraged to proceed at self pace, share anything that caught attention. Analysis: Full transcription of sessions. Stage 1: within-case grounded coding (coding scheme emerged from data). Stage 2: cross-case analysis of prominent textual aspects (e.g., setting, narrative structure, intertextuality). Stage 3: comparison across cases to reveal patterns of similarities/differences in responses to the same aspects.

• World of books (Forever): All readers engaged deeply with the densely detailed book-filled settings. A salient interpretive gap—what the illuminated crevices and miniature spaces signify—was filled differently: children tended toward a literal reading (bookshelves as actual living spaces for tiny inhabitants), while adults adopted a more abstract reading (books as spaces of knowledge/stories and imagined experience). Children’s responses were performative and embodied (e.g., rhythmic speech, gestures), while adults (e.g., Sophie) constructed overarching narratives grounded in SOURCE–PATH–GOAL schemas and contrasted book knowledge with lived reality.
• Blended world (Grandpa Green): All recognized topiary as conceptual blending (tree/life experience). Children often humorously dissociated the domains in specific scenes (e.g., kissing a hedge), while adults more readily synthesized verbal and visual narratives into a blended storyworld (including recognizing the garden as a shared mindscape). Adults also interrogated tensions between text and image (e.g., forgetfulness juxtaposed with an elephant known for memory) and proposed alternative choices (e.g., goldfish instead of elephant).
• Intertextuality: Both books deploy intertexts; responses ranged from confusion (failed recognition) to active engagement. Adults’ recognition varied by cultural background/experience (e.g., an American teacher recognized The Little Engine That Could), while children often engaged in creative interpretive play even without identifying the intended intertexts (supplying playful continuations like “that could fly” or linking to nearby text like staying home from school). Overall, intertextuality produced notable within-group variability and supported diverse readings rather than mapping neatly onto a child–adult simplicity/sophistication divide.

Findings support a post-age picturebook pedagogy that treats both children and adults as legitimate readers who can benefit across cognitive, affective, aesthetic, and material affordances. Adult readers drew on life/literary experience to negotiate verbal–visual tensions and felt emotional resonance, while children showed inventive, performative, and non-linear engagements. The data problematize binary assumptions (simple child vs. sophisticated adult): while adults often showed more structural synthesis (e.g., conceptual blending at narrative level), children displayed creative intertextual play and acute visual attention. Intertextuality and verbal–visual interplay foster multiple interpretive paths shaped by background and experience. Material affordances (the physicality of picturebooks) and performativity emerge as productive points of connection and dialogue across ages, suggesting pedagogies that leverage embodied interaction, page-turning, gesture, and play to enrich meaning-making for all readers. Rebalancing power relations entails trusting children’s competencies and welcoming adults back as readers for their own sake rather than only as facilitators.

The study proposes initial principles for a post-age picturebook pedagogy: (1) maintain an egalitarian view of child and adult readers; (2) select picturebooks with cross-age appeal; (3) explore multiple affordances (cognitive, affective, aesthetic, material); (4) seek and amplify points of connection and dialogue to enrich experiences for all readers. This responds to tensions between ageism and age-transgressive practices by maximizing picturebooks’ potential for beneficial, pleasurable experiences. Given individual differences, rigid age-based prescriptions for texts are inadequate. Picturebooks like Forever and Grandpa Green open interpretive and experiential possibilities without infantilizing adults or adultizing children. Future work should test and refine the model with broader, more comprehensive empirical data.

Small, purposive sample (n=4) limits generalizability; participants’ diverse backgrounds and situated experiences shaped responses. Findings are exploratory and model-situated; broader studies with larger, varied samples and settings are needed to further test and elaborate a post-age picturebook pedagogy.