more than 20 languages and a print run of 25,000 copies in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Ehriander 2011). Similar series followed suit, for instance, the My Village series (23 vols, 1956–1972) by the couple Sonia and Tim Gidal and Enfants du monde (Children of the World, 20 vols, 1952–1975) by French photographer Dominique Darbois (Lemarchant 2015).
The period offered other inventive picturebooks as well. Miroslav Sasek’s popular city guides for children, written in a tongue-in-cheek manner and beginning with This Is Paris (1959; 18 titles until 1974), provided knowledge about people’s everyday lives as well as their architectural and cultural surroundings. In order to serve the increasing interest in international cultures and to foster the learning of foreign languages, Antonio Frasconi’s See and Say (1955) renewed the tradition of the multilingual primer as well as the technique of wood engraving. By the phonetic transcription of the words, this picturebook used a new linguistic methodology to facilitate the correct spelling of foreign words. Similarly, The Cat in the Hat (1957) by Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel) demonstrated that primary school readers could be entertaining, even if the story just consists of 223 words (Nel 2007).
While some picturebook-makers put emphasis on the renewal of traditional book genres, primarily emphasizing their educational value, others turned toward contemporary artistic styles or referred, like the postwar artists discussed above, to avant-garde currents, which they regarded as a stimulus for the child’s intrinsic creativity. An early trailblazer in that category was the picturebooks by Italian artist Bruno Munari, who continuously produced artworks that challenge the viewer due to their unusual combination of materials, artistic techniques, and stories, as in Nella nebbia di Milano (The Circus in the Mist, 1968; see Campagnaro 2017). Drawing on the old tradition of using picturebooks as playthings, Munari involved the child reader in the construction of the story. The creative activity of the young child is also captured in Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955), which is distinguished by the story’s dreamlike atmosphere as well as the reduced cartoon-like style (Nel 2012).
Along the same lines, Leo Lionni paved the way for the acceptance of abstract art in picturebooks. The characters in his picturebook Little Blue and Little Yellow (1957) consist merely of torn scraps of colored paper; however, Lionni successfully combined this abstract depiction with an emotional story, thus igniting the child’s imagination. The Swiss artist Warja Lavater went a step further, as she has retold popular fairy tales such as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood, 1965) by means of abstract forms, such as circles, triangles, rectangles, and rhombuses. Created as accordion books, which Lavater herself has defined as “folded stories,” these retellings demand the reader to co-construct the underlying story by attributing specific meanings to the abstract forms, which stand for characters and objects. While the picturebooks by Munari, Lionni, and Lavater had often been regarded as artworks on the threshold of artists’ books, other illustrators devoted their artwork to revive the often neglected genre of the baby book (often put on a level with board books and rag or cloth books).
Picturebook artists had previously paid little attention to early concept books, especially those for children from the age of 12 months up to three years of age. This attitude gradually changed in the 1960s, when an increasing number of illustrators showed a deep interest in picturebooks for the young ones (Kümmerling-Meibauer and Meibauer 2005). The most effective among these artists was the Dutch graphic designer Dick Bruna, whose concept books featuring the character Miffy (Dutch: Nijntje; 1963–2006) have been sold worldwide and are still in print today. The Italian couple Iela and Enzo Mari created wordless picturebooks, for instance, La mela e la farfalla (1960; trans. The Apple and the Moth, 1970), that combine the young child’s conceptual development with information about nature. One of the first books for very young children that effectively incorporated toy elements in order to propel the story is Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), which launched an extremely successful franchise. Playful character is also a unique feature of Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters (1986): Envelopes glued to the pages contain letters that can be opened and read, thus enhancing the story (Martin 1989). While some picturebooks, such as the Swedes Barbro Lindgren and Eva Eriksson’s popular titles focusing on the baby Max (10 vols, 1981–1995), introduce young children into the concept of story, Pat Hutchins’s Rosie’s Walk (1968) is an innovative example of a book wherein there is contradiction between image and text, thus calling the young child’s attention to the multimodal character of the picturebook as well as initiating a preliminary understanding of irony (Kümmerling-Meibauer 1999).
One of the most discussed picturebooks is Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are (1963), because of its intricate book design and sophisticated relation between text and visuals as well as conscious tribute to the child’s inner life. Sendak’s work paved the way for the increasing psychologization of child characters in picturebooks, taking children’s emotional and cognitive development seriously. Although some librarians and critics were initially uncomfortable with the book, Where the Wild Things Are became a favorite among children and pursued an incredible career in international academia. Innumerable articles testify to the never-ending interest in this picturebook. Considered by some picturebook researchers as the modern picturebook par excellence, Where the Wild Things Are was adapted as, inter alia, an opera version in 1980 and a live action movie in 2009 directed by Spike Jonze, bearing witness to the timeless appeal of the picturebook story.
While not as popular as Sendak’s picturebook, Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day (1962) represents another benchmark in the history of the picturebook: it is the first US-American picturebook that features an African American child as main character (Martin 2004, p. 51). It established the validity of picturebook stories that focus on the everyday life of children from different ethnic groups, pointing to children’s diverse social and cultural backgrounds.
The Surge of Pop Art Picturebooks and Other Experiments in Picturebook Design
In the wake of the 1968 student movement, a new image of childhood emerged that centered on the autonomy of the child, demanding rights for children on an equal level with adults. As a result, many educators, authors, illustrators, and publishers turned toward children’s literature as a means to disseminate this ideal. They advocated for strengthening the child’s mind by providing insights into ongoing political, economic, and social processes, thus supporting the child’s ability to recognize social injustice and political abuse. In light of this, it is no wonder that the picturebooks inspired by the 1968 movement are imbued with ideological beliefs, which mostly rely on anti-authoritarian ideas. Such “leftist” picturebooks stand out due to radical and sometimes challenging topics, such as the exploitation of nature, the imbalance between the rich and the poor, early sexuality, the evolving impact of capitalism, and the war in Vietnam. By drawing on current societal and political issues, such picturebooks took a different tack from that in established children’s literature by encouraging the child audience toward activism. Moreover, these picturebooks often employed visually innovative techniques, such as photomontage and collage, which were inspired by avant-garde movements.
That interest in aesthetic innovation also resulted in the rise of Pop Art picturebooks. Reaching a peak in the first half of the 1970s, these picturebooks were popular in the United States as well as several European countries including France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Renowned artists such as Peter Blake, Heinz Edelmann, Peter Max, and Andy Warhol created sophisticated picturebooks that exemplify the manifold forms of Pop Art. The publisher Harlin Quist in New York – with a French branch in Paris – was highly influential in this regard as his picturebooks provoked fierce debates on the stories’ and illustrations’ suitability for children (Paley 1989). Despite this, Harlin Quist picturebooks were showered with awards, even leaving their traces in the postmodern picturebook that emerged in the 1990s (Kümmerling-Meibauer 2015). One of most famous Pop Art picturebooks is Conte numéro 1 (Story No 1, 1968), with a text by playwright Eugene Ionesco and illustrations by Étienne Delessert. This picturebook – as well as its three sequels,
