Stöd, hinder och förväntningar på läsaren

Abstract

Support, Barriers, and Expectations of the Reader: On Textual and Visual Choices in a Picturebook Based on the Animated Feature Film Cars Whenever an animated feature film aimed at children is released from a bigger production company, tie-ins will follow, including picturebooks. These books can be found in everyday grocery stores and have the potential to reach many children. Although discussed, few systematic descriptions of the literature in question exist. In this article, I examine textual and visual choices in the picturebook Bilar (Cars, 2015) based on the Disney & Pixar film with the same name (Lesseter). I investigate what barriers and what support it offers the reader to grip the story, but also whom the book addresses as a reader. The analysis focuses on resources important for comprehension, namely temporality and cohesion. Close-up analysis of text and pictures reveals and tries to explain temporal and logical gaps. The analysis shows that Bilar is quite complex, with features that contribute to distancing the story from the reader. The temporal unfolding advances quickly, but quite evenly, with few pauses. Leaps are drastic and linguistically unmarked, and intentions and events are presented indirectly. The text has few explicit causal ties and deviates from what is expected. Overall, the pictures repeat information in the text, but they also contradict the text in a way that suggests it was unintentional. Although the text manages to mediate the plot and intention – to the adult reader – it is hard to grasp in total without the movie in mind. The addressed reader, then, is plural: an adult and a child who have watched the movie and can fill the gaps, and who do not care too much about logical details. However, the study and the conclusion is based on a traditional view of the book and of reading. An investigation of the book in use might change or widen the understanding of this type of product.