You will find some excellent tools for writing about picture books. Julie Bain’s Webquest Viewing The Viewer: Postmodern Picture Books has a wealth of resources for studying any picture book as well as specifically for the postmodern.įrom the sidebar choose Key Terms, Visual literacy Scaffold and PoMo I.D. “Picture Book Meme“ brings these all together in a hierarchical word cloud, and there is also a glossary (under resources) which lists them all again with definitions. Go to the sidebar on the left and down to THE PALETTE for a quick visual guide to many elements of the picture book.

This site is very valuable for developing a vocabulary to use when discussing picture books.

You can read this story online at The Monthly, or get the book from the library and explore more of these engrossing stories. How far can memories carry a relationship of absence? Will the strong bond Lachlan feels for his father be mirrored when they meet again? Or are his mother and sister the wise ones, remembering disappointment and expecting nothing? What pulls this father back to his children after years of neglect? This is a wonderful telling of a child’s perspective on an emotional family situation. Is Lachlan the only one kept in the dark about his father? But he was just a little kid then and, although he is blind, his memories are infused with smells, sounds and the memory of his father’s last words. But as the wedding grows closer all sorts of information comes out. He knows his mother and sister don’t share these feelings and Lachlan is careful what he says.

Lachlan has heard nothing about his Dad in all those years and is excited by the idea of his return. Lachlan’s father left eight years ago but is apparently coming to his daughter’s wedding. “Blind Date” is the first story in the recent short story collection from Australian author Janette Turner Hospital, Forecast: Turbulence (Fourth Estate, 2011).

Girl Next Door by Alyssa Brugman