Interfacing visual and verbal narrative art in paper and digital media: Recontextualising literature and literacies

Appreciating the aesthetics of visual and verbal art in picture books, illustrated stories and movie adaptations is a crucial aspect of literacy in the arts, as traditional and new cultural narratives are created and re-created in a variety of artistic forms. This chapter discusses three well-known illustrated literary narratives and animated adaptations, showing how subtle variation in the visual art of different versions of ostensibly the same story can effect significant shifts in interpretive possibilities. The significance of developing aesthetic, interpretive literacies for cultural engagement with such stories, and implications for teaching and researching new forms of multimodal literacies in schooling are addressed.