Picture books and metafictional narratives for children

Abstract

Literature for children has attracted increased attention from scholars and specialists, considering the sophistication of its production. One focus has been on characteristics of literature considered postmodern, especially that of metafiction, which deconstructs the illusion of text as an account of the real and reveals its fictional character. By focusing on the process of creating literary texts, metafiction exposes its incompleteness and invites readers to actively participate in its construction, which requires various reading abilities. In the contemporary picture book, an object that consolidates itself by interweaving different languages, narrative possibilities are explored to the maximum, at both a verbal and visual level, and through their materiality. Furthermore, different resources are used to highlight not only the text, but also the book itself as an invention. Based on studies on the concept of metafiction, this article observes how metafictional narratives are constructed in picture books and what meanings they produce in the articulations between different languages. This article also analyses the opportunities to educate more critical and competent readers, that these narratives offer. Most of the works analyzed were found in the Early-Childhood Library of the School of Education  at UFMG, and in the collection of children's and youth literature of the Research Group of Literary Literacy (Gpell/CEALE), which also has a substantial volume of works that have been analyzed for national awards.