The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne

Moebius’ definition of intangible and invisible covers the vast array of human emotion and experiences from love to death through to responsibility and a truth beyond the individual. Corroborated by Bader’s comment they are about sensations and emotions provoking a shift in the reader’s paradigms (Moebius, 2009). This essay will look at how Potter and Browne convey these ideas using Moebius’ codes and exploring the concept of relationships concluding with how Potter and Browne illustrate their views on childhood. Voices in the Park has no page numbers thus for clarity they are strictly numerical (1-30) starting at first voice.

Picture books unlike novels have a very limited amount of words to inform the reader about the characters and the plot (Scott, 2009)(ou dvd no7). The use of a picture to complement and enhance the story is paramount, combining with the experience of the reader to disassemble meaning from the picture (Nodelman, 1999). Moebius codifies this inherent ability into the elements of colour, perspective, position and size with finally line and capillary. It is possible to use this code to explore and evaluate some invisible and intangible concepts in Voices in the Park (Browne, 1999) and The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Potter, 2002)

In Voices in the Park, Browne uses colour to convey the disposition of each of the four voices linking them to the four seasons. In the fourth voice, the colours are jewel-like and fun enhanced by the fun fair elements of the pictures translating into the fun, buoyant, summer character of Smudge. Whereas in the second voice the first four pages (p8-12) the colour is darker portraying a sad character echoing a winter persona. The picture in p9 echoes this depression with the decay of an urba...

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...otter’s Story’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Text and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University. pp87-96

Moebius, W.(2009) ‘Picturebook Codes’ in Maybin J and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Approaches and Territories, Basingstoke, Plagrave Macmillian in association with Open University. pp311-320

Nodelman, P.(1999) ‘Decoding the images How picture books work’, in Hunt P (ed), Understanding Children’s Literature (Second Edition),Oxon, Routledge. pp128-139

Potter, B.(2002) The Tale of Peter Rabbit, London, Penguin Group

Scott, C.(2009) ‘Perspective and point of view in the Tale of Peter Rabbit’, in Montgomery H and Watson N (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Text and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University. pp100-113