posted on 10 Jul 2023

Creative fun with wordless books and Mr Wolf

Looking at books with children and working with parents are the two things that I miss most about teaching, so I was thrilled when I was recently invited to do both with Year 4 classes at Thornton Primary School in Birmingham.

The staff at this school clearly value reading and are keen to find more ways to extend their enthusiasm to children and their parents. As part of my morning session ‘Beautiful Books Build Brilliant Brains’ in the classroom, I showed children a few of my favourite books without words and we talked about how detailed illustrations can tell a story in ways that words can’t. For instance, the power of a book like ‘The Arrival’ by Shaun Tan about the refugee experience can be a revelation to readers of all ages. We discussed how the sepia colouring conveyed a sense of history and lingered over the dramatic double page picture that shows the menacing dragon like shapes that hover over the land as frightened people scurry beneath. And then we talked about the pages that illustrate the puzzling, almost alien new city that awaits the people on their eventual arrival in a strange new land.

After lunch, some of the children joined their parents for a workshop in the hall where I provided lots more examples from my wordless book collection for them to enjoy browsing together. Before this I returned to the two key illustrations in ‘The Arrival’ and was interested to note how many adults appeared to be entranced. There was a discernible buzz in the air as the children then leaned in to point out details in the illustrations of the various books on the tables and the parents enjoyed helping them to construct the story. I chose to focus on wordless books because, in my experience, books with a lot of text can be quite intimidating for some parents, particularly if time is limited. I could almost sense the relief when they realised that, instead of reading, the challenge was to explore the illustrations in a leisurely way.

I think that this pleasurable activity could have continued for much longer but the clock was ticking so we needed to move onto the book-making part of the workshop. I have contacts with many illustrators through The Letterpress Project and had asked one of my favourites, Korky Paul, to let me use one of his iconic Wolf pictures as a book cover. He is a great advocate for children to do lots of drawing and so was pleased to help out, especially when he realised that I would be focusing on illustrations rather than text.

As initial inspiration I provided an example of my own attempt at a wordless Mr Wolf book and then asked the parents if they knew how to draw. Out of over twenty adults in the audience, only one tentatively raised his hand, which was interesting in itself. The point of the activity was to give parents the opportunity to make a picture book about the Wolf with their children because, although they might not have done it for many years, I, Korky Paul and many others believe that everyone can draw! There was some initial denial about this statement and plenty of laughter but after five minutes then faced with blank pages, felt pens, colour pencils and wax crayons, everyone was having a go. As I walked about the room I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, listened to lively conversations in a range of community languages and watched just how many adult artists were demonstrating their skills encouraged by their children.

Most people spent some time talking about a suitable title and how the plot might progress on the first few pages. I had explained that absolutely anything could happen in their story and reassured them that the Wolf character could appear at any point, maybe not until the last page! There were soon some pretty wild and wonderful ideas unfolding that ranged from echoes of traditional tales like Red Riding Hood, an unusual princess story, to a couple with quite gruesome content. A few completed their books and were very proud of the results but most took them away to finish at home.

As this is a big primary school, I repeated the workshop with different classes and parents the following week and both parental and staff feedback was very positive. I came away feeling satisfied that everyone involved had really enjoyed and learnt from the experience. Using books without words emphasised the vital importance of illustrations for readers of all ages, an aspect which is too often neglected. Learning to become a confident reader can lead to picture books being abandoned in Key Stage Two with the message that written text is superior. The children loved taking time to look closely at the books and to convince their parents that the illustrations were complex, interesting and open to interpretation. I think that the book making element of the workshop was successful because it provided a rare opportunity for often busy parents to spend some fun time being creative with their child. The delight on every child’s face when they first came into the hall and saw their parent was evidence of this. Working collaboratively on their own special picture book that they could take home and show to other family members was clearly a welcome novelty.

I have already been asked by the staff to do a similar session at the school next academic year which is something to look forward to. Take a look at some of the results in the gallery below to see some very promising illustrators.

 

Karen Argent

July 2023