A, B and (not) Seeing: Animals and Other Ironies in Alphabet Books. Issue 2 (December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ford, Jennifer
• Is Part Of: Oxford literary review. Volume 41:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 219
• Page End: 237
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Subjects: alphabet and ABC books -- play -- childlike -- Jacques Derrida and parergon -- anthropomorphism in picturebooks -- zoos in picturebooks -- environmental crisis; Books -- Reviews -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 028.105
• DOI: 10.3366/olr.2019.0280
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-1498

Abstract

Abstract : For generations, alphabet books have been widely used by parents, librarians and teachers as early literacy tools for young children. Through images, word play and the interactions between word and image, alphabet books have the effect of introducing preliterate young children to the names, images, symbols and concepts regarding animals, what Matthew Calarco has called 'symbolic mechanisms' of animals—names, images, concepts, cultural associations of animals—yet they can also be deconstructive of those same mechanisms. Derrida's insights into the contradictory logic of the supplement and parergon as well as the 'destabilising synergies of word and image' offer deconstructive readings of alphabet books for adult and child readers. Recognising what Derrida calls the 'childlike' in texts such as alphabet books creates unique polymorphous spaces for the further interrogation of notions of animals.