A beautiful and devilish thing

Children’s picture books and the 1914 Christmas Truce

Bibliographic Data

ID12700375
AuthorsMargaret Baguley (0000-0003-0098-6378, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield, Australia, corresponding author), Martin Kerby (0000-0003-4073-2559, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield, Australia)
Year2021
Volume21
Issue4
Pages518-541
Publication date2021-01-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-3572 • E-ISSN: 1741-3214
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1470357220981698
OpenAlexW3124645235
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited18

For over half a century, the ‘imagining’ of the Great War in the UK has been framed by the existence of two Western Fronts, one literary and the other historical. The authors and illustrators of children’s picture books, whose work has traditionally reflected a society’s values and pre-occupations, have remained remarkably faithful to the literary construct of the war as a futile and meaningless conflict that destroyed a generation. This article analyses four children’s picture books dealing with the Christmas Truce of 1914, which has become an historical touchstone for adherents of the literary imagining. Using methods grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), visual grammar and art theory, the authors explore how text and image combine to create moving and insightful morality tales that use the particularities of an historical event to communicate a vision of humanity rather than a work of historical scholarship

Aesthetics · Art · Construct (python library · Epistemology · Event (particle physics · Grammar · Humanity · Linguistics · Literature · Morality · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Digital Storytelling and Education · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · European Cultural and National Identity · History · Law · Philosophy

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