Visual and
Aesthetic Literacy
Picturebooks, visual culture, materiality, and the practices through which young readers learn to see.
A research field that brings together the visual, material, narrative, and educational dimensions of children’s literature.
The research field
A promising field in children’s literature research concerns the nature of aesthetic experiences in picturebooks in early childhood. Children have aesthetic experiences, and reading different kinds of picturebooks can enable young readers to develop sophisticated visual competence and aesthetic literacy. The central questions remain open and productive: which reading experiences become aesthetic, how do they take shape, and when do children encounter them?
This research examines picturebooks as complex cultural and educational objects. It attends to the relations among words, images, design, material form, and reading practices, while taking children’s responses and interpretive work seriously.
Its perspective includes visual education, the history and theory of the picturebook, book objects, photography, illustration, silence and white space, architecture, and the circulation of visual knowledge for young readers.
Three ways of reading
Three connected lines of inquiry make the project legible through image, object, and encounter.
Images as thought
Visual narratives, iconography, intericonicity, and the relation between visual pleasure, interpretation, and critical attention.
Books as objects
Materiality, design, photography, typography, white space, book space, and the aesthetic possibilities of the picturebook as a made thing.
Reading as encounter
Children’s aesthetic responses, reader response, teacher mediation, and educational pathways that make visual reading discussable and shareable.
Current lines of work
Recent work extends the project from picturebook aesthetics to photography, architecture, the visual history of education, and the transnational circulation of visual knowledge.
Histories of Visual Education
Campagnaro, M. “Histories of Visual Education: The Reception of Marie Neurath’s Books in the Italian Postwar Milieu.” In Marie Neurath and Isotype Picturebooks: Transforming Knowledge for Children. The chapter traces the Italian reception and adaptation of Neurath’s visual educational books.
The Long Reach of Creativity
Campagnaro, M. “The Long Reach of Creativity: The Lasting Impact of 1970s Italian Children’s Literature.” Bookbird, 62(2). The article considers visual, graphic, material, and educational experimentation in Italian children’s literature.
Photography’s influence on Bruno Munari’s books
Campagnaro, M. “A successful photograph is worth as much as a story”: Photography’s influence on Bruno Munari’s books. In E. Druker and B. Kümmerling Meibauer (Eds.), Photography in Children’s Literature (pp. 144 to 167). John Benjamins.
Architecture and Interior Design in Italian Picturebooks
Campagnaro, M. “Architecture and Interior Design in Italian Picturebooks. A case study of Bruno Munari.” In Building Children’s Worlds: The Representation of Architecture and Modernity in Picturebooks. Routledge.
A continuing bibliography
The following publications and book retain the complete original resource record of this page. Links now lead to official DOI, journal, publisher, or repository records where a stable public record is available.
Campagnaro, M. (2021). Picturebooks and aesthetic literacy in early childhood education. In Å. M. Ommundsen, G. Haaland, and B. Kümmerling Meibauer (Eds.), Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education: International Perspectives on Language and Literature Learning (pp. 79 to 98). Routledge.
Campagnaro, M. (2020). The materiality of silence. The curious cases of Munari, Charlip and their picturebooks with no pictures. FronteiraZ. Revista do Programa de Estudos Pós Graduados em Literatura e Crítica Literária, 24, 4 to 23.
Campagnaro, M. (2019). La pluridimensionalità della visual literacy. Albi illustrati e itinerari educativi. In S. Barsotti and L. Cantatore (Eds.), Letteratura per l’infanzia. Forme, temi e simboli del contemporaneo (pp. 123 to 143). Roma: Carocci. ISBN 8843098632.
Campagnaro, M. (2016). Letteratura per l’infanzia, visual literacy e contaminazioni artistiche. Metis, 11(2), 355 to 364.
Campagnaro, M. (Ed.) (2014). Le terre della fantasia. Leggere la letteratura per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza. Roma: Donzelli. ISBN 978 88 6843 059 7.
Campagnaro, M. and Dallari, M. (2013). Incanto e racconto nel labirinto delle figure. Albi illustrati e relazione educativa. Trento: Erickson. ISBN 978 88 5900 162 1.
Campagnaro, M. (2013). Educare allo sguardo. Riflessioni pedagogiche sugli albi illustrati [Educating to observe. Pedagogic considerations on picturebooks]. Encyclopaideia, 17(35), 89 to 108.
Campagnaro, M. (2012). Storie di donne scritte da donne. La proposta iconica di Chiara Carrer. In S. Chemotti (Ed.), Le graphie della cicogna. La scrittura delle donne come ri velazione (pp. 393 to 414). Padova: Il Poligrafo. ISBN 978 88 7115 775 7.
Book objects in conversation
A seminar contribution on the material approaches to children’s literature.
The Materiality of Love
6.º Seminário Internacional de Investigação sobre o Livro Objeto. A recorded session on the book object and material approaches to children’s literature.
Watch The Materiality of Love on YouTube
Watch “Incanto e fascinazione nel labirinto delle figure”