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Abstract
The development of picture books in Taiwan is a phenomenon of the past ten years. Every 2 years, articles are solicited for the Mandarin Daily News’ Mu Di Chiang. Entries are then divided into 2 groups: children’s stories and picture stories. In the picture story group, there were excellent standards regardless of whether they were for awards or the publication of works. This allowed local picture book writing talents with initiative to have a fixed space to publish their works. The works were in competition for narrative, expressive drawing, and harmony of text and pictures. Although the works were created by newcomers but an established standard could still be maintained. Moreover, the competition was able to attain the approval and animation of the audience. This also served as an indirect announcement that there will no longer be a shortage in the local creation of picture books in Taiwan.
To date, there have been four terms of Mu Di Chiang, and a total of twenty-two books have been awarded prizes. This study takes composition, narrative, communication through pictures, and harmony of composition and pictures, and uses the methodology of text analysis. It makes a complete analytical investigation of all the picture book works that received awards in the four competitions. The research direction for composition and narrative had these aspects: themes and subject matter, roles, plot and the use of script, and methods of background and narrative viewpoint. The aspects for communication through pictures was media and technique, the creation of roles, the development of physical and facial body language, coloring, the creation of atmosphere and space, structure of pictorial narrative, communication style on the pictures’ surfaces, and cover and title page. For harmony of composition and pictures the considerations were: harmony of composition and pictures for the molding of characters, description of settings, harmony of plot development, and the harmony of composition and pictures on the pages’ lay-out etc.
The research results discovered:
1.) For the aspect of written narrative the first priority was given to imaginative categories. For theme and subject matter the majority of consideration was given to mental and physical development as well as conduct in affairs. For role depiction, images of ordinary people as well as personified images were the first priorities. The primary consideration for plot development was having a singular plot.
2.) For media and techniques for expression through pictures, the majority of considerations were simplicity of feelings. However, the layout design had less diversity. For physical and facial expressions, liveliness and entertainment-value were the major considerations. For role creation, design was the primary consideration. The considerations for the covers and title pages were both abilities to echo the contents of the stories.
3.) In character roles, the first priority for the depiction of settings was pictorial expression. For harmony on the printed page there was the tendency for the words to blend into the pictures as a consideration, and the deployment of the text and pictures on the printed page had very little variation. The spacing of the lettering had obvious expression through small deviations and ease for reading as considerations.
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