PICTURE BOOKS AND AGE - FOCUSING ON BRUNA ,DICK

When children read pictorial books, they seem to have their own ways o f reading, different from those of adults due mainly to their developm ental stages. Certain books are favored by children of certain age, bu t their popularity diminishes as children grow. Dick Bruna's pictorial books are typical cases. They are cherished mainly by children of thr ee to four years old, and the favor of children above five moves rapid ly to other books. This paper takes up Dick Bruna's books, and explica tes the reasons why they are favored only by three to four years old c hildren and are much less favored by older children. Findings from dev elopmental psychology show evidences that pictures and texts of Bruna' s books are basically understandable to children of ages three to four in terms of their cognition, thought, and language acquisition. Moreo ver, pictures and texts relate tightly with each other, both conveying the same stories. But often each of them contains the elements of the story which the other does not tell, so that pictures and texts compl iment each other. These unity and complementarity give the whole book an exquisite balance between pictures and texts, an essential charm of Bruna's books.