Blurb:

Very young pre-literate children sometimes surprise us by attending to a minor element in a picture book image rather than ‘the main event’, or may appear to enjoy one image or page without regard to its place as part of a continuous story. This suggests that part of the pedagogic work of a good picture book is to help train the child’s attention and organise the meanings within the page, as well as to provide links between sequential images to help construct the rhythm and shape of the story. These are matters relevant to the textual metafunction, which is concerned with integrating ideational and interpersonal meanings, packaging them within textual units, and linking them across units to create an organised and coherent whole. Topics include: 4.1 Textual meaning; 4.2 intermodal integration; 4.3 framing; 4.4 focus; 4.5 Visual textual meaning in Possum Magic