Design and play for promoting early childhood literacy: an analysis of the book objects by Antonio Ladrillo and Elena Odriozola

Abstract

The materiality of picturebooks, along with the interplay between text and illustration, is integral to its definition and success as a key tool for initiating reading. This research presents an analysis of picturebooks for early childhood by two renowned Spanish artists, Antonio Ladrillo and Elena Odriozola, from various perspectives including semiotics, literature, and multimodality. The findings highlight the diverse ways in which picturebooks function as aesthetic objects for facilitating reading, underscoring the importance of these artistic endeavors in fostering a love of reading from an early age.