Abstract :
In this article, we want to present and analyse the picture book The
World has no Corners (2006/1999) by the Norwegian author and illustrator Svein
Nyhus. The book represents a new trend in Norwegian picture books for children by
inviting the readers into a world of thinking and wondering about existential topics
such as life and death, growing up and getting old, God, children’s relationship to
nature, etc. The picture book does not give clear answers to the questions that are
raised, but has a potential for exploratory dialogues between child and adult readers.
In our analyses of verbal text and images—and the relation between these—we
build on social semiotic theory by Halliday, Kress and van Leeuwen, reception
theory by Eco and Iser, and aesthetic theory represented by Dewey and Rorty.
Through analyses of some selected spreads, we want to show both the framework
keeping the readers inside the text, and the indeterminacies inviting the readers to
wonder and speculate about the questions raised. We also want to draw attention
towards a special way of co-reading of the spreads. Compared with the process of
reading picture books where the adults often confirm or correct the child readers’way of putting their interpretation into spoken language, the co-reading between
children and adults in this picture book seems to be rather existential and poetic as
well as democratic. We will shed light upon this reading process, as we consider it
as a way of the readers fortifying themselves into the world
