Pictures That Think: The Art of Illustration in Children's Book with Dr Sarah Pye

Year Levels Prep - 9

Dr Sarah Pye brings a scholar's precision and an artist's eye to this session on the role of illustration in children's and YA literature. She unpacks how pictures don't just decorate stories, they carry meaning, create ambiguity, and sometimes say things the words deliberately don't. For younger students, this session is a revelation about how much they already know as visual readers. For older students, it opens up a sophisticated conversation about multimodal storytelling.

If you or one of your students would like to ask Karen a questions please contact yabba.online@yabba.org.au. 

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Building the Vote, Classroom Connection

  • Students add a 'visual response' to the voting wall, a small drawing or collage representing each YABBA title they've read.
  • Discuss: Does a book with beautiful illustrations have an unfair advantage in a popularity vote?
  • Students refine their reading journal entries, now adding notes on visual elements where relevant.
  • Countdown to ceremony: eight weeks to go. How many titles have students read? Set a final reading goal.

Classroom Activities

Years Foundation–2

  • Look at the pictures in a picture book before reading the words. What story does the art tell on its own?
  • Draw your own illustration for a favourite moment from a YABBA book, without worrying about art skill, focus on what you want to show.
  • Compare two illustrated books: how does the art style change the feeling of each story?
  • Make a class 'art gallery' of student illustrations and vote on which ones best capture their chosen story moment. 

 

Years 3–6

  • Close-look activity: choose one illustration from a shortlisted book. List five things you notice about composition, colour, and detail.
  • Write a paragraph from the perspective of a character in an illustration, what are they thinking that the words don't say?
  • Design a new cover for a YABBA shortlisted book. Consider: what would your choice of image communicate to a reader who's never seen the book?
  • Explore visual metaphor: find an illustration in a shortlisted book where the picture suggests something the text doesn't state directly.

Years 7–9

  • Analyse the relationship between text and image in a picture book or illustrated novel. Where do they align? Where do they diverge?
  • Research: how has the role of illustration in Australian children's literature changed over the past 30 years?
  • Write a critical response to the illustrative choices in one YABBA title, would different artistic choices change your reading of the book?
  • Create a visual essay: a sequence of images (drawn, collaged, or digitally made) that responds to a theme in a shortlisted title.

 

 

Victorian Curriculum Links
  • Reading and Viewing: Analysing multimodal texts and the relationship between visual and written elements (Levels 1–10)
  • Writing: Creating multimodal texts for authentic audiences (Levels 1–10)
  • Speaking and Listening: Explaining and justifying aesthetic responses (Levels 3–10)
FISO 2.0 Alignment
  • Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Multimodal literacy and critical visual analysis
  • Curriculum Planning and Assessment: Differentiated tasks across year levels using a shared artistic stimulus