The purpose of this guide is similar to what Munari proposed in his workshops, though its approach is the opposite: to educate concepts and, through them, cultivate expert gestures. It aims to provide the vocabulary to focus on the form rather than on the content—in other words, on the decisions and gestures that have gone into creating these works.
The picture book is fertile ground for children (and adults too) to understand aesthetic or literary reading as a game of rules, where every element matters, and where paying attention to small discoveries allows us to inhabit the work and fill its voids, fostering multiple interpretations. It is, therefore, an invitation to a type of reading that remains attuned to how the various languages of a picture book operate, how they interweave, and their aesthetic dimension.
This guide is intended to be an accessible resource designed to offer basic coordinates for learning to look at picture books and read images.