Books, childhoods and materialities: a reflection on reading mediation

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the materiality of the books and their perspectives on the readers, approaching subjects such as accessibility, reading experience, intimacy and forms of mediation. Picture books are books that can cause us doubts on how to handle them and explore their limits due to their different formats, which may be folded, inside boxes, with content on their front and back; they may also have hard covers and be very large or very small. We placed as part of this group –and also the challenge in mediation – books in which it is necessary to show the object “book” to narrate a story, because the text is presented from one perspective and the image is presented from another, for example. However, we understand that these books, in which the intention with materiality is clearer, can affect the possible mediations with other books, people, worlds. After all, from babies to adults, how can we invite them to read using these object-books? How to notice the subtleties of materiality as part of the narrative? How to propose this dance of reading that these books allow? Readings that come and go, open and close, show surprises and instigate endless readings. You are invited to enjoy this article.