Picturebooks, lies and mindreading

Abstract

Children's literature is rife with lying characters. The identification and fabrication of lies both in the actual world and in literature involves socio-cultural factors (including ethical and ideological factors), discursive factors (semantics and pragmatics) and cognitive factors (related with the development of Theory of Mind). This latter factor may account for the coincidences between the development of the ability to produce and identify lies and the development of narrative in children suggested in this paper. The first part offers examples of how different ideological contexts have conditioned the reception and production of the cautionary fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in its classical version and in the version of Tony Ross's picturebook. The second part analyses several portrayals of characters lying in picturebook narratives (by Eva Eriksson; Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks; and Rindert Kromhout and Annemarie van Haerigen), showing how the interplay of words and images helps the reader recognise lies, characters’ intentions and unreliable verbal statements, and providing arguments for the role of fiction in socialisation and, specifically, for the role of picturebooks in training mindreading. Cognitive science (developmental aspects of Theory of Mind), cognitive criticism, narrative theory and picturebook theory are used as a framework to understand the demands that the identification of lies places on the implied readers of these stories and, consequently, the opportunities these stories provide to children to develop literary reading and intersubjective social skills.

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