ABSTRACT
Picturebooks have great potential for subversion of adult power and interrogation of the existing order. The two narrative levels, the verbal and the visual, allow counterpoint and contradiction between the power structures presented by words and images. Far from all picturebook creators deliberately employ the dynamic word/image interaction, but even when the relationship is seemingly duplicative, the images can expand and enhance ideological statements of the words. In this chapter I will explore some picturebooks in which the tension between words and images amplifi es the position of the text toward power hierarchies.
