ABSTRACT
Gerard Genette introduced the concept of the paratext in his book, Palimpsests. He described the paratext as a threshold, an "undefined zone between the inside and the outside, a zone without any hard and fast boundary on either the inward side or the outward side". Genette conceptualized the overarching category of the paratext as constituted by epitexts and peritexts. This chapter describes and analyzes specific peritextual elements in three picturebooks. Throughout the analysis of the first picturebook, Tuesday by David Wiesner, include explanations about the nature of particular peritextual elements. In 1992 David Wiesner was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Tuesday, a wordless picturebook about airborne amphibians who invade a town one Tuesday evening. The analyses of peritextual elements in two other picturebooks provide further examples of the significant role of these multimodal and design components. Multiple classroom-based studies conducted by Lawrence Sipe and myself have featured attention to peritextual elements in picturebooks.
