ABSTRACT
A theory of intertextuality of children’s literature challenges readers and writers of children’s literature to acknowledge the lost codes and practices and underlying discursive conventions by which it functions and has been defined historically. The theory of intertextuality of children’s literature is a rich field in which to engage young people’s awareness of the importance of the activity of making intertextual links in the interpretive process. Picture-book writers and illustrators are challenging conventional literary forms of children’s literature and breaking the codes. The theory of intertextuality was refined and extended by Jonathan Culler, and by Roland Barthes, who included the reader as a constituent component of intertextuality. Culler described intertextuality as the general discursive space in which meaning is made intelligible and possible, and Barthes invented the term ‘infinite intertextuality’ to refer to the intertextual codes by which readers make sense of a literary work, which he calls a ‘mirage of citations’.
