ABSTRACT
Niño Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales (2013) is a story of a young boy who wrestles imaginary supernatural opponents and wins with child-created tactics only to face the most difficult challenge of all—his younger sisters. Sparse text relies on the vivid images of Morales to reveal this universal example of a child negotiating his identity at the intersection of story, culture, and reality. Reading with a sociocultural lens that speaks to the role of play in a child’s life, this young boy becomes a character through interpretive reproduction, negotiating the ideologies and realities of his world with that of his imaginary world, and revealing an awareness of socialization and agency. This analysis examines this book as a resistance to childism through demonstrations of agency within a child’s interpretive play as reflected in the illustrations. The analytical tools used in the analysis of visual images include focalization, character, and ambience through color. This analysis is informed by the argument that meaning must be supported by attention to the complex workings of the unique combination of elements comprising the communicative piece (picturebook).
