ABSTRACT
Series typically include an accumulation of books, whose number varies from two up to a hundred books and even more, and can come into being as a result of a further demand for a sequel, most often in the case of successful novels and movies, but also picturebooks. Moreover, a series raises certain expectations on the part of the reader and covers all elements: setting, characters, plot, theme, and narrator's voice. The investigation of series is closely related to issues of repetition and continuity, singularity and iterability, sequences and episodes, and unity and open-endedness. The apparent sameness of the story line and the characters in picturebook series points to the paradigm of repetitiveness, which is a significant property of serial narratology. A comprehensive understanding of the cognitive, narrative, and aesthetic affordances of picturebook series demands an interdisciplinary approach that includes findings from literary studies, multimodal discourse, developmental psychology, pedagogy, literacy studies, and narratology.
