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Exploring books for children: words and pictures

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The image shows the little girl, Hannah, sitting at the breakfast table, with her back to the viewer. She is positioned in the foreground, in the centre of the illustration. Her body is partly obscured by two parallel wooden bars that form the back of her chair. She is wearing a bright red jumper, and her long brown hair is tied up in a ponytail. She is propping her arms and elbows on the table as she eats her breakfast. On the table, to her right, is a glass of milk and, just behind that, a blue-and-white box of cereal with an illustration of a monkey on it. On her left is a pair of blue-and-white striped salt-and-pepper shakers and a blue-and-white striped sugar bowl. Hannah’s father is sitting opposite her, facing the viewer. He is clean-shaven, with short fair hair neatly brushed into a side parting. He is having coffee in a blue-and-white striped mug. He is dressed for work in an office in a dark suit, blue shirt and dark tie. He has a rather dour expression on his face, and is not looking at Hannah at all, but is absorbed in reading his broadsheet newspaper. Between them is the white expanse of table cloth. The floor on either side of the table is made up of black-and-white squares in a chequerboard pattern. Behind the father, and framing his figure, is a white refrigerator. On either side of him are two pairs of blue kitchen cupboards, one pair high up on the kitchen wall and the other pair below a white countertop. The kitchen cupboards all have grey metal handles. The kitchen wall around the cupboards is covered in small white tiles. The countertop has very few items on it. On the far left, under the cupboards, a blue-chequered plate and biscuit tin lean side-by-side against the kitchen wall. On the right, under the other set of cupboards, a neatly folded, blue-and-white dish towel hangs from a rail. Further over to the right, on the far edge of the illustration, is a white electric socket with a plug in it.

 7 Analysing images: composition and symbolism