Multimodal Forms: Examining Text, Image, and Visual Literacy in Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief

In 2008, the graphic novel Skim was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in Canada. Cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki collaborated on the YA graphic novel, which follows JapaneseCanadian teenager Kimberly (Skim) Keiko Cameron after a suicide shocks her Catholic high school. Mariko contributed to the text, while Jillian composed the illustrations. In interviews, both artists emphasized their collaborative process on Skim, one that saw little separation between text and image. Skim was published by Canadian publishing house Groundwood Books, an imprint of the House of Anansi Press, well known for outstanding publications in children’s and adolescent literature. Although the novel was recommended for adolescents over the age of 14, the physical shape of Skim resembles a children’s picture book. Oversized, slim, and larger than a typical graphic novel, Skim’s physicality was carefully designed. At times, large, two-page illustrations fill the pages, and at others, text takes precedence. For these and other innovations, Skim was praised and well received by critics. However, its nomination for a Governor General’s Literary Award soon came under close scrutiny and became the subject of a literary controversy. At the time of nomination, the Governor General’s Awards had yet to introduce a nomination category that recognizes graphic novels. Instead, jurors had to decide whether Skim should be entered into either the category for “Children’s Text” or the category for “Children’s Illustration.” Rather than recognizing the graphic novel as displaying an integral relationship between text and image, jurors nominated Mariko Tamaki for the text of the book, while neglecting to also recognize Jillian Tamaki for her illustrative work. Like many graphic novels, the text and image in Skim are viewed as inseparable, not easily compartmentalized into distinct parts. Isolating the text of Skim, many critics argued, meant devaluing the book as a whole. Indeed, Mariko Tamaki noted, “I suppose it can be argued that one could read the text and look at the illustrations of a children’s book separately, but that’s impossible with a graphic novel” (Nelles, 2009, para. 2). Both Jillian and Mariko expressed their regret that a nomination for the Governor General’s Award necessitated the separation of the text from the illustration in Skim. Jillian commented, “We have always been co-creators. We were not put together (by a publisher). Wepitched the book together. It’s been Jillian and Mariko the entire time” (The Calgary Herald, 2008, para. 13).

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