In my essay I am going to be talking about the book ‘Voices in the Park’ by Anthony Browne. I will be discussing what makes this book special and what special techniques Anthony Browne uses in his writing to describe his characters.
Anthony Browne hides clues inside the pictures of his stories. He does this to give the readers hints and clues about what's happening in the story. For example when someone is sad, the pictures look very lonely and dark, but when someone is happy the picture are beautiful and fun, with a happy spotlight on the main characters.
Anthony Browne also changes colours in his pictures to show the characters’ emotions. He does this to show how the character feels, but hides this in the pictures instead of writing it into the story. For example, on page 10 the picture shows that the character is lonely because the trees have no leaves and the buildings are dark and are hiding in the shadows. Another example is on page 20, where the characters are playing on the monkey bars. The colours in the picture are bright and they look like they are having fun. He made the picture like this to show that the characters are happy.
Anthony Browne uses different types of fonts to show you what the character is really like. He does this to show what personality the characters have. For example, the poor little girl ‘Smudge’ had messy handwriting to show she is poor and maybe doesn't go to school, and the rich boy ‘Charles’ had neat handwriting to show that he is rich and maybe goes to a rich school.
In this essay I have talked about what Anthony Browne does to make stories that help me use my inferencing skills. I love reading his books because they have pictures that have clues hidden in them. I think Anthony Browne is a very interesting author and illustrator.
