Picture Book Illustrations and Children’s Identity Formation The Case of Fiep Westendorp’s Jip and Janneke

This paper explores the impact of picture book illustrations on children’s identity formation. It looks specifically at the case of Fiep Westendorp’s iconic illustrations of Annie M. G. Schmidt’s classic Dutch picture book series Jip en Janneke. In picture books, the main characters are often over-personalised or animalised. In contrast, Westendorp’s black-and-white figures of Jip and Janneke allow a different type of relationship to emerge between the young reader and the image. Furthermore, the colourful backgrounds of Westendorp’s illustrations anchor the characters culturally in Dutch daily life rather than in imaginative fiction. Her illustrations therefore contribute to the definition, construction and reinforcement of a child’s layers of identity (individual, gender, cultural and national). Using semiotics, educational and narrative theories, this paper analyses the role of Westendorp’s visual narratives in the formation of children’s identities.