The Analysis of Illustration on ‘I am as fast as cricket’ rhyme book
(written by Meita Annisa Nurhutami, et al)
The focus of the analysis about this book is the illustration because it is the most interesting topic. There are not too many words provide in the book and they become the outline from what the author try to deliver to the readers. Because the book is intended for children aged 5 to 7, the illustration must be more interest them, rather than the text. The pictures contain four important points that help the readers to get the message from each sentence. Those are the main character, supporting character, setting of place and choice of color appeared in the picture.
First, the picture supports the appearance of the main character. The illustration portrays a boy with his expression related to his mood and personality. For example, in the fourth and fifth page we can see how contrast the expressions are. I’m as sad as a basset (page 4). The boy in the picture is crying, his eyes are closed and tears fell down on his cheek. While the next page, he smiles and his face looks brighter than the previous picture.
There are also supporting character appeared in the picture to be compared with the main character because this poem mostly used metonymy as the figure of speech. Mostly the main character is compared with various animals to reinforce the sentence above. Each animal represents the personality of main character. For example, at the end of the poem, the main character that is a boy face a wall pull of pictures of animals which are given to sum up the previous pages. The illustration leads the story of the poem presented by the author. It tells about character of a boy which is supported by the illustrations. The pictures describe how strong, calm, even wild as printed in the book.
Third, the picture of setting of place in the story has a great deal to illustrate the poem. There are a lot of different and vary setting of place. Those setting are chosen appropriately depends on the mood of the character in every line of the poem. For example, the line ‘I’m as wild as a chimp’. The setting of the picture is in the forest which helps the reader to understand how wild the character is and also reinforce the adjective of ‘wild’ itself. It is because forest refers to something wild and freedom. Also, there is another setting which illustrates to reinforce the poem in the book. In the line, ‘I’m as brave as tiger’, the setting which represents ‘bravery’ is a place which is dark and there the character brings only a flashlight. This kind of setting symbolizes something which is full of danger, mystery or even spooky. The flashlight which is appeared in the picture resists the dark room which identically shows the bravery to resist fear.
The last point is the choice of color. The color which dominates the picture gives a psychological effect to reinforce the illustration on the book. For example, the line ‘I am as sad as basset. The blue color dominates the picture which illustrates this line. In the study of psychology, this color represents feeling of sadness, cold, calm, and loneliness. So, this color is very representing the adjective ‘sad’ and the whole message of the line as being sad. Another example for this point is the line ‘I am as happy as lark’. The color which dominantly in the picture is yellow and lime green. This color represents cheerful, brightness, and happiness.
A well crafted illustration in children’s literature is very useful to stimulate them to love reading literary works. The wonderful illustration, the short rhymes, the choice of color, the packages which is colorful is appropriate for the children readers because it is more attracting for them. Besides, pictures and colors lead the young reader to enrich their imaginations and visual knowledge. Therefore, writers or illustrators should choose a suitable illustration carefully for children’s literature because their reader is not easy interested to ‘ordinary’ works. In other words, works intended for young reader especially aged 5 to 7 has to be attracting in terms of its appearance.
