[bksvol-discuss] Re: Image Descriptions in Children's Books
- From: "Estelnalissi" <airadil@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 15:21:07 -0400
Dear Courtney and Susan,
Thank you so much for your offers! I wouldn't be overwhelming either of you
with work because I don't do huge quantities of books because of my vision
limitations. I have to move to tasks like regular proofreading which don't
require vision when eye fatigue from studying illustrations sets in. I do
try and reserve one book in my 5 book queue for a children's book which
needs picture descriptions because as a very low vision child, reading
braille and talking books, I wondered if there were pictures and what they
showed.
As a teacher, I couldn't see pictures fast enough to describe them as I
read, so each day I chose a different child from the class to describe them.
I always thought that blind parents might be frustrated about not knowing
the picture descriptions of picture books they read in braille to their
pre-schoolers.
If an author and publisher agree illustrations are important, then I feel it
is a plus for blind readers to know what is going on in the pictures,
especially when they contain details not covered in the text.
Back to your offers. Courtney, I'd love feedback for improvements I can make
in wording,, not too many words, grammar, and clarity. I'm reading a book by
an author who thanked his editor for helping him say in three words what he
said in five, so to speak.
Susan, What kind of help did you give Cindy? If there were two volunteers
willing to help me, I could alternate between you or see who had the time to
help as I finished a book.
Since readers are individuals, I realize some would like more description
and others like less. All I know to do on that count is mark the beginning
and end of descriptions so readers can skip them. I used to put a simple
explanation of my description format as a readers note at the beginning of a
book.
I have also thought it would be good to put the description after the text
that it illustrates instead of at the top or bottom of the page. Putting
descriptions at the tops and bottoms of pages usually puts them out of sinc
with the text, interrupting sentences and ideas. I have pages that
illustrate that, too.
Thanks for your quick, generous answers!
Always with love,
Lissi
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