Child literature books can be characterized considering the existence of illustrations associated to words. However, when evaluating if illustrations have an artistic-esthetic value which, in the reading process, can increase the meaning construction possibilities or if the illustrator work gives only color and shape to the verbal part without offering any new meaning possibility, those are doubts that can arise during the analysis of this kind of text considering the great diversity of published titles. This study aims to answer that question based on the description and analysis of the book cover from two different editions - 1991 and 2003 - of Ah, cambaxirra se eu pudesse..., a popular short story adapted by Ana Maria Machado, and illustrated by Gerson Conforto and Graça Lima respectively. Based on this analysis the concepts of art and aesthetics (CROCE, 2001; FIORIN, 1999; HUISMAN, 1994) are made, and also concerning the reading process and the relation between the illustrator and the reader in the perspective of a mediated reading experience (ISER, 1979), as well as in the semiotics point of view (GREIMAS; FONTANILLE, 1993; GREIMAS, 2002). In conclusion, some directions are outlined in order to answer the question that guided this study. Those directions pointed to the idea that the illustrations of a child literature picture book can be evaluated taking into account the constructed meaning resulting from the interaction reader-text in the illustration reading process.
illustration; child literature; reading
