TITLE:
Comparative Analysis between Chinese and Western Picture Books for Children in Safety Education
AUTHORS:
Zihan Xie
KEYWORDS:
Safety Education Picture Books for Children, Comparative Analysis, Early Childhood Education
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.12,
November
15,
2022
ABSTRACT: From the perspective of early childhood safety education, this study
takes the top 30 picture books for children in safety education from Dangdang
and Amazon as the research object, and conducts a comparative analysis between
Chinese and Western picture books from target age group, theme coverage, character
type and content presentation. The results show that both Chinese and western
picture books fail to provide a clear and reasonable target age group. They
have a similar proportion in theme coverage, but the Chinese picture books show
a high repetition in topic choice. They also share a similar preference of
human and animals as character type while western picture books show a richer
ethnic diversity. Case analysis of the six selected picture books shows a
dominant use of fresh and bright colors for both despite some improper uses of
colors in Chinese picture books; and a poor coordination between pictures and
texts, such as small fonts and large proportion of texts for both and a rigid
use of words in Chinese picture books. Content analysis reveals the challenges
and differences in creating interestingness and avoiding preaching. Suggestions
are also discussed.