Inanimate Alice

• The white writing on top of the picture draws your eyes in and makes you focus on the stair case behind it, making the staircase the pinnacle of the picture.

• The frequent blurring/shadowing of the text gives off an eerie feeling and builds up suspense. It feels as if your technology is troubleshooting and you are sat waiting for something to happen/go wrong.

• The music accompanies this troubleshooting feeling with constant crackling and buzzing. This gives off a horror theme, making you anxious about what is going to happen next.

• The colours in the foreground are dark and morbid in contrast to the colours in the back ground which are much lighter and brighter. This could be implying that there is something dark that awaits Alice if she decides to climb the stairs.

• The picture is a photo of an urbanised, abandoned looking area with weeds and graffiti, which contributes to the dark and scary atmosphere. This also contributes to the modality of the text, as from my own experience it is not uncommon to find teenagers in similar places to that pictured.

• Your eyes are quickly drawn to the central white arrows on the page which are signifying the next scene. This could be a way of encouraging the audience to carry on watching, with the suspense being built through the colours and music and leaving the audience wanting to know what happens next.

• The writing is not a typical text font, it is in a hand-written style font which makes the story seem more personal to Alice, as if she is writing about what she did and what happened to her.

The Gruffalo

• Black writing on a white background draws the reader in and stands out on the page. The white background also creates the idea of no limits and infiniteness and this could be related to the fact that the story is set in a forest and forests are seen as large boundaryless spaces. 
• The sentences are short to ensure easy reading, a feature commonly found in young children’s books but they could also be short as the pictures are supposed to tell the story and the writing just reinforces and clarifies the storyline/events.

• The images also allow young children to follow and retell the story, regardless of if they can read.

• The writing on the left page is positioned in a way that creates tension, this combined with the close up illustrations of the Gruffalo’s features: ‘tusks, claws and teeth’, create a sense of fear. 

• The writing also produces a pattern that allows the reader to engage with the book in a ‘sing-song’ like way and this structure/pattern is repeated throughout the book through the use of rhymes.

• The pictures have soft edges on a white background so that they blend together and are easy on the eye.

• Although the mouse is the main character in the story, his size is proportionate to real life when compared to the other animals e.g. fox and owl, and this draws the eye to the new animal that has been introduced.

• The idea of a Gruffalo and the description of his ‘terrible’ features creates a tense, scary atmosphere but, the use of bright colours and a little mouse that takes you through the story a 'friendlier' tone is received, which may be more appropriate for its target audience.