Pausing at the Threshold: Peritextual Images in Young Adult Nonfiction Award Winners.

Gerard Genette defines the "peritext" as those parts of a book that wrap around the book but are not part of the book proper. Such elements include the book jacket, title page, table of contents, foreword, glossary, index, and so on. These elements can serve various functions, and giving careful attention to these framing elements can enhance the reading experience. Sometimes these elements contain, or consist wholly of, images that help to promote reading of the book or provide supplemental information to that contained within the book proper. In this essay, we use Gross and Latham's peritextual literacy framework (PLF) as a means for investigating how peritextual images serve the promotional and supplemental functions as defined by the PLF of winners of the Young Adult Library Services Association's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. We also employ Serafini's categories of representational, interpersonal, and compositional structures in examining how these images serve to arouse curiosity and to provide additional information that enhances the reading experience and invites readers to cross the threshold and enter the text proper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]