This article questions the place given to emotions in the teaching of reading comprehension and interpretation. Using contributions from cognitive psychology and literary criticism, we seek to articulate the two epistemologies applied to the didactics of reading, as well as to place this article in the said theoretical or speculative field of research in didactics. A children’s literature book, L’Herbier des fées (Lacombe & Perez, 2011), in its paper and digital format, will support a multimodal discourse analysis, as well as lead towards a final observation: the necessity to include, in teachers and students’ education, contents aiming at designing an image-based semiology.