Passion for the Picture Book

By Bethany Hegedus

As far as doom and gloom scenarios go, nothing has been harder hit in our industry than the picture book. Last fall, there was the New York Times piece, Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children. The article, by Julie Bosman, opens:

Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher.

Unpopular? Ouch. According to Bosman:

The economic downturn is certainly a major factor, but many in the industry see an additional reason for the slump. Parents have begun pressing their kindergartners and first graders to leave the picture book behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Publishers cite pressures from parents who are mindful of increasingly rigorous standardized testing in schools.

Ah-ha, the culprit is the new parenting method, oh-so-well documented in the parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. No wonder the NYT article warranted 387 comments from parents, publishers, and others about the lazy reporting. Main source, San Antonio, Texas mother Amanda Gignac even wrote her own blog response titled “When Quotes Are Taken Out of Context.”

Later, Publisher’sWeekly printed its own take on the whole brouhaha with its article, “Don’t Write the Obit for the Picture Book Yet,” which reported, as evidenced by Bookscan, that picture book sales in 2010 represented, “10.8% of the overall children’s market—virtually the same as in 2005, when they represented 10.7%.”

So, things are not as bad or as bleak as they were made to sound, but here at Hunger Mountain, the whole discussion pointed to a lack of understanding of the craft and care that goes into what is— in whatever form the picture book may take— a perpetual staple of childhood. Picture books are not only learning tools, meant to help children decode language and build their story skills, they are also a tool to help create human bonds—between child and adult reader. Being read a story, whether or not it happens as infrequently as the American nuclear family sits down to the dining room table for a meal, creates lasting memories.

Picture books are not building blocks—meant to catapult the child into reading. Look to Easy Readers for that. Picture books are the merging of text and art, care and craftsmanship on the part of author, illustrator, agent, editor, and all those in publishing, and when done well, picture books are pure magic. They raise the hair on your arms, tickle your spine, and delight the child inside.

In honor of the picture book, we have gathered quotes from some of our industry’s best and brightest—creators and advocates all for the neverending Passion for the Picture Book. Enjoy their memories and musings, and witness their strength, wisdom, and artistic muscle exercised between the covers of the picture book.

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Kathi Appelt, Newbery Honor winning author for The Underneath, author of numerous picture books.

Picture Book: Past, Present, Future

Who knows what new forms this pairing of art/story will take in the near future?  But one thing is for sure:  the act of sharing a story, enhanced by wonderful art and vice versa, will continue to thrive despite the naysayers.  It’s as integral to us humans as walking and breathing.

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Maybe the form will change, as it has in the past, from cave art to scrolls to illuminated manuscripts to current day incarnations.  But regardless of the form, there is hardly anything more magical than sitting in a circle of two or more and sharing a story.

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When we adults participate in this act, we’re invoking those cave dwelling ancestors who used their firelight to create stories on their walls, and at the same time, we’re inviting our youngsters to step into the cave and then emerge with their own firelit stories.  We’re never too young, nor too old for this.  Never. –Kathi Appelt

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Jane Yolen, author of Owl Moon, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, The Emperor and the Kite, and other picture books.

Literature begins in the cradle. I believe firmly in that credo. And so picture books–along with nursery rhymes and young tales–are the most important part of building a literate culture. Yes, learning the alphabet one letter at a time a la Sesame Street is a building block. Yes, grammar lessons, the fight between see-and-say and phonics pholks, and spelling bees have their places. But without the picture books that become a child reader’s first love, 99% of the readers would never love reading. –Jane Yolen

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Philip Stead, author of A Sick Day for Amos McGhee, winner of the 2010 Caldecott Award.

Books are not static things.  We move with them.  We feel their weight in our backpacks.  We carry them in moving boxes and up flights of stairs.  We are not home until our books are on the shelf.  We pull them down, turn their pages, and in doing so are able to feel a story completely.

Books, good books, are slow, both in the making and in the reading.  They do not move at the speed of electricity but at the deliberate speed of a turning page. –Philip Stead

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Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of Santa Knows and Holler Loudly

We all begin with the language of images. We all began that way as babes in arms. We all began that way as members of the human family, starting with the earliest cave drawings. Perhaps even before those. The picture book builds on that early, almost instinctive, visual literacy and fosters our vocabulary, introduces concepts, and nurtures emotional bandwidth. Moreover, the picture book does all this while entertaining, informing, and delighting readers of all ages. It offers both a foundation for our youngest and treasured touchstone for everyone in the world of books and beyond. –Cynthia Leitich Smith

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Toni Buzzeo, author of  The Sea Chest, Dawdle Duckling and other picture books.

While everything seems to have changed in the world of children’s publishing over the past fifty years, in actuality, in matters of great importance—the books themselves—nothing has changed. A picture book is still the delicious portal to another reality, not simply through text on a page, but through the shared magic of text and fully realized illustration. Even I, as a picture book author, don’t realize what my story is all about until a brilliant illustrator shows me the details of setting, secondary characters, and unfolding subplots. Even I, as an educator writing curriculum, gasp at the brilliance of a turn of phrase that fully encapsulates a small character in five words or less. Even I, as a children’s librarian, hoot with delight when the illustrator reinterprets the words of the author in a sly and pleasing fashion. All the more, of course, will that magic captivate the young child, guileless and open, who experiences that perfect marriage of word and art, whether by turning the page or clicking the key. No, things haven’t really changed very much at all. –Toni Buzzeo

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Tami Lewis Brown, author of Soar, Elinor

The Importance of the Picture Book

At their best, nonfiction picture books are bite-sized slices of truth. Their focus is tight. What inspired one record breaking athlete to rise from asthma patient to the gold medal podium at the Olympics? How did one of the most usual species of birds go from filling the skies to almost extinct and how can we fight to save them? Nonfiction picture books ask

children these kinds of questions with both words and pictures, inviting a child to piece together their own story. They inspire children not only to find answers but to ask their own questions. –Tami Lewis Brown

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Liz Garton Scanlon, author of Caldecott Honor All the World and new release Noodle and Lou.

Picture books are the most magical of “educational tools” in that they are an intimate pleasure—whether shared on a mother’s lap or in a classroom or on a library’s story steps. The learning (of narrative, language and literacy) is so invisible as to feel accidental. It is the pleasure that is noticed, and remembered.

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I remember the tiniest details of Patrick Will Grow by Gladys Baker Bond—the grandmother’shousecoat, Patrick’s ankles and socks. I remember the actual page turns from Blueberries for Sal. And I remember the bedspread in my parents’ room, my mom or dad in the middle, my sister and I, each on one side. Now it is me in the middle, or my husband, and our two daughters lying each on one side. The details they remember will be different but the connection—to story and to each other—is the same.

Kids study the picture books we share with them. They memorize every word. They expect to be comforted, to be tickled, to be surprised, to be put to sleep. They expect to be reassured, to be uplifted, to be left with a sense of hope and possibility. It’s a daunting proposition, writing for an audience with such a high bar. A daunting, thrilling, luckiest of propositions.–Liz Garton Scanlon

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Lindsey Lane, author of Snuggle Mountain

Beloved by All Ages

True story: Last week, my fourteen year old climbed into my bed with four books: Eloise (Thompson), The Pig is in the Pantry, The Cat is on the Shelf (Mozelle), Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Viorst) and How Spider Saved Halloween (Kraus). “Please read to me, Mom.” I looked at the short stack of books she held in her long, strong arms and smiled. How many times had she wagged a stack bigger than she could carry to my bed and said, “Read to me, Mom.” Of course, I read to her. Then and Now. It makes sense to me that a middle schooler would want their mom to read to them. After all, the perils of these early teen years are enormous: hormones, cliques, high school on the horizon. Why not curl up in one small moment where you’ve always felt completely safe and loved and comforted. –Lindsey Lane

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Emily Van Beek, agent Folio Lit.

I moved a lot as a kid—from one country to another, from one school to another, from one language to another.  One constant, no matter what—reading.  Every single night, my parents read to me.  Changing houses, missing friends, swapping classrooms—I couldn’t necessarily count on the outside world.  But I could, always, count on a book and the act of being read to.  Picture books inspired me to work in children’s book publishing and to become a literary agent.  It’s impossible to quantify how much picture books have meant to me over the years.  I am deeply, deeply honored to work with remarkable picture book authors and artists today and will continue to work in service to this great art form. –EmilyVan Beek

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Kristy Dempsey, author and Teacher-Librarian — American School of Belo Horizonte

A picture book is often the first exposure a child has to the written word. It is a tactile and visual experience even before it is linguistic experience, but it is that very interaction with letters on the page that lays the foundation for language and literacy. It is first a shared experience between a literate adult and a pre-literate child. The emotional connection the child feels to the reader fosters a love for books and reading. What a privilege to be a part of that moment in a child’s life! –Kristy Dempsey

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Kate McMullan, author of I Stink!, I’m Big!, I’m Dirty,! I’m Mighty! and other picture books.

If I were a parent with academic ambitions for my kids, I’d head straight to the picture book section of my library or book store. Good picture books appeal to the widest audience possible, from toddlers to great-grandparents. Because there’s something for everyone, and it’s a pleasure to read and listen to them over and over again. A picture book can tell a rich, complex

story using sophisticated vocabulary because the grown-up reading to the child is right there to answer questions or talk about ideas that may bubble up. I have librarian friends who see picture books as vehicles for performance art, giving them an opportunity to invent different voices for different characters to the delight of their story-hour patrons. The story in a picture book is told with a combination of words and pictures, promoting visual literacy. And one should never underestimate the snuggle factor of a child sitting in a lap looking at pictures and listening to a good story. –Kate McMullan

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Linnea Heaney, Hunger Mountain contributor, “A Real Best Friend.”

A picture book opens doors for a young child.

A picture book opens doors for a young child.

While being read to as an infant, she feels the close warmth and touch and love of a parent or grandparent. She begins to understand the world beyond herself, her home. Line and color intrigues her imagination. The stories lull her to sleep, calm her for a rest, and sprinkle her life with new sounds, words, and ideas. Values and cultural references anchor her life.

Gaining independence, she pretends to read. She learns the joy of art and expresses herself. In preschool, she shares picture books and experiences with friends and teachers. She learns pre-reading skills: that reading goes left to right, that letters are sounds to make words, and that words are the keys to really reading.

Growing into her school life, picture books are an inspiration to go other places. She learns to read and write. Stories in picture books provide bridges for her learning. She opens more doors all on her own. And when needed, picture books are a port to linger in, where words and art leave space for her thoughts. Picture books are her touchstones, for laughter, for sadness.

A picture book opens the mind for every age.–Linnea Heaney

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Jennifer Rosenthal Forgash, NYC, parent

What The Picture Book Means to My Family
We read at least two before bed—and often that turns into 5 or 8. Toddlers everywhere would revolt and throw tantrums if you denied them their cat in the hat. –Jennifer Rosenthal Forgash

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Eric Van Raepenbusch, dad and book blogger

I am a stay at home dad of three children; my oldest is five years old. Before my oldest was even a year old, I decided I was going to read as much as I could with her. We began by attending story times at the library and reading before bed and nap times. With each passing year our family has become more and more passionate about picture books as we fill large bags each time we head to the library and extend some books with an activity. We find some activities on the website of authors or just make them up!

The countless hours of experiencing the artwork, rhymes, and emotions in picture books has been priceless.  My daughter is a confident reader at the age of five. When I hear her read with emotion and feeling it makes me proud.  –Eric Van Raepenbusch

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Amy M. Weir, youth services librarian, and blogger

The Magic of the Medium

Picture books are one place where electronic media will never wipe out the traditional book.  That’s because a picture book is not just a vessel for delivering a story—it’s a complete art form.  A typical visual artist, whose work you see in galleries, creates a single picture to convey their meaning.  The picture book artist creates a series of pictures, each often of as high artistic quality as that gallery piece, that build upon one another to convey an entire story. The pictures interplay with the words to bring more meaning to each. The page turns and endpapers are often as much a part of the story as the pages in the middle.

Picture books are for spreading open and studying, and if you think that’s just scholarly book nerds we’re talking about, you’ve never seen a young child on their own with a picture book—a prereading child, staring at each page, picking out every detail, retelling the familiar story in their head (or guessing about the story they haven’t heard yet). And if you’ve never seen a young child looking at a picture book on their own, you haven’t looked hard enough. Kids DO love books when we give them the opportunity to explore them. –Amy M. Weir

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Melanie Hope Greenberg, author/illustrator

My philosophy as an illustrator is to dig deep into the author’s story for it’s magic. By that I mean it’s message or the invisible glue that drives a book on for 32 pages. Breaking the text down to discover the story’s narrative arc, pacing or where to turn the page, figure out my compositions, thumbnails, story boards, dummies, and final art becomes alchemical. Transcending the text is total magic when I can relay silent sub plot stories within the art.  When I was a young girl my world vision was shaped in part by looking at picture books. They aided my reading skills by visually identifying objects first before I knew how to read their names. With that memory in mind, my approach to illustrating picture books is to keep that magical osmosis alive. My art must convey the author’s story in a way that is clear and detailed. My goal is to broaden a child’s vision and help them learn to read. –Melanie Hope Greenberg

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Kara LaReau, President of Blue Bird Works and author of Ugly Fish, Rabbit & Squirrel: A Tale of War and Peas and others.

Why picture books? It was the most natural leap for me, from poetry. And like poetry, the picture book form has its constraints. Emotional resonance in thirty-two pages, including endpapers and front and back matter? Yes, please! I love a challenge.

And I love writing a story with an artist in mind. A picture book is truly a team effort, and I live for creative collaboration. It’s like whistling a tune and realizing someone else is whistling with you, but in perfect harmony. –Kara LaReau

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Holly M. McGhee, President of Pippin Properties

As a little girl I was hooked by Madeline, and I never wanted to leave her behind. But one day in third grade, I walked into my school library, and Mrs. Carrier, the librarian, said, “Holly, I think I have a book you might like.”  She handed me Holly in the Snow, a chapter book about a girl named Holly and a whole lot of snow. I said goodbye to Madeline, but I’ve always been grateful to her.  She opened my world to words and pictures (with a little push from my mom, who apparently had phoned Mrs. Carrier, worried that I was “stuck” in picture books).

As a mother, I distinctly remember the first book each of my kids laughed at, the one book where they first “got the joke,” Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  And my son, who’s now five, is completely obsessed with Snow White (the Randall Jarrell translation). He’s hooked by the words and pictures, with their singular strong hold.  My eight-year-old daughter came home recently, bursting to show me the best book she had EVER read, The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg.  She’s hooked too, the same way I still am.

My oldest, now nearly twelve, was pulling books off the shelf before she could sit up, and her books keep her company to this day.  For this, I’m so grateful, for I’d rather she learn about the world through the safety of a book than anywhere else.

That’s why I do what I do behind the scenes—what greater gift can we give our children than to open the door to words and pictures?   What greater gift than to show them the power and wonder of imagination, which keeps us company in the loneliest and darkest of hours–and is there for all the good times, too.  I believe in imagination, and I believe in picture books. –Holly M. McGhee

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Jane Kohuth, author of Ducks Go Vroom, and the forthcoming Etsie, the Mensch, and runner-up in the 2010 Katherine Paterson Prize for “Something At the Hill”

As a young child, books without illustration did not hold my attention the way picture books did, and I remember pondering, like Alice, why anyone would wish to read a book without pictures.  I spent a long time lingering on particular pages, studying the art that fascinated me, in a manner that wouldn’t have been possible with a moving image on TV or on a computer.  Along with words and narrative, I learned concentration and contemplation from my picture books.  And hearing words read aloud taught me to love the sound of language along with its capacity for meaning.  But there’s more.

My mother is fond of the story of my preschool entrance interview, where I introduced myself as Frances and my newborn baby sister as Gloria, the names of Russell Hoban’s famous badger characters. At two, I related to Frances—so much so that I was pretending to be her for the day.  I understood that my experiences and the experiences of another little girl could be alike, that we could have similar feelings about similar situations, and that life could be reflected back at me on the page in a way that made my life make more sense.  Books were exciting and comforting at the same time. By spending time with picture books, I was already on my way to building the strong imagination necessary for empathy, a skill as important to navigating life as the ability to read.  And despite not being pushed from picture books to chapter books, I did learn to read—right on schedule. –Jane Kohuth

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Erin E. Stead, Caldecott Medal-winning and New York Times bestselling illustrator

Sometimes I come across a book I haven’t seen since I was little, and I am surprised at the book’s size. In my memory, the picture book is much larger because I was a much smaller person. While the convenience of an e-book is valid, if paper books are removed from the equation, we remove an opportunity for a child. It’s an opportunity to be consumed by the breadth of a double-paged spread the way an adult can suddenly stand still in front of a large painting. When I was little, a book could fill periphery if it needed to, or, when it was called for, could be a tiny moment in my hand.

One of the most beautiful things about paper picture books is their limitation. They are limited to 32 pages, which cause careful rhythm and pacing. An e-book is limited to a 5×7 screen and that is where it ends. It can be any number of pages and have any number of activities attached to each page. It may allow a child to sit and react, but does not necessarily allow them to sit and absorb– to listen to the voice of a parent, teacher, or friend. Or, to no voice at all. It could be a moment for them. A child could sit alone, hands on both ends of the book that fills their periphery, making their own decisions to turn the page. –Erin E. Stead

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Renata Liwska, illustrator, The Quiet Book, The Loud Book, and others.

When Art and Text get together it can be magic, especially if they meet as equals or partners—both working together to contribute in their own special way. I don’t think it’s much fun just following someone around, repeating what they say and do. A lot more can be accomplished if Art and Text chip in to do their own bit. Depending on the situation Text is often better at doing certain things and Art is better at other stuff.  What they can accomplish together is magical.

And if they aren’t working well together, well, that’s where an editor can help.–Renata Liwska

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Sarah Sullivan, author of Once Upon a Baby Brother, Passing the Music Down, and Hunger Mountain article “Walking the Songlines.”

Picture books awaken the soul and nurture the spirit. They spark imagination. They introduce kids to complex concepts that might otherwise be inaccessible to them until their reading comprehension skills are far more developed.  While picture books may well evolve into e-picture books, I still hope the picture book survives in some form.  I don’t want to imagine a world without them. –Sarah Sullivan

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