Why Kids Need Picture Books

This article, which appeared in our school newsletter this month, has generated passionate response from librarians and teachers around the country. Several asked me for permission to print it and hand it out to help explain to parents why they should stop rushing their children into chapter books. I'm posting it here in case any of my readers missed it.





Last fall, the New York Times published an article with the description, “Picture Books Languish as Parents Push ‘Big Kids’ Books.” Although the recession and the high production costs are one reason that publishers are producing fewer picture books, another reason for the trend, seen in bookstores and libraries, is that parents want to move their children to chapter books as early as possible. Such families miss some of the most rewarding literature out there, along with the developmental steps that build deeper appreciation for longer literature at a later age. One of the most important parts of my job is helping and convincing parents to choose picture books to share with their children.

What is a picture book? The term can be misleading; it can be wordless, but most often a picture book has both pictures and narrative that work together, in the way that music and lyrics and form a whole. Like a poem, each word is carefully chosen. Young listeners don’t have the patience for lengthy exposition, so the writing is distilled to its essence. The illustrations tap issues of deep emotional significance, with visual puns, humor, beauty, suspense and subtlety that build thinking and reading skills for the future while satisfying the developmental needs of the present.




Most of us can remember our first picture books; along with the memory of the little bunny saying good night to all the items in his room, they often they stir a memory of someone holding us, a sense of deep togetherness. I love sharing a few classic picture books with 11-12 year olds at the end of the school year. These youngsters sigh with nostalgia as I show them Good Night Moon, Corduroy, Where the Wild Things Are and others. They are then amazed when I do a close reading of these classics, explicating the nuances and depth; typically a child will say, “I always knew I loved that book. But I never knew why.” There is an intensity to their memories, their deep affection for these books, that is far greater than with any chapter book from childhood.

The best picture books appeal to the minds and hearts of both children and the grownups who read them aloud. To do this they need to convey meaning on several levels. Young children make surprising inferences from the images as they listen to the text. They develop essential critical thinking skills as they use their imagination to fill in missing themes, make connections and ask questions. Often a child will turn back a page or two, making comparisons and noting subtle changes.






Ellen Handler Spitz, in her scholarly work Inside Picture Books, gives an example from a Harvard research project on children and picture books, exploring interpretations of the beloved Madeline. (Every year I encounter children of all ages who can recite this book verbatim.) After visiting Madeline in the hospital and seeing all her gifts after her appendectomy, all the little girls are shown back at school in their beds, arranged in two straight lines. Madeline’s bed is still empty. When Miss Clavel rushes in to ask what is the matter, they all cry “Boohoo/ We want to have our appendix out too!” Ask any adult why the girls are crying to have surgery, and the adult will make the inference that they girls are envious of Madeline’s presents. But virtually every 3-4 year old answers that the girls are crying because they miss their friend, pointing to the empty bed, troubled by the incompleteness. Writes Spitz, “With their alternative understanding, children expand our ethical, aesthetic and psychological takes on these books.” The parent who skips the hundreds of picture books that a child needs in favor of getting right to chapter books does the child no favor at all.



Pictorial conventions, and practice in interpreting signs and symbols, are also essential in our visually saturated world. When a child encounters story after story with pictures of mice, rabbits, dogs or other universalized characters, she learns to identify emotions from facial expressions and build empathy regardless of sex or ethnicity. Young children often struggle quietly to make sense of the world and how to interpret the words and actions of others. They all experience disturbing dreams, many worry about losing a loved ones -- but they don’t need the darker subject matter of novels for older children or the pedestrian chapter books that are intended to teach children to read independently. Picture books can help with mastery of fears (Bedtime for Frances), understanding consequences for disobedience (The Story About Ping), mental experimentation (Harold and the Purple Crayon), mastery of rage (Where the Wild Things Are) and unconditional love (Corduroy). They open up a world of inner possibilities for fantasy and transformation that nourish children in a unique way. At the same time, picture books often have far more sophisticated language than many chapter books – my 5 and 6 year old students and I relish such stunning vocabulary as indifferent, carnivorous, disinfectant, solitude, bamboozle, and harrowing, all from one book, William Steig’s Zeke Pippin. Only by encountering these kinds of words repeatedly can children make them their own.



Every year, I use picture books throughout the elementary grades in my teaching. And every year, a child of 7 or 6 or even 5 will proclaim, a trifle smugly, “I don’t read picture books anymore. I read CHAPTER BOOKS.” That child learns very quickly (I can get a trifle fierce) that such a claim carries no prestige here. And we carry on with the comforting, enriching, challenging and profoundly satisfying world of picture books.