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In Persuit of Longer Picture Books

Make Way for Stories: There’s A Good Reason Why People Are Passing Up Picture Books is an article written in School Library Journal by author Anita Silvey in response to the NYT article Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children. Her premise: 

If I could chart a course to rescue picture books, I’d suggest that we establish the writer again as half of the equation. We need real stories, and long stories, that can be read more than once. I, by the way, don’t believe that critics change books. I believe geniuses—like Wanda Gag, Virginia Lee Burton, Robert McCloskey, Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, Ruth Krauss, Chris Van Allsburg, and more recently Shaun Tan—reinvent the form. Someone who creates contemporary picture books is probably working right now on a title that’ll revitalize our understanding of and ideas about picture books.

What do you think?

Comments

M Boone said…
I'm in the process of publishing a childrens picture book. It's going to be quite lengthy with the story and illustrations but no so long that the children will get bored. It's a very exciting story of a girl getting her first puppy and the puppy becomes lost....will the puppy be found in time? I'm very excited for this book to come out...hopefully right after the first of the year.
December 3, 2011 at 10:45 AM
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