10 The Society of Children ’ s Books & Illustration Lovers – Newsletter # 1 – August 2013
lightning and a lightning bug . Nowhere is this more true than in a picture book .
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Both text and pictures have to appeal to the reader as well as ( or more than ) to the pre-schooler . This applies especially to books for babies where the adult is doing all the choosing . With older preschoolers who have a mind of their own , the subject -something they can relate to - Dogs ! Trucks ! Cats ! Planes ! Dinosaurs ! Kids ! -- becomes more important , as does a small plot . But always the colorful pictures and the rhythmic , rollicking , rolling or lulling words are what keep youngsters looking and listening and saying : “ Read it again !“ -- as well as keeping the adult reader from going berserk !
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For me a good picture book is one that works on different levels for both the adult and the child . One that can be read over and over and new things can be heard and seen . I also think reading a picture book is a performance . Good picture books often include sounds and phrases that emphasize this performance aspect .
I think that the best books for this audience are the ones that tap directly into a young child ' s experience , allowing him or her to enter the world the author and illustrator have created , no matter how unusual or fantastical , and to feel at home there . The storytelling should be straightforward and spare and the art needs to be uncluttered and clearly delineated . Repetition and rhymes sharpen the ears and often invite verbal responses . And who can resist opening a closed flap ?
� Limits . Good selection . Elimination . Young , in the question posed , I ’ d take out .
� A lot of what you put in , you should take out . Rewrite it until it ’ s really simple and terse , and if you can communicate an idea with a picture , eliminate the text .
� Limit the span of subject at hand , a lot of things often times are better imagined than imaged .
� Limited words , it ’ s a picture book .
� Limited palette , clean and bright and simple . Keep it open at the end ; it ’ s nice to want to want it read , again , and again .
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