Searching the net: What makes a great picture book
8 The Society of Children’ s Books & Illustration Lovers – Newsletter # 1 – August 2013
Searching the net: What makes a great picture book
The following is a very interesting( and lengthy!) article about what makes a great picture book according to the answers of various children’ s books publishers and authors. I have edited the full version here so we can discuss the different points they make during our meeting. What do you think?
From: http:// marilynsinger. net / first / goodpicturebook. htm
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Remember what it’ s like to see spring for the first time? To get your first grown-up bed? To run in the park, on the beach, along the Brooklyn Promenade, and never want to slow down?? To find sneezes hilarious and wrapping paper the best toy in the world?
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To write a good young picture book, you not only have to remember these things, you have to relive them. You have to write with all the skill of an adult who understands words, rhythm, rhyme, character, and story and all the heart and soul of a child who understands joy, anger, sorrow, and wonder in their purest form. It’ s the wedding of our present and past selves that allows us to write a good young picture book. Then the illustrator completes the picture in every sense of the word.
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A fabulous young picture book should be the perfect combination of simple, yet fetching art, and lively, memorable text. A young picture book must be MEANT to be read aloud--full of delicious words and phrases that will roll off the tongue and beg to be repeated by the young listener. Repetition, alliteration, rhyme, and animal sounds might all contribute. Best of all, if the book speaks, in some way, to the littlest reader ' s experience, it will be a favorite!
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A book for the very young should have words that swing and pictures that grab the eye. There should be enough in it that is familiar, to offer comfort, and enough that is new, to spark interest and create a sense of adventure.
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