The Best Children's Picture Books Future Generations May Never ...

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney, winner of the 2010 Caldecott

Childhood ain’t what it used to be.

According to the New York Times, picture books may become a thing of the past. In Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children, Julie Bosman writes,

“The picture book, a mainstay of children’s literature with its lavish illustrations, cheerful colors and large print wrapped in a glossy jacket, has been fading. It is not going away — perennials like the Sendaks and Seusses still sell well — but publishers have scaled back the number of titles they have released in the last several years, and booksellers across the country say sales have been suffering.

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.”

Classic children’s books will be around for some time. Too many people still have fond memories of their childhood books for them to die out quite yet. Can you imagine a world without Dr. Seuss or Eloise? Or these:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Curious George
Goodnight Moon
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Madeline
The Polar Express
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Where The Wild Things Are

The problem is the dwindling next generation of children’s picture books. With sales slowing, publishers will continue to be more reluctant to publish picture books. Misguided parents who continue to suck the joy out of children’s literature exacerbate the problem. It’s more than possible that they are the problem.

“They’re 4 years old, and their parents are getting them ‘Stuart Little,’ ” said Dara La Porte, the manager of the children’s department at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington. “I see children pick up picture books, and then the parents say, ‘You can do better than this, you can do more than this.’ It’s a terrible pressure parents are feeling — that somehow, I shouldn’t let my child have this picture book because she won’t get into Harvard.”

It’s pretty easy to argue that the desire to read and learn, joy in the written word, an appreciation of art and a healthy imagination can provide a good foundation for eventually getting into Harvard. The New York Public Library offers a wonderful page of 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know, starting with Abuela by Arthur Dorros and ending with Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster Tale From West Africa, retold and illustrated by Gerald McDermott. All points of the compass are represented in between, with classic and modern books on the list.

Of the books on the Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library’s list of the 100 Best Picture Books, twelve have been published in the last five years.

I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont, 2005
A Splendid Friend, Indeed by Suzanne Bloom, 2005.
Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel, 2005.
Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney, 2005.
Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie Harris, 2008.
Chickens to the Rescue by John Himmelman, 2006.
Mr. Pusskins and Little Whiskers: Another Love Story by Sam Lloyd, 2008.
Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor, 2006.
Let’s Play in the Forest by Claudia Rueda, 2006.
Mind Your Manners B.B. Wolf by Judy Sierra, 2007.
Clip-Clop by Nicola Smee, 2006.
Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard, 2007.

The list was published in 2009, so the 2010 Caldecott medal winner is not on it. The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney is a beautiful book made to inspire the imagination of children.

And that, of course, is what children’s picture books are all about. Illustrations don’t take the place of a child’s imagination, they enhance it and encourage it and bring extra life to a story. Children who are forced to read chapter books when they would rather peruse picture books will grow up with a sense that books are a necessary evil. They won’t have the memories of childhood stories to guide their book purchases for their own children. The tide has not yet completely turned, but if sales of picture books continues to decline, and over-zealous parental attitudes about education and literature increases, future generations may ensure the death of picture books through ignorance, indifference and a purely practical and pragmatic worldview that has no room for the childish joys of childhood. And that’s wrong.

via google.com

Commentary on the story from yesterday courtesy of CultureMob - http://culturemob.com/blog/.>