Picture Books

What exactly is a picture book?

This may seem like a silly question. "It's a book with pictures for kids, Dummy," you might be thinking. But there is more to it than that as I have learned over the years.

First off, there is a difference between an Illustrated Story and a true Picture Book. (Although, people basically call them all picture books.) But if you go to the bookstore or library, you can see the difference for yourself.

An Illustrated Story is a book for children that tells a story and has illustrations that accompany the story. Think most fairy tale books. There's the story and every page or so, a picture of some scene from the text. This is a story with illustrations.

A true Picture Book is a pairing of story and illustration. One may be able to live without the other, but the book overall relies on both. I'll give an example.

ROSIE'S WALK by Pat Hutchins is a classic and one of my favorites. (In fact, ROSIE'S WALK, in part, inspired me to write my picture book MURIEL'S RED SWEATER.)

In ROSIE'S WALK there is a story about a chicken who goes for a walk around the farm and gets back home in time for dinner. Now, if you just read the printed page, that's all you would know. But, Hutchins' illustrations add a whole other layer to the tale. We see a fox trying to catch the chicken. At every turn, the fox is thwarted (in a humorous manner) and Rosie makes it back home. Here, the book entirely depends on the marriage of story and illustration.

ROSIE'S WALK is an "extreme" example, if you will. But, the concept is the same. Whenever the pictures add to the story, instead of just capturing a moment in the text, then you have a true picture book.

Editors know this. Librarians know this. If you are both author and illustrator, pairing the two most likely comes naturally. The challenge for an author of picture books is to leave enough room for the illustrator to do his or her thing and add to the story.

And when this happens, you can feel the affect, even if you couldn't name it before. You are reading a true picture book.