News: Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children (+ Discussion Question)

[fashion_piranha]

original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/us/08picture.html
Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children
By JULIE BOSMAN
Published: October 7, 2010
Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then

Comments

[atdelphi]

Just a few of my favourites, copies of which are definitely slated for any future niece or nephew's library, are Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne, Animalia by Graeme Base, and absolutely anything by Robert Munsch.

I was a very early reader, and catapulting into chapter books at a young age certainly helped make me a stronger reader-but it's all on Robert Munsch for making me a writer.

[fashion_piranha]

Oh my gosh, I LOVE Robert Munsch! I'd completely forgotten about him 'til just now, too...I really liked 'The Paper Bag Princess' and 'Purple Green and Yellow'.

[janicu]

I saw this via twitter the other week. Apparently the blogger @ The Zen Leaf had to write a post about her quotes being taken out of context. Makes me think that this whole article is slanted in the direction the journalist wanted to take. http://zenleaf.amandagignac.com/2010/10/when-quotes-are-taken-out-of-context.html

[fashion_piranha]

Oh, I am sure it was. Isn't that what reporters do, slant things to suit the needs of the article? (Objective reporters are like the Easter Bunny; I don't think I believe in them anymore.)

Also - Kit Williams' Masquerade must have been such an exciting book when it first came out :D

[janicu]

Oh, and I liked the picture books by Kit Williams, and the Beauty and the Beast illustrated by Angela Barrett is lovely (though it's got lots of words too, so I can't tell if this disqualifies it).

[cookiethief]

i don't find this to be true, working in kid's bookselling here! i find that people coming in looking for baby showers/birthdays love talking with someone who has knowledge of recent picture books, rather than the classics, because they want to get something for the kid that possibly the parents (or other guests) don't know about/aren't buying already. i had a teacher in the other day who bought a heavy handful of recent-ish picture books for her classroom to "share the joy of expression through illustration." one of my favorite parts of working there is finding the right picture books for people. :)

my favorites: harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs by ian whybrow, the true story of the three little pigs by john scieszka (or any of the trucktown books), lost and found by oliver jeffers, falling angels by colin thompson, and 365 penguins by jean-luc fromental.

[fashion_piranha]

I'm glad to hear that picture books are doing well where you work!

[katemacetak]

My favorite picture book as a kid was "Too Many Books" by Caroline Feller Bauer. It's out of print now, sadly.

I also loved Richard Scarry books. Especially the "Best Word Book Ever."

I work in a library, so I see kids books all the time. I love everything Mo Willems does. I'm also a fan of the "biddle books" by David Kirk. (And, kids still check out lots of picture books here!)