JUST THE FACTS PLEASE: The Basics of Picture Books
Monday, January 10—The Words and Pages
I have been around picture books forever it seems. I still have my collection of Little Golden Books from my childhood. When I was
JUST THE FACTS PLEASE: The Basics of Picture Books
Monday, January 10—The Words and Pages
I have been around picture books forever it seems. I still have my collection of Little Golden Books from my childhood. When I was in college majoring in elementary education we had kiddie lit courses and used picture books in lots of our lessons. Later, when I led educational programs, I used picture books with children and in “talks” with parents and volunteers. Then when I worked in publishing, picture books were often the source of our inspiration for illustrations and the style we’d use in some of our publications. And, of course, as a writing teacher I use picture books every day to demonstrate writing crafts and things professional writers do in their writing.
The first time I attended a picture book boot camp (with Linda Arms White and Laura Backas) I realized I had never thought of the structure of picture books. I had enough of a publishing background to know about signatures and folios, but I never stopped to “figure out” picture book construction.
Here’s the low-down:
1. As Marion Dane Bowers said at SCBWI, LA, “Picture books are short.” It’s true. Pict