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Picture Books for Children
Fiction, Folktales, and Poetry
Mary Northrup
American Library Association
Chicago | 2012
MARY NORTHRUP is the reference librarian at Metropolitan Community College–Maple Woods, Kansas City, Missouri. She has written for children, teachers, librarians, and writers. Her publication credits include several chapters in Writing and Publishing: The Librarians’ Handbook (American Library Association, 2010) and the books Short on Time, Long on Learning (Linworth, 2000) and American Computer Pioneers (Enslow, 1998). She has written for Writer’s Institute Publications, including four editions of Writer’s Guide to Current Children’s Books, and is a frequent contributor to its annual Children’s Writer Guide. She reviews for LMC: Library Media Connection and EMRO: Educational Media Reviews Online. Her articles have appeared in Book Links, Children’s Writer, and other publications. Northrup earned her master’s degree in library science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her undergraduate degree is in elementary education. She serves on the board of the Missouri Center for the Book.
© 2012 by the American Library Association. Any claim of copyright is subject to applicable limitations and exceptions, such as rights of fair use and library copying pursuant to Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. No copyright is claimed for content in the public domain, such as works of the U.S. government.
Extensive effort has gone into ensuring the reliability of the information in this book; however, the publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
ISBNs: 978-0-8389-1144-0 (paper); 978-0-8389-9439-9 (PDF); 978-0-8389-9460-3 (ePub); 978-0-8389-9461-0 (Kindle). For more information on digital formats, visit the ALA Store at alastore.ala.org and select eEditions.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Northrup, Mary.
Picture books for children : fiction, folktales, and poetry / Mary Northrup.
—Fifth edition.
p.cm
Revised edition of: Picture books for children / Patricia J. Cianciolo.
Fourth edition. 1997.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8389-1144-0 (alk. paper)
1. Picture books for children—Bibliography. 2. Illustrated children’s books—Bibliography. 3. Children—Books and reading—United States. I. Cianciolo, Patricia J. Picture books for children. II. Title.
Z1037.C565 2012
011.62—dc23
2011044734
Cover image © xgw1028/Shutterstock, Inc.
To Mom and Dad, who encouraged my love of reading and learning
Contents
Preface
1: The Picture Book: Where Words and Art Come Together
2: My Family and Myself
3: In My Community
4: Out in the World
5: The World of Imagination
6: Folktales and Fairy Tales
Suggested Resources: For Further Research into Picture Books
Appendix 1: Picture Books about Art
Appendix 2: Self-Referential Picture Books
Illustration Credits
Index
Preface
The purpose of this book is to present some of the best of children’s picture books for use in the classroom, library, or home. What an enjoyable experience it was to select, reading or rereading many picture books, experiencing the beauty of the words and the art.
The scope of the book includes fiction, poetry, and folktales/fairy tales. Nonfiction or informational picture books are not included, although fictionalized versions of historical events and lives are. If there was any doubt, I checked the Cataloging-in-Publication data and noted the Library of Congress subject headings to ensure that “Juvenile Fiction” was the subheading.
The books are intended for four- to eight-year-olds, although some indicate a younger or older age. Age designations, like reading levels, are guidelines only. Your child or class may enjoy certain of the books at age three, or ten, or older.
The selected books were in print as of the writing and span the years from 2000 to 2011, with the majority published in the last five years. The books are hardcover, unless specified as available only in paperback or library binding.
The audience for this book includes K–3 teachers, librarians in schools and public libraries, preservice teachers and librarians taking children’s literature courses, day care center teachers, parents and grandparents, homeschooling parents, other caregivers, and writers and aspiring writers who are interested in picture books. I hope that those in this audience will find the annotations helpful in selecting quality books for programming, classroom use, one-on-one sharing, and inspiration for books of the future.
I selected books from the very many I read to show the wide variety of styles in art and in story, to feature a broad range of authors and illustrators, to portray worldwide diversity, to provide a balance of female and male main characters, and to show the many subjects in picture books written to engage children. I included some of the books that have won awards that recognize excellence in picture books, including the Caldecott Medal, the Coretta Scott King Book Award, the Schneider Family Book Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, the Christopher Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Award, the Golden Kite Award, the Sydney Taylor Book Award, and the Américas Book Award. Books published in Canada are included, as well as books written for children in foreign countries—Japan, France, Germany, and others—before appearing in the United States.
Several alphabet books fall within the scope of this book. A classic subgenre of picture books, the best ones are clever, beautiful, surprising, or all of these. Some, such as Gennady Spirin’s A Apple Pie, are classic. Others, like Yuyi Morales’s Just in Case, feature an alphabet within the story.
I included poetry, although it is not strictly defined as fiction. Several of the books that feature poems, such as Oh, Brother! by Nikki Grimes, could also be considered fiction because they tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end and develop their characters. Quality picture books classified as poetry will, besides offering a pleasurable listening experience, aid in the appreciation of language which helps the child developing reading and writing skills.
Folktales, fairy tales, and other stories based on the oral traditions or traditional literature of countries are a natural for picture books. This book contains one chapter devoted to these. I included a variety of types of tales, including tales from other countries and cultures.
It is my hope that the readers of this book will find many titles to read to children and to select for, or borrow from, the library. Teachers and librarians, of course, know the value of libraries and the importance of support for public libraries and school libraries. Aspiring writers must read to learn their craft and so are usually big library supporters. Parents and caregivers in the know realize what a treasure their libraries are.
Might I also include a plea to support your independent bookstore when you purchase books for your own personal library? These local businesses make our cities unique and culturally vibrant. And if your city is home to a children’s bookstore, so much the better! Here in Kansas City, Missouri, we are fortunate to have the Reading Reptile, a treasure for the region.
A hearty thank-you goes to the Mid-Continent Public Library, whose employees at my local branch and throughout the system helped with a constant stream of interlibrary loan books. I could not have written this book without you.
Thank you, too, to the l
ibrarians and teachers who talked to me about books. It is always a pleasure to discuss picture books with professionals and to trade suggestions of favorites.
I would like to thank my editor at ALA Editions, Stephanie Zvirin. She is a joy to work with and is unfailingly upbeat and encouraging, no matter how many questions I ask. I must also thank Patricia J. Cianciolo, the author of four previous editions of Picture Books for Children published by the American Library Association, who paved the way for this book. Her books were a guidepost and an inspiration to me. And finally, my deep appreciation goes to Crockett Johnson, author of Harold and the Purple Crayon, and Maj Lindman, author of the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books. These are my earliest memories of picture books, and among my favorite books as a child. From these and other books in the children’s section of the public library I learned to love books and reading, school and learning, and, eventually, teaching and writing. Like all good picture books, their work lives on.
1
The Picture Book
Where Words and Art Come Together
Open a book and enter a new world. Open a picture book and enter that world magnified, through words and illustrations. The text and art in the picture book intertwine so completely that, in the best, we cannot imagine one without the other.
Think of the books that you remember from your childhood. Perhaps a classic, such as Make Way for Ducklings or The Little Engine that Could, or a character, such as Frances, Mike Mulligan, Curious George, or Madeline. Being read to and visiting a library, thrilled by the prospect of finding shelves full of choices, may be cherished memories. It is these moments that we, as librarians, teachers, and parents, wish for the children to whom we read and for whom we provide books.
Picture books encompass all subjects, fiction or nonfiction. Not just for the prereading crowd, they entertain and entrance the youngest children to adults. Their reach is far, and their power to inspire is wide. In this chapter we examine the picture book, its elements and structure, its uses and its future.
What Is a Picture Book?
With a small number of pages, and not too many words on each page, picture books appear to be the easiest children’s books—to read, to write, to analyze. But this perceived simplicity belies a complex art form. As in a poem, a genre to which the picture book has been compared, each word must count. The structure is rigid. Most important, the words and illustrations must work together: one supports and builds on the other, and even transforms it. The author of a picture book writes the text always mindful of how those words will be illustrated. The illustrator creates the art to integrate completely with the text.
A picture book usually contains thirty-two pages but can be longer or shorter, always in increments of eight pages. This standard came about because of the way pages are printed and bound. Of these thirty-two pages, twenty-eight or twenty-nine make up the story. The others include the title page, copyright page, and sometimes a dedication page or a double page for the title. Usually, then, the book contains fourteen double pages. Each page or two-page spread holds the words and illustrations that create one scene of the story. The page breaks supply a natural pause at the end of the words on that page. Page turns reveal a new scene of picture and text, and the story continues.
The number of words in a picture book is fewer than 1,000, and often considerably under that. Books that contain much longer text in relation to the illustrations are considered illustrated books rather than picture books. In these, one scene is portrayed on a page spread, out of several described in the accompanying text.
In the picture book, placement of the text and illustrations in relation to each other influences the pacing and mood of the story. Variations range from text and art separated, either on different pages or in a box or border on the same page, to both integrated on the same page, either as blocks of text within the illustration or in nonstandard form such as swirls or lines. In some, the words even become part of the illustration because of their form and shape.
How the illustrations and the text work with each other—that is the essence of the picture book. In some cases, the illustrations portray what the text indicates. In others, the illustrations provide more details that enrich the story. And in some instances, the illustrations and text contradict each other. Marla Frazee’s A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever takes this delightful contradiction to humorous heights. On one page, the text states that a character arrived “with just a couple of his belongings,” while the illustration shows at least five boxes, three bags, and a basket, all overflowing with items. The rest of the book offers more of the same, to hilarious effect.
Aside from the occasional picture book with purposeful contradiction, the text-art interaction should pass scanning for accuracy. Zena Sutherland in Children and Books states that children are strictly literal about the pictures agreeing with the words. They understand different styles and techniques, but will not be so understanding if the color stated in the text is not reflected in the illustration, or if the action described in the words appears on a different page in the illustrations.1
Some picture books do not consist of intact square or rectangular pages. Lois Ehlert’s Leaf Man contains pages cut into short spikes or curves on the top, lending a pleasing feel as pages are lifted and turned. Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett features bite marks, torn edges, and foldouts.
Because many picture book illustrations spread over two pages, how the “gutter” (where the two pages come together in the bound middle) is handled affects the illustration. The artwork should not show uneven matching along this line.
In addition to what is happening inside the book, the size and shape of the physical volume is also important. Whether a book is large, small, square, rectangular, horizontal, or vertical, its physical format was a considered decision made by the designers in relation to the subject of the book.
While picture books rely on the integration of text and art, wordless picture books consist of intriguing illustrations that encourage the young reader to tell the story in his or her words.
Books such as Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion & the Mouse and Barbara Lehman’s Museum Trip contain no words. The stories are told entirely through the illustrations. Wordless books offer interesting opportunities for storytelling interaction between the parent, teacher, or other adult reader and the child or children sharing the book.
Whether a parent is reading to a child alone, or a teacher or librarian is reading to a group of children, the adult has purchased or selected the book. Even if the child has picked it out from others on the bookshelf, the adult is usually the reason for that book being on the shelf to be selected. Teachers and librarians in school libraries or media centers read reviews and select books that they think the children will enjoy, but they also consider the curriculum and what books can be used to teach or supplement areas or concepts within it.
By age four, when they would be ready for the titles in this book, most children know the basics of print books: that they have a front and a back, and that a story is inside. Children who have not been read to will need more intensive instruction in the parts of a book in order to ensure literacy and reading success. A good school library or media center program will build upon this with all children to cover more sophisticated concepts concerning books.
The child, then, is ready to hear the story—often many times—and to recognize how it is read. After several readings, the child will be able to, with or without prompting, finish a sentence or chant a repetitive phrase. Asking questions, the adult reader encourages the child to use observation, sequencing, and speculation. The size and energy level of the group dictate the timing of this discussion, either during the story or at the end.
In all cases where picture books are used in instructional activities, adults must not lose sight of the fact that encouraging children to enjoy reading is of prime importance. Reading quality literature because it is an enjoyable leisure activity—that is what children should take aw
ay from instruction.
Many resources exist to help integrate picture books into the curriculum of the elementary grades. Some are mentioned in the suggested resources section at the end of this book. Professional publications for teachers and librarians, such as Book Links, also carry articles on making picture books an integral part of the curriculum.
While not within the scope of this book, picture books for the older child exist and flourish. Young people do not outgrow picture books even as they move on to chapter books; in fact, some picture books are appropriate only for older readers. Those for the young, including many included here, can be used with older children, especially in art and language arts classes.
Trends in Picture Books
Ever-Popular Subjects
Penguins and pirates and pink, oh my! And don’t forget the chickens. These subjects abound in recent picture books. Even before the popular documentary March of the Penguins (2005), these birds have graced everything from pajamas and plush animals to umbrellas and jewelry. Why not children’s books? Sergio Saves the Game! by Edel Rodriguez is just one of many, featuring a soccer-loving penguin.
With the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and theme park, and the natural attraction to bad-boy behavior, pirates are sailing high. Many of the current books feature comical pirates who take the scary edge off these buccaneers. Books such as Colin McNaughton’s Captain Abdul’s Little Treasure highlight the bumbling pirate.
Type pink as a keyword in an online library catalog and see how many picture books show up. Pink is big in clothing, bedspreads, backpacks, barrettes, and anything else marketed to little girls. Whether viewed as just giving them what they want or as a product of the corporate merchandising machine, pink has made its way into picture books. Pink Me Up by Charise Mericle Harper stars Violet, who adores the color. Feeling the need to rebel against all things pink? Not All Princesses Dress in Pink, by mother-daughter team Jane Yolen and Heidi E.Y. Stemple, acknowledges the longing to be a princess without all of “that color.”
Picture Books for Children Page 1
