Fewer children's picture books being published

In "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children," an article in today's New York Times, a few bookpublishers, writers, and parents observe that there's a trend to leave behind picture books for the "challenge" of chapter books.  Is this a good trend?  I'm not so sure.

Picture books often are more engaging and interesting than some of the chapter books that may appear more "grown up" to adults and the kids whom they are encouraging to read.  I think this observation is correct:

“To some degree, picture books force an analog way of thinking,” said Karen Lotz, the publisher of Candlewick Press in Somerville, Mass. “From picture to picture, as the reader interacts with the book, their imagination is filling in the missing themes.”

Picture books involve children's and adults' imagination, enable everyone to develop storytelling skills, and enhance visual literacy.  I think that developing visual literacy and understanding children's visual culture is so important that I'm teaching a graduate course on that this semester.

I do think that publishers are making a mistake of publishing many picture books in hard cover with a high price tag.  The marketing format of Golden Books -- good books at low price points that are sold at the checkout counter or other easy to find places -- should be followed again today.  Too often big stores, such as Target and Wal-Mart, sell primarily TV and movie tie-ins or extremely popular books.  Children's book publishers should be more aggressive in promoting inexpensive, high-quality picture books in paperback to these types of stores.  Scholastic does this in schools, but many pre-schools don't have the Scholastic connections.  Grandparents and aunts and uncles also usually don't get the Scholastic fliers.  Scholastic, of course, has its own consumeristic tendencies, but at least it always sells a few books that are priced at $5 or less.

The tendency for parents to think that chapter books are better than picture books suggests, perhaps, that parents aren't reading all of the popular chapter books, either.  Instead of reading another Magic Tree House book, parents, teachers, and librarians should make the effort to get elementary school kids to read engaging non-fiction picture books -- such as The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley and drawings by Brian Selznick, The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Greg Couch, or books by the incredibly imaginative Peter Sis, such as The Three Golden Keys and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. Or here's a good link from a recent School Library Journal article on "Inventions: Waiting for Eureka" that mentions several similar type books including The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors by Chris Barton illustrated by Tony Persiani, which was a fun read, and Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor, written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully.

It's curious that at the same time that there's an interest by male readers 18-34 in graphic novels and comics, the adults that are guiding the youngest readers are insisting that books that comprise mainly of text are the way to go.  But readers of graphic novels and comics are clearly sensitive to price points, as yesterday's report at New York's Comic-Con on these readers has noted. It's curious that just a 20 cent change in price point causes a significant decrese in purchases: "The complaint of high prices was discussed as well, along with the statistics that the average cover price of a comic book in the second quarter of 2010 is now $3.53, up from $3.38 in 2009."  Maybe the picture book publishers should take heed and publish more paper backs at more reasonable prices.

Because, like it or not, we live in a culture that's as much visual driven as word driven. Kids instinctively know that. To take away their ability to learn through picture books that combine visuals and words for chapter books seems counter-intuitive by adults.

Sunday morning breakfast reading in the Times

While the New York Times' essay about Alice in Wonderland appeared online Friday, the article, by Larry Rohter is in the Sunday print version (today).  How fun to drink coffee, eat English muffins and read about Alice in Wonderland.  The article by Dave Kehr about the re-releases of Alice-related What to wear to the Alice film, as suggested by Buzznetfilms on DVDs also is good. 

Tim Burton's Alice seems to be fighting violence, just as contemporary culture is struggling with fighting violence and figuring out justice.  I don't think that's quite what Lewis Carroll was working out with the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but it's always up for re-interpretation and re-imagination. When we went to Hot Topics on Friday night for the pre-release of Almost Alice, it's clear that the merchandise for Burton's Alice is darker, geared specifically to teens (mainly girls, and a few who are tweens), and follows in the vein of steampunk. 

A white stone day, as Lewis Carroll would note

It looks like I was on the mark about the new Alice in Wonderland as a violent version for our times. Thanks to Larry Rohter, of the New York Times cultural desk, for interviewing me about Lewis Carroll and the Alice books and film.  It's great to find myself as one of his sources in his article "Drinking Blood: New Wonders of Alice's World". Rohter notes how Alice is re-interpreted by each generation, and that this one may respond well to a feminist, empowered teen-age girl fighting against a serious of odd characters in Underland, instead of getting married.

When Lewis Carroll had a particularly memorable day, he would write that he 'marked this day with a white stone.'  I would mark being a source in the Times as a white stone day.

Now, I'm looking forward to seeing the film and hope to do it with a lot of Alice fans next Friday.  We'll see if this new twist, using Carroll's original characters, makes sense beyond the spectacle of 3D.

The modern Alice, fighting for what's right.

Oh, and I do want to disagree with Robert Zanuck, one of the film's producers.  He told Rohter, “It’s a piece of entertainment where you have a heroine off to another adventure at the end, and unless I’m wrong, people of all nationalities will just enjoy it as an entertainment and not try to interpret it.”  With Alice, there's always something interesting to interpret.  And judging by the numerous articles about the film, there are many people who are curious and want to reflect on what this Alice is about.  Interpretation is another word for 'critical thinking,' which is what we're trying to teach students from kindergarten through college. Alice does it all the time in the original Wonderland.