Such a sad article in Friday's Times: parents are turning away from buying picture books for their young children. They're buying “chapter books” - books of mostly text, young-adult fare – for their four-year-old and five-year-old and six-year-old children. Picture books go unread and unbought, and get sent back to the publishers.
Apparently, parents think picture books are kid stuff. They don't want their kids to fall behind. The sooner kids start reading “real” books, the sooner they'll be CEOs and doctors and Nobel Prize winners. And, even sadder, children are getting the message: they're asking for chapter books at earlier ages. They think picture books are kid stuff too.
Well, hmph. Chapter books are fine. But, even at my advanced age, I still like picture books. As Alice said a century and a half ago: “What is the use of a book without pictures and conversations?”
It would be silly, I know, to make the argument that there's some “natural” progression from books for non-readers to books for beginning readers, etc. What's the problem, after all, with reading “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (one of the books favored by parents for reading aloud to young children) to your kids, rather than “Goodnight Moon”?
Well, hmph again. “Oz” is lovely, I'm a big fan, but it's a snooze for a six-year-old. Try it if you don't believe me; it's terribly dated (though charming). Back in 1964, at the ripe age of seven, I checked “Winnie-the-Pooh” out of the local library, and I pored over it for a day or two, and I took it back again. My American rural background had not prepared me for expressions like “Bother!”
Picture books are a friendly introduction to the world of books in general. I can only speak for myself, but I can still remember someone bringing home one of those large-format books from the library – I think it was about a kitten and a puppy – and it was almost as big as I was. I was enthralled with the book, and with the illustrations (which I can still almost visualize). I think my love affair with print media started with that book. I have no recollection of the story – but what does that matter?
Folks, do yourselves a favor and go browsing in the picture-book section of your local bookstore / library. You will find such richness there. Some years ago, idly browsing, I came across a really charming book called “The Story of May,” by an author named Mordecai Gerstein; it's a very simple story that turns the twelve months into members of one large family (well, two intermarried families, but I don't want to give the plot away). May, a little girl, leaves home and goes from relative to relative, each in order through the year, on her way to visit her father December. Then she goes home again, to be with her mother April and her stepfather March (!).
May is never in danger for a second. She passes from one loving family member to the next, and she learns about her parents and why they don't live together anymore. And – for me this is most charming of all – we learn that, when there's a warm day in November or a cool day in July, the months are visiting one another again, the way May did.
The pictures are lovely.
Now that's a book.
I read it in the store, and I never forgot it. A couple of years later, I finally went out and found a copy on eBay because – guess what? - it was out of print.
When I pick up a children's book nowadays, I still ask myself: would I have liked this at six? At eight? At ten? The answer is still pretty obvious to me. I get bored after a page or two. Or I just keep reading and reading and reading . . .
The very saddest thing in the Times article is the disclosure that some kids nowadays are ashamed to read picture books.
That makes my heart hurt.
It makes me want to go read “Eloise,” just to cheer myself up.
And then maybe I'll pour a pitcher of water down the mail chute.
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