Tell Me What You Like in Picture Books

Torgo

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It's Friday afternoon, and the Bank Holiday weekend is stretching out in front of us, glittering with infinite possibilities. Yes, I have a whole three days to lie on the couch watching reruns of Mission: Impossible! (Last night I was faintly offended by one of my favourite ever reference books, the New Biographical Dictionary of Film, when Thomson described Martin Landau as 'dankly enduring'.)

Anyway, I'd be very interested to hear from the denizens of Writing for Kids on the subject of What You Like in Picture Books. For grubby commercial reasons I'm only really interested in what you like to buy - even if you're buying picture books as presents or as art books for yourself. It doesn't matter where you are - the UK, the USA or elsewhere - as my agents are everywhere.

Which authors / illustrators do you like? Are there things you'd buy if only they existed? Do you pay any attention to branding i.e. who publishes a book? What do your kids ask you to read over and over again?

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts, so if you could spare a little time to think about this and post, I'd be much obliged.

EDIT: I'm not conducting any sort of organized, paid or remotely scientific research here - just some thoughts for a slow afternoon.
 
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I miss the person and the art of Trina Schart Hyman.

I love the work of Juan Wijngaard.

I wish that water colourist Ann Fitch, primarily known for her lovely beer label art for New Belgium Brewery, did children's books.

 
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Smish

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I don't read a lot of picture books, but I do buy them for children on occasion. I always choose humorous PBs, with lovely illustrations.

Usually, though, I purchase a magazine subscription for the child -usually Babybug, Ladybug, or Spider.

(Sorry PB writers. Nothing against you or your books. I'm just selfish. I want the kids to be reminded of cool 'Aunt Smish' every month. :D )
 

sissybaby

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All three of my kids LOVED! There's a Monster at the End of This Book by Furry Old Grover. Our copy has been around since my oldest (now nearly 32) was little. It's a bit (well, rather more than a bit, actually), worse for wear, but we had so much hilarious fun with it. Can't start to read it to my granddaughter.

Other than just plain old ridiculously funny, my favorites are the ones that rhyme - IF the rhyme is done very well. Otherwise, spare me, please. Anything by Robert Louis Stevenson - yeah, I'm really old, but his stuff is timeless.
 

SheilaJG

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I love picture books. A whole story in 32 pages!

I like books that my kids pull off the shelf just to look at the pictures, because they are beautiful, or they have stuff hidden in them (Adele and Simon, Elisa Kleven's books, Emma Chichester Clark). I like books with surprise endings (The lion and the little bird). Books with humor (Peggy Rathmann, Mini Grey, Julia Donaldson, Adam Rex,).
And I love books that inspire my kids to get creative, either by copying the artist, or their idea (Weslandia - make your own civilization. Dougal the garbage dump bear inspired them to make a story out of photographs of their own stuffed animals).

Hope that helps!
 

MsJudy

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My first graders crave humor above all else.

Mo Willems' Pigeon books are the absolute A#1 favorites.
SkippyJon Jones (the first book) ranks pretty high.
Anything by David Shannon. In fact, my students are nagging me because I don't own 2 of his books, and they insist I complete my collection.
Imogene's Antlers is another one they can't resist.
Jonathan London's Froggy books, especially Froggy's First Kiss.
Karma Wilson's Bear books (Bear Sleeps On, etc.)
Anything with an infectious rhythm, like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
Anything and everything Dr. Seuss, of course.
Bread and Jam for Francis, when we're in a classic mood.
Harry the Dirty Dog. Actually, almost any books about funny dogs.
Bad Kitty and the sequel, Poor Puppy.
Jane Yolen's Dinosaur books--How do Dinosaurs Sleep, etc.
Margaret Wise Brown still delights the young ones, too.

I teach a mixture of native-English and Spanish-speaking children, so I tend to stay away from long picture books or complicated/poetic books. I know the second and third grade teachers at my school love Chris Van Allsburg, but I'm not as fond of his stuff as they are.

I also teach a lot with PBs that explore other cultures. Our social studies curriculum is built around studying one continent each month of the school year. So I collect folk tales from around the world, non-fiction PBs about animals like tigers and pandas, and books that show real children's lives like How My Parents Learned to Eat, Counting on Safari, Too Many Tamales and Grace Lin's books.

I find that first graders have a HUGE curiosity about the world and love learning about other languages, cultures, traditions. There are more and more books coming out that show moments in the lives of Asian or Asian-American children. It's much harder to find similar books about modern African or Latino children (who aren't Dora the Explorer.) I'd love to see a book about a young boy from Ghana or Kenya or South Africa or Guatemala or Brazil that shows what village life is like while also being an engaging story an American child could relate to.
 

Ivan_B

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I don't read many Picture Books since I have no children and I write for the slightly older age group, but I have much more respect for Picture Books that deal with something fairly substantial but on a simple level. I don't mean necessarily "Little Timmy experiences his parents' divorce", but something with a bit of depth makes the parents come back to the story too, not just the kids.
I also love humour, inventiveness, detailed and unique pictures, and I really dislike the anthropomorphism of any fruit, vegetables, garden furniture, medical equipment, etc...
 

MsJudy

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hey, no picking on garden furniture... I'd love to see the barbecue run amok.
 

Ivan_B

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Billy the Barbeque runs amok. There we go, the next big PB hit.
 

ebennet68

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I'm a second grade teacher and although most of them transition to short chapter books by the end of the year, picture books are still in high demand. They love the books of Janet Stevens, David Shannon and the SkippyJon Jones books.
 

Kitty Pryde

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Ditto SkippyJon Jones, David Shannon, and Mo Willems. Love! Last month I waited in line an hour to have David Shannon autograph "No, David!" for my friend's kid David. He wrote "To Another David, Love, David Shannon" in that funny shaky font he uses. I also love the How Do Dinosaurs series by Jane Yolen. I think the words are quite reassuring for young kids, and the pictures are wonderfully entertaining. I love anything that is smart and not insipid.

I also love multicultural PBs, especially adventures featuring little kids of color, ESPECIALLY little girls. Not strictly an adventure, but "happy to be nappy" by bell hooks is beautiful, and carries an important message (your hair is pretty, and please sit still long enough for your mom to style it). I long for someone to write and illustrate stuff as brilliantly as Ezra Jack Keats did. His stuff isn't entirely timeless, though it is wonderful. All the kids I buy books for are african-american or multi-racial, and I find that books featuring protagonists that look like them are very limited.

If you were wondering, there is only picture book featuring an exciting fantasy adventure of a little african-american girl. Raising Dragons. Trust me when I say that even the princessy girls love a good dinosaur/dragon/monster/killer robot/superhero as much as the next white boy does, but the books featuring them just aren't there. One little friend has taken to reading Marvel and DC comics, which are not super appropriate, what with all the killin and sexin and whatnot. But she loves the superheros of color like Cyborg and Green Lantern and Storm and Arana and uh, some girl who turns into animals. In her mind, when she's not being princess of everything, she's flying around saving the day.
 

Torgo

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I don't read many Picture Books since I have no children and I write for the slightly older age group, but I have much more respect for Picture Books that deal with something fairly substantial but on a simple level. I don't mean necessarily "Little Timmy experiences his parents' divorce", but something with a bit of depth makes the parents come back to the story too, not just the kids.
I also love humour, inventiveness, detailed and unique pictures, and I really dislike the anthropomorphism of any fruit, vegetables, garden furniture, medical equipment, etc...

Congratulations on your book deal, by the way! You're in good hands with Eve.

I prescribe a bit of Anthony Browne.
 

Torgo

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A consistent theme coming through seems to be that people really like funny picture books, and there is little clamour for sweet, warm & fuzzy; which aligns with my own tastes - I'll take a PB that makes me laugh over just about anything.

Also very interesting responses from the US contingent - e.g
They love the books of Janet Stevens, David Shannon and the SkippyJon Jones books
- I am not familiar with any of those. Googling about a bit, I think it's the art style that looks very American and won't work in the UK. That can be a real shame sometimes - we got offered a book the other day from a US publisher which made me laugh out loud on just about every page, and I don't think we'll buy it.