Picture This

I read a somewhat distressing article today in the New York Times about the decline in sales of picture books for kids. It's not all bad, of course -- kids are moving on to chapter books earlier -- but the idea that picture books are deemed too simple or won't help a child develop seems laughable to me. Our house is full of books and quite a few of them are absolutely brilliant picture books. Watching a child read again and again a stunning book like David Weisner's Tuesday or the more challenging Flotsam, you can see their minds working as they build the story in their mind, flipping back and forth between pages, totally immersed. I'm certainly all for moving on to chapter books but even at 41 years of age, there's a joy and a magic in a picture book that will never go away.