Words matter. These are the best Picture Books Quotes from famous people such as Carol Ann Duffy, Anthony Browne, Denise Fleming, Margaret Mahy, Russell Smith, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’ll be left writing picture books and fairy tales.
Maurice Sendak is the daddy of them all when it comes to picture books – the words, the rhythm, the psychology, the design.
What excites me about picture books is the gap between pictures and words. Sometimes the pictures can tell a slightly different story or tell more about the story, about how someone is thinking or feeling.
Picture books are the distillation of an idea, and you have to use just the right words. I love that, and I try to use a lot of action verbs.
It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books.
The illustrations in picture books are the first paintings most children see, and because of that, they are incredibly important. What we see and share at that age stays with us for life.
My son craves picture books about Transformers and Ninja Turtles and the Hulk; they show one fantastic creature smashing or zapping another into smithereens on page after page. They are dull and ugly and show no interesting stories or models of conflict resolution or character building.
I think the reason I’m a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.
The great thing about making picture books is that you can make absolutely anything you want happen. It’s a bit like making a film, but you don’t need lots of money for actors and costumes – you just need pens, paper, and your imagination.
When you realize my best selling books are ‘Owl Moon,’ the ‘How Do Dinosaur’ books, and ‘Devil’s Arithmetic,’ how can the public make sense of that! I have fans who think I only write picture books or only write SF and fantasy. I have fanatics of my poetry and are stunned to find out I write prose, too!
One of my main decisions when accepting the job of Children’s Laureate was that I must continue working on picture books. If I don’t write and illustrate for some time, then I begin to question who I am.
Lots of kids, including my son, have trouble making the leap from reading words or a few sentences in picture books to chapter books. Chapters are often long… 10 pages can seem like a lifetime to a young reader. Then reading becomes laborious and serious. That’s why some of the chapters in my books are very short.
I read everything aloud, novels as well as picture books. I believe the eye and ear are different listeners. So as writers, we have to please both.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: writing picture books is an art – the art of word choice.
I can’t think of a story that doesn’t have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it’s dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.
As a father, I understand the importance of the bond that develops through reading picture books with your child.
Children’s picture books are a unique record of social evolution: in gender roles and racial politics, as is much discussed, but also in fashion and interior design.
I love writing picture books and story books because of the exciting, visual life that artists and illustrators give to them. And most of all, I love writing novels because of the inner, emotional journeys that they take me on. Hopefully, the reader comes with me!
Picture books are being marginalised. I get the feeling children are being pushed away from picture books earlier and earlier and being told to look at ‘proper’ books, which means books without pictures.
I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.
I always say it’s a shame picture books get such a bad rep. Illustrations are tough to sell older kids on!
Force me to choose my best book, and I always come back to ‘Gorilla.’ It was the first time I felt I understood what picture books could do.
It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.
I love picture books – with picture books, you can use words and pictures as a double act, even tell two different versions of a story at the same time.
In terms of age, I think I’ve covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel – and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people!
