Picture Books Aren't the "Easy Way Out"

The unedited version of this illustration is from Oliver Jeffers' Lost and Found.

Picture books have undeniable charm. The right one will stick with you for life. We all have a favourite and cherished book from our younger years. The perfect combination of illustrations and effective words can make anyone smile and your heart feel three sizes bigger. I'm still drawn to picture books. A beautiful cover illustration forces me to open the pages until I'm in a trance that others may call "reading an entire picture book in a bookstore." I have no children of my own, I'm an only child so there are no nieces or nephews around, and I'm not a children's book writer. Still, my picture book collection is slowly expanding.

Unfortunately, some writers think of picture books as the "easy way out." I've heard it many times and it's always disheartening: Someone gets frustrated with the idea of writing a novel (it's admittedly not for everyone) and decides instead to write books for children. I'm not against novel writers trying out picture books because some authors are talented enough to write both without any problems. However, writing a picture book only because they contain "a few simple sentences" is not the right approach.

Picture books are complex. The good ones, anyway. You know how difficult it is to compose a thought within Twitter's 140 character limitation? Well, try writing about achieving your dreams, the importance of sharing, the power of friendship, or how to deal with grief in thirty sentences. Writing a picture book isn't all about rhyming a few words together and cutting and pasting a cute illustration or two. Even Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss required a certain imaginative mind and a mastery of the English language.

Picture books require very special writers. A picture book story either works really well or it doesn't work at all. There is just as much thought, hard work and imagination put into a picture book as there is in an adult fiction novel. It's silly to think that a smaller expected word count automatically means a picture book is easier to write. It takes a skilled writer to create a powerful story.