picture books | Barbara Frank Online

An article in the New York Times suggests that sales of picture books for children are slumping because today’s overeager parents push their children to read chapter books instead.

Perhaps. But I’m in agreement with many of the article’s commenters, who say that picture books have simply gotten too expensive, especially given the current state of the economy. Many say they prefer to buy picture books at garage sales or check them out at the public library.

A commenter who’s a librarian notes that she checked the circulation stats of her library’s picture books and discovered a 10% increase in check-out rates over the past year. That would seem to indicate that the commenters are on the right track and perhaps the writer of the article was blowing the issue out of proportion.

That said, you can go in any bookstore and see all sorts of books that are quite beautiful, but whose plot lines are lame, if they have plots at all. My kids’ favorite books usually had strong plots, ones that they anticipated every time we read aloud together.

What do you think? Are parents pushing their kids into chapter books, or is it just that picture books cost too much?

The next time you buy a picture book for your small children, or for a young relative or a friend, would you consider buying Where’s Chimpy?

It’s the story of a little girl named Misty who can’t find her favorite toy, a stuffed monkey. It’s bedtime but she can’t go to sleep without him. So she and her dad retrace her steps and find an assortment of other treasures she misplaced that day before they finally find Chimpy.

I know this doesn’t sound like an unusually spectacular book, but here’s the thing: Misty has Down syndrome. She’s the main character of the story, and she’s in every photo in the book.

So little children who read this book (or have it read to them) will hopefully see Misty as a little girl, not someone with a disability. You know how little ones like to have books read to them over and over? Maybe after reading Where’s Chimpy? enough times, young children won’t think twice about Misty being any different from them.

And maybe, as they get older, instead of staring at other children with Down syndrome, they’ll smile at them, or maybe not even notice anything different about them. That would be cool….and a nice change.

BTW, we have a well-used paperback copy of Where’s Chimpy?, but I also have my own hardcover copy of this book because I like it so much. 🙂