November is Picture Book Month

Created by author and storyteller Dianne de Las Casas, along with a group of other authors and illustrators, this annual celebration promotes print picture books in various ways throughout the month.  Every day in November, a Picture Book Month Champion blogs on the importance of picture books.  There are also themes that educators and librarians can adopt, ranging from farms to bears to music.  There are also links to a number of book activities and curriculum guides.

School Library Journal recently became a partner of the annual celebration, and Oprah's blog is excited to celebrate.  The Horn Book has joined in celebrating the event as well, posting picture-book-themed articles online.  Among them is a vintage essay from 1957 titled, “What Is a Picture Book?” from Caldecott Medal Books 1938-1957.  And Barbara Bader had an interesting article, “Absorbing Pictures and What They Say,” in which she compares a number of children’s picture books such as Madeline and The House on East 88^th Street and describes why the illustrations are so central to enriching and telling the story, and how they provoke young imaginations.

I came across a flier at GSLIS the other day for Picture Book Month, and I was curious since I had never heard about it before.  Turns out it was started last year after this article came out, and as a reaction against more children’s books going digital.  de Las Casas explains, “We are doing this because in this digital age where people are predicting the coming death of print books, picture books (the print kind) need love.  And the world needs picture books.  There’s nothing like the physical page of a beautifully crafted book.”