I think picture books are terrific in the classroom. One big reason is, they’re short, and teachers are pressed for time. Their lesson plans are constrained. And here are complete stories that use, you know, interesting storytelling techniques to make a point or to convey an experience. So anything – you want to teach dramatic irony, you want to teach about science –
There are picture books about anything. You want to teach genre, you can go through picture books. I think a big mistake people make is that – is to think that children’s books or picture books are a genre. They’re not. They’re a form. They’re a way to tell a story. And every different genre is represented within it. So I think checking in with a librarian or looking through picture books – whatever your lesson plan, very likely it can be connected to a picture book.
In terms of teaching visual art and how it works for picture books, I think it can always be useful to separate the text from image and really to break a picture book down, to read it without showing the pictures either before or afterward and show how it’s either completely diminished or oftentimes just totally nonsensical without those pictures.
And that’s a great first step to a conversation about how picture books amplify or complete storytelling in a picture book.
