I was very lucky to attend the Klaus Flugge Prize shortlist announcement last week. The prize is for the most promising and exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration. These are the books in contention.
I’m a huge fan of picture books. They have an enormous role to play for children of all ages. Is there any better route into reading for pleasure? Surely there is no aspect of literacy they do not benefit. Picture books are great for building empathy, and for supporting every area of social and emotional development. They increase children’s knowledge and understanding of the world. They develop thinking skills. They stimulate curiosity, imagination and creativity.
I felt very privileged to write a guest blog ‘In praise of picture books’ for the wonderful charity Give a Book recently. It gave me the opportunity to try to encapsulate all they offer and think through good practice in using them. They are on my mind again now as I am in the midst of preparing a picture books training course. All this has made me realise it might be useful to list some online and printed resources about picture books that I find particularly valuable.
- Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling by Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles, Laurence King, 2012, ISBN 9781856697385
- Developing Children’s Critical Thinking through Picturebooks by Mary Roche, Routledge, 2014, ISBN 9780415727723
- High Quality Picture Books for Cross-Curricular Planning
- Picture Book Den
- Picture Books from 0 to 90 by Marianne Bradnock, School Library Association, 2015, ISBN 9781903446850
- Power of Pictures
- Show Me a Story: Why Picture Books Matter ed Leonard S Marcus, Candlewick Press, 2012, ISBN 9780763635060
- Talking Beyond the Page: Reading and Responding to Picture Books ed Janet Evans, Routledge, 2009, ISBN 9780415476966
- Useful Resources for Picture Book Enthusiasts
- Why Older Readers Should Read Picture Books
At the start of this I mentioned the shortlisting event last week. Lauren Child gave a delightful talk about her development as an illustrator. This is one of the pictures she shared. How lovely to discover that the wall here is a National Trust one. She photographed that beautiful sky in Hackney. And the plants? They were growing in a New York allotment.
