You Are Not Alone: It’s Okay to Like Picture Books!

The year I turned 21, I moved to a new community—a new church—a new friend group.

And oddly enough, a new perspective on picture books.

The perspective was one that distills easily into two sentences: “You’re not alone! And you don’t need to pretend that you are.”

After all—what’s wrong with admitting you like picture books?

I, for one, am here to tell you, “There’s nothing wrong at all!”

Do You Like Picture Books for the Memories?

The picture books I like are a mixture of old and new—books I read as a child and others I discovered after I was grown up.

But the picture books I LOVE are pretty much exclusively those with memories attached.

The stories my parents read over—and over—and over—with patience I’m only able to appreciate now that I’m the one reading more often than the one listening.

The stories that belonged specially to Thanksgiving or Christmas, and still pull up all the holiday vibes when I open them today.

The stories that will always be a part of me, because they’re an inseparable part of who I used to be.

And for that reason—even though it’s an emotionally-charged, vulnerable reason—I think it’s healthy to admit that most of us have a soft spot in our hearts for at least some picture books.

Do You Like Picture Books for the Lessons?

Let’s face it! When you take a universal life-truth and put it into the language of a four-year-old, you either come out with a colossal mess—or something approaching to genius.

In the case of an enduring, time-honoured picture book, it’s frequently the genius that wins out.

There are some amazingly simple, amazingly potent lessons embodied in the 32 pages of standard picture books.

Sometimes, as adults, we need that simplicity and potency even more than the child-audience for whom the stories were originally written. Which happens to be the second reason that I remain a fan of keeping picture books in your grown-up life.

Do You Like Picture Books as an Art Form?

And I’m actually not referring to the illustrations when I say it!

(Although picture book illustrations on their own almost deserve a post to themselves.)

But as a literary art form, picture book texts are possibly one of the most demanding of all of genres. You have somewhere between 500 and 1000 words in which to tell a complete and compelling story.

An academic writer, by contrast, may or may not have gotten halfway through their prologue in that space. A novelist has possibly not even introduced their main protagonist. Even a screenwriter is probably not much more than five minutes into their film.

But the picture book author has succeeded in giving us an entire narrative folded into this infinitesimal space. A narrative that is not only complete, but often complex, and always (apparently) unhurried.

A picture book is so short that every syllable counts—but this restriction has a flip side. A picture book is so short that every word can be 100% intentional.

Great picture book writing comes closer to poetry than to prose, even if the sentences never rhyme.

And this is an aspect of picture books which a child may absorb unconsciously, but only an adult reader can truly appreciate and enjoy.

If You Like Picture Books—You’re Not Alone!

The group of healthy and accepting young adults that I met in my early twenties didn’t teach me to like picture books. Picture books were something I had already known—and loved—for a couple of decades.

What they did teach me was that liking picture books was something we could all be open and unashamed about. Something no one was judging each other for. Something we could enjoy together.

Maybe we’re a minority, because we like picture books.

Maybe we’re the only group of friends who honestly enjoy sitting in a circle, in a room without a single child present, listening to a picture book being read out loud.

As a matter of fact, I know that we’re not.

But even if we were, would it be a problem?

When you have a whole room full of people doing something, you don’t feel alone.

Crazy, maybe.

But not alone.

And the truth of the matter is, you’re not alone, dear reader. You’re never alone. And that’s never more true than when you admit to liking picture books.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like the series intro:

• ← Book Release: Tomorrow Isn’t Promised
• The Homeschooler’s Library: 10 Books to Read Aloud Before Your Child is Six →