An interesting article entitled E-Readers With Color Open Door For Pictures appeared in the New York Times yesterday. Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out for yourself. Click HERE.
I’m interested in this topic because right now every writer and illustrator I know who does picture books tells me that they’re becoming extremely hard to sell. I hear the same from editors. They’re not looking for picture book manuscripts. Best to write chapter books, but if you insist on doing picture books, better make it young.
The reason for this trend is two-fold. Schools and libraries have limited budgets and can’t afford to buy as many picture books as they once did. Some can’t afford to buy any new books at all. Also, as the Times reported a month or so back, the pressures of No Child Left Behind testing have given parents the impression that a picture book is a baby book. Get children reading “real” books as soon as possible. A “real” book is a book with chapters.
So while I see the possibilities for picture books on digital readers as formidable, I’m puzzled as to why publishers should see this development as some sort of Open Door. If parents think picture books are a waste of time, why would they want to purchase them as e-books? If picture books are primarily being aimed at smaller children, ask yourself this. Would you hand your iPad to a toddler to play with? Sharing a reading time with an e-book reader as the medium would be a positive activity. Parents could certainly pack a lot of picture books on an e-reader to take along on a trip. However, once the novelty wears off, is sharing a book on an e-reader any different from sharing an actual book? I can’t see that it is, unless you attach a lot of bells and whistles. To tell the truth, I regard these more as gimmicks that end up distracting the child and taking attention away from the story and its illustrations.
However, the main problem that I see lies in the question of whose book is it? A real book on the bookshelf in the child’s room belongs to the child. He or she can open it, read it, look at the pictures whenever they wish. A picture book on an e-book reader belongs to whoever owns the reader, be it a Nook, an iPad, a Kindle, a Galaxy or whatever. In order to enjoy the e-book, the child has to track down and negotiate with the parent. And that may not always be forthcoming. It’s the reason why every school ought to have a library staffed by a trained professional librarian. Yes, children can always go to the public library. But if they can’t walk or ride their bikes there, who’s going to take them? Some parents will. Others can’t be bothered. And some just can’t because they’re working or otherwise unavailable.
Children need their own books.
So what does the future hold for e-picture books? How open is that door that the publishers are talking about? It’s hard to tell. Those teachers and parents who value picture books will continue to share them in both formats. Those who don’t, won’t.
Sometimes the medium isn’t the message.