Picture books, as a genre, keep evolving and I am amazed over and over and over again with how clever their writers, illustrators, and designers are. Even if you just read six of these gems to your little folks at home last night, I would urge you to take a deeper look—not just at the words, but the entirety of the book. This is the main point of the article below. If you don’t read further, take the above advice to heart and open your eyes and mind to what is happening in the whole of the picture book. You will be amazed! If you have the time, read on for more information and some places to start your exploration.
Books, as all good stories do, have a beginning, middle, and end. Let’s go with this model as we explore.
Beginnings Cover Art: Book designers use eye-catching art for a reason—take a moment to look at this art carefully before you read the book. Talk about it with your kids—they may have insight you just don’t have (especially those pre-readers—they look much more closely than we do because they are not distracted by the title or text). Once you have finished with the book, look at it again. Did your ideas or opinions change?
Dust Jacket: In recent years new awards have come out for picture books, created by author, school librarian, reviewer, and blogger, Travis Jonker. They are The Undies Awards. Yes—that’s right! The Undies Awards celebrate the artwork that is underneath the dust jacket (on what is technically called the “case cover”). Not always, but often, there is cool and very different artwork on the case cover. Take the dust jacket off and see what surprises might be underneath! Why did the designers choose that art? How is it different? As a side note, I am sorry to say that you cannot look at this with a library book because we have to practically super-tape our covers on so they don’t get lost or destroyed, so you will have to try this out with your own personal collection or at a local bookstore.
Middles
Text/Picture Match or Not? Did you know that it is super-important for early readers to have an exact text/picture match? This lets the reader decipher what the text is saying if they are struggling with the words. There is a big ah-ha moment for kids when they discover books in which the text and pictures do NOT match. How to Be a Hero, words by Florence Parry Heide and pictures by Chuck Groenink, is just such a book. The story is fine but pretty tame if you don’t look at the pictures. The pictures take this book to a whole new level!
Messing with the Way You Read the Book: Some books fundamentally change the way we read the actual book or the standard conventions for the text working on the paper. My favorite example of this is Are We There Yet by Dan Santat. In this book you go forward and backward through time as you read and turn the physical book. Amazing! This Book Just Ate My Dog by Richard Byrne is in the same vein. Press Here by Herve Tullet (and his many other books) invite you to interact with the book in clever ways—especially playful for this smart-phone-from-birth generation.
Illustrations Doing Double-time: If you have not already, get your hands on the many amazing books of Jan Brett and Virginia Lee Burton. These two author/illustrators have created books that children will pore and pore and pore over. All the intricate little pictures add a whole new dimension to the story.
Ends
End Papers: When you open the cover of a hardback book, there is paper that attaches the cover to the main body of the book. These papers—front and back—are called endpapers. Back in the old days, the endpapers were pretty much just functional—not related to the text of the book. Not any longer! Today, the endpapers are often cleverly tied in. Before you launch into the story AND after you have finished, take a good look at the endpapers. The front and back may be the same or they may be different! They may reflect some part of the story or contain “Easter eggs”—hidden items. You might not be surprised to hear that there are new awards for these clever endpapers, The Endies, given out annually by the same librarian/author/blogger mentioned before, Travis Jonker.
There is much more to discuss, but this gives you a starting point for deepening your look at picture books. As with so much of life, a longer, more intentional look usually pays dividends. Don’t miss out! | 
