Why do pictures fade away as our reading improves?
Go into a book shop and the magic of children’s books is there, tucked into its special section, layered with illustrations and worlds to explore. However, if you’re not a child or buying for a child, what are you doing there? You must trudge round to the fiction and non-fiction shelves, and choose a book of only words from the volumes of text around you. No pictures for you. No books with little islands for you to rest on and get your bearings. No. No! You would-be-island-hopper, you must choose undaunted, and get to the other side the hard way … word by word.
And what’s on the other side? More books without pictures. All the ones with colour and sketches, doodles and drawings are on the junior shelves far away, almost out of sight. How bleak is that? And what if you choose to swim back again, back to the picture books? Well that’s embarrassing. But, you could, if you really, really, really wanted.
Isn’t this tough reading regime a teeny bit wrong? Couldn’t all books have at least a few pictures? Shouldn’t they tempt us, allow us to enjoy the screen time break, the layers of magic, with no shame attached? Give us a mini-holiday – a mental, emotional, more accessible mind massage?
Just a thought.
Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023
The Phraser 
Totally agree Georgie. I love books with pictures and I love the idea of having more ‘accessible mind massages’!
Thanks as ever for your thoughts.
Kate
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Kate for your comment. I was with a young reader recently loving an all-action, bomb-diffusing book with no pictures. That came to an end and we looked at other options. The one chosen instantly was a much younger picture book about a frog – just for the pleasure of it 🙂
LikeLike
Hey Georgie, interesting question. Personally, I ignore pictures, even headings and titles, etc when I’m reading – I’m a binger and if I’m engaged in the story, I just want to get on with the reading so don’t even notice pictures: they are completely wasted on me. But that’s just me 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh that’s so interesting. I know that you are definitely not alone in that view. What’s made me aware of the difference recently is reading with children who are on the brink of moving to secondary school. The statistics show that many in secondary schools disengage with reading, so I’m wondering if books with only text make coming back to reading harder and less enticing. I feel that the choice of layout for older books might have been set by those who finding reading easy? We now know that there are so many other brain types with different approaches. As for me, I love illustrations. They’re like little stories themselves – a bonus, and a way to break up the text – space to breathe.
Thanks so much for your thoughts.
LikeLike