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