Why Share a Picture Book?

I’m celebrating along with Picture Book Month this November!

When my Grandma Annie had to move from her home and downsize, as the family photographer, I was given a tin of old photos. In the tin I found this beautiful photo above of my Grandpa reading a picture book to mom when she was just a little girl.

I love how sharing a picture book with children transcends generations.

So, why share a picture book?

Share For the Joy of Learning & Discovery

A few great reasons and many great books–

Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a children’s book writer and illustrator, has a great article, Why Picture Books Are Important on her website.

“an unread picture book collecting dust on a shelf is just paper and cardboard. The magic begins when a child or grow-up reader opens up the book.” -Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Share For the Memories

I think an important reason to share picture books, one no study can measure, are for the memories made from reading together.

My Grandma Betty saw my Facebook post about my collection of vintage picture books from thrift stores. The next day I got the sweetest e-mail from her,

“I have five books my Mom used to read to me. In Dutch. I hauled them out when I read you look for old children’s books and as I flipped through them so many memories of my Mother came back.”

She even blogged about it. Read her post, Memories.

I love reading with my kiddos. We read picture books (wordless and wordy!) and long chapter books with daring adventures (Treasure Island was a favorite).

I hope my own children can look back fondly of our time reading together and, like my Grandma, remember how much they were loved.

Here’s one of my favorite picture books. Wordless and Wonderful!

I was so excited to find this one in a thrift store. It’s a first edition from 1975. It’s a discarded library copy, so it isn’t in perfect condition, but I love that it was an original.

This book by Mercer and Marianna Mayer is a wordless picture book. The only skill a young reader needs, imagination.

I’d like to think of this as children’s self-help in the area of sibling rivalry. Just look at those little frog faces! If you have kids, those looks are familiar. I may have seen similar looks from my son to my daughter and my daughter to my son… I think that’s why we have so much fun with this book.

One Frog Too Many is still in print. This is my children’s copy.