Taking a Walk Through a Picture Book

Educators have long recognized not only the importance of picture books in the development of pre-reading skills and literacy, but also the importance of picture books for the development of visual literacy. Picture books are often a child's first experience of art. But as H. Nichols B. Clark, founding director of the first museum dedicated to picture book arts, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, noted, "Illustration has long been relegated to stepchild status in the arts in America." While the Caldecott Medal was established by the American Library Association in 1937 to recognize the illustrator of the most distinguished picture book of the year, it was only in 2002 that Eric Carle, noted illustrator and author of more than 70 picture books, helped found a museum dedicated to the art form.

Picture books are ideal for introducing art to children: their intimate, personal scale; their dedication to narrative storytelling that encourages children to "read" the picture; familiar or accessible subject matter; easy, affordable format. Parents who might be unfamiliar with art museums are frequently comfortable with bedtime story rituals. But how do you talk about the art of a picture book? Educators utilize a technique called the "picture walk" or "story walk" to discuss illustrations in books even before addressing the written word. To do this, teachers begin with the cover and ask the class to help them describe the illustration. As they progress through the book, children and teacher examine the illustration to discern the narrative and then make hypotheses and predictions about the story based on the illustrations. The Carle Museum advocates what they term the Whole Book Approach, in which children are encouraged to listen and speak to engage the visual and verbal aspects of the book simultaneously, instead of listening silently to the adult read aloud. This approach embraces Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a learner-centered open-questioning system that encourages the exploration of visual art through personal response and expression. Developed by psychologist Abigail Housen and museum educator Philip Yenawine, VTS has long been utilized by museum educators to discuss paintings and sculpture but can be adapted to any visual form. Begin with "what do you think is going on in this picture?" and proceed from the child's answer.

A great place to start are stories without words. The narrative is embedded in the pictures, allowing children to interpret the story for themselves without asking for the words to be read (or reading the words themselves). One of our favorites is You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum written by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser. Black-and-white illustrations of New York City parallel a little girl's exploration of the Met and the colorful works of art she finds there (depicted in photographs) with the adventure of her yellow balloon throughout Manhattan as a Met guard tries to retrieve it. Each time my children read the pictures, they discover new details and alter their version of the story, all the while remembering their own experiences of the Met and the city. In this way, picture books bring art home while reinforcing visual literacy skills that children can then take to the art museum and to the world at large.

How to Talk to Children About Their Art

Given time, opportunity, and supplies, children will draw, write, paint, glue, or otherwise create art, both impressing and overwhelming parents, who then hang the works in frames on the walls, on the refrigerator, and on various other household surfaces, or send them off to the houses or offices of family and friends. While there are numerous solutions for honoring, cherishing, and storing these creative gifts, I want to talk about the moment of creation and its immediate aftermath: what do you say to a child engaged in the artistic process?

We've all done it. A child shows you a work of art and you say, "I love the dog you drew" only to find out it was a space monster or something else far removed from the canine world. Then, both you and the child are disappointed by your interaction. The biggest rule of thumb for talking about their own artwork with children is not to ask or try to guess what it is. Sometimes "it" isn't anything in particular, but an exploration of color, line, texture, composition, moods, feelings, or some other unidentifiable, unexplainable intangible. When asked, children are either hurt that you don't understand their work of art or confused that they can't quite explain it to you.

What to say, then?

• I really like the [line, color, shape] you used here.


• How did you feel when you made this?


• Would you tell me about your picture?


• How did you make this?

The point is to avoid trying to identify specific objects in the work and instead talk about the creative process.

For more ideas for discussing and encouraging a child's creative process, see Susan Striker's Young at Art, especially her great introduction.