Picture Book Club

Picture books are magical creatures.  Some have many words that can pull you into another time or place and before you know it, the characters jump off the page and tell you the story themselves.  Some have a unique partnership where the words and pictures are slightly unclear when you have one without the other.  You must get inside the story and sew them back together and in doing so you become part of the story yourself.  Others still have few or no words at all.  In their absence, you not only become part of the story, you become the story itself.  The story only really exists in its relationship with the  words, ideas, and meanings you give it.  Just like its readers, it has the potential to be anything.

I am a strong believer that visual art and the written word go hand in hand.  All stories create images in our minds without us even trying, and visual art has a unique way of showing us parts of each story where the words leave off.  If we are patient, these stories and images can be etched in our minds and have the ability to shape the way we think and feel about the world around us…and we thought we were just enjoying a picture book with a parent, child, or friend!

I hope you find magic in all the books listed in this section, and if you are patient, I am sure there is some etching that will weave its way in.