The Size and Shape of Things
The picture book is one of the graphic arts' most dynamic creative laboratories. Faced with the extreme challenge of communicating with a preliterate—and at times even preverbal—audience, practitioners of this deceptively simple art form have continually reassessed every element of the book's physical makeup and design for its expressive and playful potential.
Be it a book as elephantine as an elephant (The Story of Babar), or as wee and soft to the touch as its elfin protagonists (Little Fur Family), or even one punched through with a hole, tracking its hero's journey (The Very Hungry Caterpillar), concrete experiments like these are a perfect match for early childhood's primary focus on sensory-based learning.
At the dawn of the digital age, they also spotlight one of the picture book's traditional strengths: its capacity not only to convey but also to embody a narrative in a palpably satisfying, perhaps even primal way.
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Histoire de Babar, le Petit Elephant
(The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant)
Written by Jean de Brunhoff
1931
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Written by Jon Scieszka
Illustrated by Lane Smith
1992
The Wheels on the Bus (A Book with Parts that Move)
Written and Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinksy
2000
