Sue's News

Picture This…

October 8th, 2010

…a childhood devoid of picture books.

It’s a sad reality for a lot of kids nowadays, with a growing trend of parents pressuring kids as young as four to read chapter books and eschewing picture books completely.

For someone who’s been building a library of picture books for her kids for the last ten years, not to mention writing a few pictures books of her own, the idea of denying a child the joy of interacting with the rich and textured world of imagination that picture books are a portal to is disturbing, and really sad.

There’s enough time for test prep down the road. I’d much rather devote my energy to reading with and sharing a love of reading with my kids than cataloging page counts. After all, isn’t it most important to get kids to actually like, or dare I say, love reading so they become life long readers?

Childhood is fleeting enough as it is, and today’s kids feel a lot more pressure than I did growing up… curling up with a good picture book and escaping into its lush pictures and landscapes is a simple pleasure no child, or parent/teacher/caregiver should be denied.

–Sue

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