Picture Books Quotes

• With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.

  Beverly Cleary

  Book, Reading, Chance

  53 Copy quote

• A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.

  Arthur Helps

  Book, Men, Action

  52 Copy quote

• It is a good idea to know which publishers publish which stories. For example, there is no sense in sending a picture book text to a publisher who does not publish picture books.

  Margaret Mahy

  Book, Ideas, Example

  7 Copy quote

• Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it and you wind up with a 200,000 word novel. We, picture-book people, or at least I, start out with 200,000 words and I reduce it to 20

  Eric Carle

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  27 Copy quote

• The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

  David Attenborough

  Inspirational, Motivational, Book

  190 Copy quote

• I think that actually the rhythmic nature of picture books and of young reader story books is a way to help kids fall in love with language and what you can do with it and how it sounds in your range. It sort of has a musicality but on the other hand they get the story and the ideas and the context of it. I think it's a way to get kids into it and I also think that when kids are around people who love books it rubs off on them.

  Josh Prince

  Falling In Love, Book, Kids

  4 Copy quote

• A good picture book can almost be whistled. ... All have their own melodies behind the storytelling.

  Margaret Wise Brown

  Book, Storytelling, Melody

  11 Copy quote

• All really good picture books are written to be read five hundred times

  Rosemary Wells

  Book, Writing, Hundred

  10 Copy quote

• Remember picture books are the closest form of writing to a poem. Even though they don't have to rhyme, they must be poetic. They must be written so the worst actress can read with comfort and expression.

  Kirby Larson

  Book, Writing, Expression

  4 Copy quote

• For children: I'm writing a picture book about the Big Dipper and a novel about a cricket, a firefly and a vole. For grownups: I'm writing poems.

  Kate DiCamillo

  Children, Book, Writing

  Source: bookpage.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Carrying a small notebook with you always, in your pocket or purse, along with a reliable ballpoint pen will enable you to jot down spot observations and quick character sketches before the first sharp impressions fade away. You'll need all kinds of story actors, because even picture books can include a wide range of ages, relationships, occupations, and nationalities. Learn to observe and analyze swiftly, wherever you are.

  Lee Wyndham

  Notebook, Writing, Character

  17 Copy quote

• Picture books are an emotional medium.  They need to make us feel something.

  Marla Frazee

  Book, Emotional, Needs

  6 Copy quote

• I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.

  Daniel Handler

  Book, Dark, Thinking

  "Deadpan Humor And Childhood Fears Collide In 'The Dark'". Interview with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. June 19, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In animation and comics, the viewer breezes past the drawings. But with picture books, each page is going to be stared at and touched and read over and over. Maybe even chewed on a little. Everything needs to be thoughtful and economical, thirty-two little masterpieces.

  Vera Brosgol

  Book, Thoughtful, Past

  Interview with Elissa Gershowitz and Katie Bircher, www.hbook.com. September 12, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Picture books are more difficult for me because it is telling a huge story in the least amount of words.

  Renee Watson

  Book, Stories, Difficult

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The novels take longer to write than the picture book texts, and they do take a different sort of concentration. However, a very short, simple story that works well is just as exciting to me as any longer and more complex book.

  Margaret Mahy

  Book, Writing, Simple

  4 Copy quote

• The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.

  Sarah Weeks

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• A picture book is a motorcycle: small, loud, fun, and zippy.
  An easy reader is a chartered bus: obliged to carry a rather dull passenger roster of sanctioned curriculum, plus the baggage of an approved, limited vocabulary. The trick is to design your chartered bus to be as cool and sexy as a motorcycle.

  Mo Willems

  Sexy, Fun, Book

  23 Copy quote

• A picture book is a small door to the enormous world of the visual arts, and they're often the first art a young person sees.

  Tomie dePaola

  Art, Book, Doors

  17 Copy quote

• I love picture books. I think some of the best people in children's books are the ones who create their own picture books. I wish I could say I'm one of them, but I'm not.

  Judy Blume

  Children, Love Picture, Book

  Interview with Kendra Ralston, www.nypl.org. November 19, 2002.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the trick of writing a good picture book manuscript is to leave that space for illustration. An illustrated novel can do the same thing.

  Mac Barnett

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  "Mac Barnett & Jory John Talk with Roger". Interview with Roger Sutton, www.hbook.com. February 3, 2015.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It struck me that when we read picture books to children, we parents, and people as a whole, do not appear in them very much, and that they are more constructed to be a world of children and animals.

  Mamoru Hosoda

  Children, Book, Animal

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Painting is the only universal language. All nature is creation's picture book. Painting alone can describe every thing which can be seen, and suggest every emotion which can be felt. Art reaches back into the babyhood of time, and is man's only lasting monument.

  William Morris Hunt

  Art, Book, Men

  7 Copy quote

• I read The Stinky Cheese Man as an adult. I missed that book when I was a kid. I grew up mostly with books bought at yard sales, picture books from the fifties to 1975, which is really a lucky thing.

  Mac Barnett

  Book, Kids, Men

  "Mac Barnett & Jory John Talk with Roger". Interview with Roger Sutton, www.hbook.com. February 3, 2015.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You need a theme in a picture book just as much or maybe even more than you need it in a novel.

  Eve Bunting

  Book, Needs, Theme

  19 Copy quote