“The picture books that do the best are a real marriage of writing and illustration.”
– Kenny Brechner, book shop owner (via Publisher Weekly Article)

I realized I never posted about the launch of the ScoliosisDiagnosis.com website, featuring Nina Saab’s book (and my!) “Bookie and the Scoliosis Diagnosis.” It’s a light-hearted picture book for kids aimed to educate as well as raise awareness of the detection and treatment of scoliosis at an early age.

This is a really interesting article over at Publisher’s Weekly (by Karen Springen) debunking a sensationalized article posted at the New York Times claiming picture books are in decline. It is a great read for children’s book illustrators as it goes into a lot of depth on what can affect children’s book sales, who is buying and reading books, and a lot of valuable insight into the industry.
I love that this article touches on the misconception that picture books are for children only up to about 3 years old… that they are in fact often appropriate for much older kids (and in my case, even adults!)

I also really liked how the article addresses the introduction of electronic media :

“Kids are omnivorous,” she (Kristen McLean) said. “We’ve lived with this idea of television is bad, books are good. What we’re finding is that it’s all reinforcing literacy. The kids who are reading a lot are also the kids who are participating online, are blogging, are involved in lots of different media.”

I know this to be true of my three-year-old… she knows how to use my ipad and turn on the playstation, but those things haven’t stopped her from looking at her picture books for hours. Ultimately I think that it comes down to supply & demand… as parents if we feel picture books are important for our kids, they will be available to meet our demands.

Here’s a little doodle I did in my sketchbook of Hank’s preemie clothes (close to actual size.) I just loved how little they were so wanted to capture that! I’m not planning on doing a series as I’ve done with my diary of Hera’s stuff, but couldn’t resist doing this one at least :) This one is just ink on paper, and I’ve scanned it and applied colour on my iPad with Sketchbook Pro using a Dagi stylus.