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The genre of novel has dominated fiction for centuries now, and its form hasn’t exactly spared picture books. But as valuable as this genre is, do we leave something behind when we fail to consider other, more episodic forms of fiction that allow for slow, plodding exposition across many texts that lets children luxuriate in the worlds being created?
In this episode, we’ll look at how serial picture books like The Berenstain Bears and Little Blue Truck create worlds differently, using an almost programmatic importation of the libraries they’ve accreted from previous writing. While these texts are popular, they hardly represent the standard for picture book publishing. Why?
All this and more in less than 20 minutes!
Show Notes
The Bear Scouts is available from the Internet Archive (registration required) here.
Here’s some shots from Little Blue Truck, including the iconic opening lines. Honestly, that’s some fair restraint not including pumpkins in the back of the truck.
Ah, the innocence of Blue before he meets Toad for the first time.
As I say, it’s not particularly advanced character development. But, over time, we’ll get there.
A fairly straightforward, indeed novelistic, plot, whose focus pivots on a conflict between the demands of modernity and the realities of an embodied world.