The Power of Illustrators

Recently Jonathan Stutzman, author of Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug and Llama Destroys the World, wrote on Twitter, “Illustrators don’t get the love they deserve.  Really.  Women illustrators?  Even less.  I work in a creative team w/ a talented illustrator @adoodlefox (who I’m also married to ❤) we have a handful of books coming out together.  We are a team and the books that we make are a collaboration between us—a combination of both of our talents and minds.  But I can’t tell you how many times she is left out compliments, press, tweets, questions, interview requests.  Someone even recently commented to my face (w/ Heather right there) that they were excited to see where MY career was going. ‘How exciting for you!’  Heather definitely isn’t the only one.  I see it with so many other amazing, brilliant illustrators.  (And probably way more that I haven’t seen or been privy to).  Which blows my mind because there would be no picture books without illustrators.”

Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox's first book together

I’ve only been a school librarian for two years, but something I’ve already noticed is how often we ignore the illustrator.  When my third graders were learning how to cite sources after using some really excellent picture book biographies, a lot of them asked, “Where do I write the illustrator?”  I realized I hadn’t made a line for that name.  I was starting my students with very basic MLA citations, and MLA (and just about every citation format) doesn’t require the illustrator, only the author. 

The people who put together citation standards likely weren’t thinking of illustrated books, assuming that users would be citing essays and academic texts that eschew artwork.  They probably didn’t picture children using books from the Ordinary People Change the World series (by Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos), which has bright, engaging artwork, or the beautifully watercolored John Ronald’s Dragons (by Caroline McAlister and Eliza Wheeler).  But it points to the larger issue that Stutzman described: illustrators often don’t get their due.

Anyone who works with children’s books should know that a picture book, by definition, is a book told both through words and pictures.  Sometimes the storytelling balances evenly between the two; sometimes one outweighs the other.  Sometimes we get a truly glorious wordless picture books that tells an entire story with no words.  But what all of these have in common is this: if you take the pictures out of a picture book, the form ceases to exist.

It doesn’t just lose pretty pictures or illuminations; a picture book without pictures loses part of its heart.  The interplay between illustrations and words is crucial to this format.  Not only is the story reliant on artwork; young readers are drawn in by it.  So are adults, even if we don’t realize it, but it’s even more important for children--especially those who cannot yet read.  It’s been drilled into our heads that “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but that might be better life advice than it is practical for choosing books.  Kids pick up books because they like the animal they see on the cover, or the sparkles, or the colors.  Some gravitate toward softer watercolors; some towards bright and bold graphics.  Sometimes they pick a book up because they recognize the style of artwork, without even knowing who the artist is.  Peter Reynolds is one such artist who comes to mind.  His illustrations can be found in his own books and in the books of numerous others, scattered throughout the library, and many of them are checked out because students recognize his style.

A page from Peter Reynolds' Say Something!

Why the disparity, then?  Why do we forget how important illustrators are?  I’m no expert, but I can make a few guesses.  Kids grow up with the goal of moving away from picture books.  They all want to read chapter books and are so excited when they finally read a whole book without any pictures.  And that in itself is not a bad thing!  Not every book is meant to have pictures, just like not every book is meant to have words.  Building literacy skills and word recognition is crucial.  But when we grow up with our goal to be moving away from books with pictures . . . what does that tell us about those pictures? 

I became a librarian partly because I love reading.  I was drawn to books because I love words and writing.  I don’t remember learning how special the pictures were as I grew up.  I used them to learn to read, to help me understand more complex stories, but was there an emphasis there?  I don’t know, but I don’t think so.  People spend their lives studying writing, often without realizing it.  Most schools require English to be taken through 12^th grade, where we learn how to piece sentences together and get meaning from others’ writing.  We have required reading that exposes us to great literature and ideas.  We read and write in every class, from essays in US History to lab reports in AP Chemistry.  We write emails, memos, Instagram captions.  But how many people continue to study art, or even pay attention to it?

Brian Selznick's stunning book spines

     I took my last art class in 8^th grade.  In high school, my electives were taken up by German and orchestra.  I didn’t learn about art the way I did about writing.  I didn’t learn how it worked or what it could do, or how to study and understand it like I did with writing.   

Art often remains a mystery.  It wasn’t until college that I discovered, almost by accident, that I like to draw.  The more I paid attention to art, the more I realized that art, like any skill, has certain foundations, and it can be taught.  That’s not to say art is easy, or that anyone can be a great artist.  But noticing things like how artists use shape, line, and perspective, and having your own opportunities to practice them, makes illustrations feel that much more accessible.  Just like stopping to revel in beautiful language, pausing to notice illustrations only adds to the magic of storytelling.  I think about how entranced I was when I discovered how Brian Selznick creates entire worlds out of silvery pencil lines, or how Sophie Blackall uses shape to drive the theme of time in Hello Lighthouse.  Learning how to use a comma or write a sentence doesn’t necessitate being the next Jason Reynolds or Meg Medina, but it might make us stop and pay more attention to their craft.  It might make us point out great writing to our students.  But we don’t know how to do that with art.

From Sophie Blackall's Hello Lighthouse

The school I teach at now is fortunate to have two great art teachers, but many don’t have even one.  Classroom teachers tend to be creative, but I haven’t met many who have any kind of art training or background.  Even having one is different than knowing how to teach it.  On top of that, overscheduled school days and overwhelmed teachers don’t have much time to add in art instruction. 

We aren’t raising students to notice art, or to understand it, or to create their own as they get older.  Picasso said it best: “Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”  There isn’t space for visual art once students move past elementary school, and sometimes not even then.  It can be hard to value something when you’ve never learned to understand it.

I didn’t learn enough about art until I took charge of my own learning.  I started paying attention to illustrations and learned more.  I’m lucky that my children’s literature professor in grad school emphasized studying illustrations, giving me the opportunity to expand my very basic knowledge.  If you want to do the same, and incorporate it into your own teaching, library, or life, here are some simple ways to start. 

1. Pick up picture books with illustrations that speak to you.  Take the time to really look at the them—the words and the pictures.  What are the pictures doing that the words can’t?  How do they work together?  If you took away the pictures, what would be missing from the story? 

2. Enlist an expert.  This can be your school’s art teacher, a museum docent, or someone else who has been trained to understand and explain art.  Tell them you’re interested in learning more and need help starting.  (This is also an excellent opportunity to collaborate with your art teacher.)

3. When looking at illustrations or other visual art, look for lines and shapes.  Everyone knows lines and shapes, but often in really incredible art, we don’t notice that an artist uses mostly triangles to create a complex beach scene, or that part of the reason your eye travels somewhere is because all the lines in that painting lead there.  Notice how the artist uses these basic elements--and then practice them yourself.  

4. Read interviews with illustrators.  Hearing them describe their craft in their own words is not just interesting; it’s illuminating.  Here are some to get you started:

• Brian Selznick at Scholastic 
• Christian Robinson at BookRiot
• Sophie Blackall at Let’s Talk Picture Books 
• David Wiesner at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (specifically on illustrating in the digital age)
• Aaron Becker at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast: 
• Joyce Wan at Miss Marple’s Musings

5. Read professional books about illustrating, such as Picture This by Molly Bang, to learn the basics about how illustrations come together.

6. Point out artwork to your students.  Share the name of the illustrator when you read a book together.  Incorporate visual literacy into your lessons.

7. Practice your own drawing.  You don’t have to be good!  Doodle, sketch, paint, mess around with colors and shapes and lines.  Try to copy someone else’s artwork, or get a how-to-draw book at the library—there are so many now, with so many different styles and drawings to emulate, that there’s something for everyone. (If you need a starting point, this one is lovely and fun.)

Finally, I wonder if we put too much emphasis on the “written by/illustrated by” distinction.  Acknowledging specific roles in putting a book together is important to each person’s talents, but at the end of the day, they are both storytellers.  Maybe when we share a picture book, we can simply say it’s “by” the people who made it.  Last Stop on Market Street is by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson.  Llama Destroys the World is by Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox.  And so on.

Illustrators are incredible.  Let’s show them the same respect and appreciation we show our favorite writers. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go add an illustrator line to a works cited page.

To see Jonathan’s full Twitter thread, click here.

     To visit Heather Fox on Twitter and Instagram, go to @adoodlefox, and to visit Jonathan Stutzman, go to @thedustdancestoo.