From: Angelica Carpenter <angelica_at_csufresno.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:11:45 -0800 (PST)

Dear all,

At the 39th annual conference of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators held in Los Angeles this summer, many speakers described the decrease in the number of picture books being published. The market is down by 50%, they said, and many attributed this decline to the fact that teach ers are no longer allowed to read picture books to their classes. Teachers buying personal books to use in class were a major market that is shrinking fast.

Some blamed Barnes & Noble, too, for not displaying more picture books face out. Picture book sales are way down at B&N, they said, but not so much at Amazon. I am not speaking for the SCBWI here, just reporting what speakers said.

Here in Fresno, in some schools, teachers are not allowed to read anything but the textbooks children will be tested on. In some schools, trade books are banned from classrooms. Experienced teachers are retiring because of po licies like these. Others defy the rules openly , for a while, or coach the children to have their textbooks open to a particular page and ready for t he school administrators to see, even while they are being read a picture b ook. The enforcement of NCLB is particularly draconian in California's Cent ral Valley (I learned this week that scripted reading lessons are being tau ght now in high school English classes), but I'm sure these practices occur in other places, too.

It's a sad situation.

A lifelong picture book fan,

Angelica Carpenter, Curator Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature Henry Madden Library California State University, Fresno
Received on Thu 11 Nov 2010 11:11:45 AM CST