Nancy
Roser,Roser, Miriam
Martinez, Martinez, and
and Fowler-Amato
| The Power ofFowler-Amato
page
24
The Power of Picturebooks: Resources
That Support Language and Learning
in Middle Grade Classrooms
I
llustrator Chris Riddell wryly ob-
serves that we punish young people
who can read by taking away the
pictures in their books (Riddell, 2010). In
some cases, Riddell may be right. There
is evidence that even teachers of young
children often choose chapter book/
novels (rather than picturebooks) to read
aloud. There may also be an early push
from home toward chapter books. “My
son is already reading chapter books,” we
sometimes hear proud parents claim.
Most important, though, young people themselves
seem to feel the pressure to abandon picture-
books. The children’s
Although picturebooks have book buyer for an in-
been offered to both older dependent bookstore in
Austin, Texas, Meghan
struggling readers and sec- Goel, claims she rare-
ond language learners, they ly sees anyone over 7
years old enter the pic-
haven’t been fully embraced turebook section of the
beyond elementary class- store. From an early
age, a sort of status-in-
rooms for their potential to dexing system seems to
serve teaching and learning. dictate that if the school
desk, locker, backpack,
or nightstand contains a
self-selected book, it shouldn’t be a picturebook.
Unfortunately, it’s not just students and
parents who have turned their backs on pic-
turebooks. Teachers, too, can undervalue and
overlook the support that picturebooks offer
Copyright © 2011 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011
Michelle
Picturebooks
language, visual literacy, and even the traditional
curriculum. Explanations for omission are pre-
dictable: picturebooks and illustrated texts aren’t
“serious enough,” as one teacher put it. In other
words, they are not academically challenging. Al-
though picturebooks have been offered to both
older struggling readers and second language
learners, they haven’t been fully embraced be-
yond elementary classrooms for their potential to
serve teaching and learning (Martinez, Harmon,
& Roser, 2009). Reading teacher Deb Kelt (per-
sonal communication, April 23, 2010) explained
to us:
You have to have lots of courage to read picture-
books. The air is heavy with, “Aw, this is baby stuff.”
Teachers have to work hard to push past this insecu-
rity because that’s what it is. Kids worry we’re bring-
ing picturebooks because they’re behind or in some
remedial class. It can freak them out.
What teachers don’t always mention is that
keeping up with six classes and outside-of-school
responsibilities leaves little time for reading, in-
specting, and choosing from the wealth of con-
temporary picturebooks. And then there’s the
ongoing debate: What exactly counts as a picture-
book, anyway? Is it still a picturebook when it has
pictures, but is novel length? Can a graphic novel
be a picturebook? What about wordless books?
Barbara Bader (1976) has identified the picture-
book as text, illustration, and design—“a social,
cultural, historical document” promising unlim-
ited possibilities and experiences (p. 1).
Picturebooks Aplenty
For this article, we won’t try to unwrap or theo-
rize a definition. We’ll simply acknowledge the
variety in topics, designs, themes, and text ac-
 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
page

cessibility in today’s illustrated texts—probably
never before as rich (Lewis, 2001; Wolfenbarger
& Sipe, 2007). Whether the texts represent the
synergy of pictures and words of classic pic-
turebooks, or whether they’re illustrated texts,
poems, graphic novels, narrative nonfiction, or
information texts, it’s through today’s multiplic-
ity of illustrated texts that students can discover
the finest uses of language, as well as encounter
images that inform, entertain, fill gaps, and open
to wondering. Table 1 offers 20 good choices and
points toward their instructional possibilities.
Teachers successful with gathering learners
around picturebooks seem to have located the
right texts for the right units for the right middle
grade readers/writers at the right time (what a lot
of rights). But more important, they have made
a place and protected a time for introducing pic-
turebooks in respectful ways. And just as skillfully 25
as they have introduced the artistry of the books,
they have protected middle graders’ self-images
and sensitivities to “coolness.” Our experience
has shown that the central tenets of effectively
introducing picturebooks to middle graders are
these:
picturebook explorations;
(not an identified strata); and
complexities and intents of picturebooks
as crafted objects and models for their own
work.

Table 1. Twenty noteworthy picturebooks

Title and author Book in brief Affordances

Song of the Water Boatman & Other
Pond Poems by Joyce Sidman. Il-
lustrated by Beckie Prange.
Eleven poems chronicle plant and
animal life in a pond throughout the
seasons. Each poem is accompanied
by a paragraph describing scientific
facts about the featured creature or
plant.
With each poem written in a dif-
ferent poetic style, the book models
a variety of ways in which poetic
meaning is expressed, as well as one
way in which two diverse genres can
be effectively integrated.

Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti.
Set in Nazi Germany, a young
schoolgirl seeks to help people im-
prisoned in a concentration camp.
Readers must integrate textual and
pictorial information to infer critical
events in this story. Students can ex-
plore the way in which color is used
to establish mood.

The Mystery of Eatum Hall by John
Kelly and Cathy Tincknell.
Glenda and Horace Pork-Fowler, a Replete with pictorial clues, this hu-
charming pig and goose couple, are morous book is ideal for introducing
invited by Dr. Hunter for a weekend the literary device of foreshadowing.
of “gourmet food” at Eatum Hall.
The clueless couple is oblivious to
Dr. Hunter’s real intention.

Going North by Janice Harrington.
Illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue.
Jessie doesn’t want to leave her Rich details of place make setting a
home in Alabama, even though her strong element in this picturebook.
parents explain that the North offers
opportunities for African Americans
that cannot be found in the South of
the 1960s.
continued on next page

Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011

 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
page
26 Table 1. Continued
Title and author
Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of
Poems by Kristine O’Connell
George. Illustrated by Barry Moser.
Voices in the Park by Anthony
Browne.
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led
Her People to Freedom by Carole
Boston Weatherford. Illustrated by
Kadir Nelson.
Flight by Robert Burleigh.
Illustrated by Mike Wimmer.
Tough Cookie by David Wieniewski.
The Greatest Power by Demi.
Black and White by David Macaulay.
Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011
Book in brief
A series of poems chronicles a
season in the life of a hummingbird
family from the building of the nest
to the day the young birds depart
that nest for the wider world.
A day in the park is told from four
perspectives—a well-to-do and
domineering woman, her meek son,
an unemployed man, and his lively
daughter.
In this fictional account, Weather-
ford explores the way in which re-
ligious faith inspired and sustained
Harriet Tubman in her efforts to
escape slavery and lead her people
to freedom.
Pictures and text combine to cap-
ture the drama and excitement of
Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight
across the Atlantic.
Wieniewski lampoons the detec-
tive genre in this story of a “tough
cookie” who finds himself at the
bottom of “the Jar” facing the cruel
and dangerous “Fingers.”
The emperor sends the children on
a quest to find the greatest power in
the world.
At first glance this picturebook
appears to contain four unrelated
tales. Yet as readers explore illustra-
tions and text, initial understand-
ings are likely to shift.
Affordances
Skillful word choices make this
picturebook a good choice for a
writing minilesson.
Students can explore ways illus-
trations can reveal the dynamics
of character relationships. The
picturebook offers the opportunity
to explore character perspective.
The book is likely to evoke rich
discussion about divisions between
social classes.
Readers can draw on both textual
and visual clues to make inferences
about character emotions. Teachers
can foster visual literacy by invit-
ing students to explore the use of
different text fonts, text styles, and
text layout to signal shifts between
narrator and the voices of charac-
ters.
Students can explore the use of
short, staccato sentences to build
tension.
This is the perfect book for intro-
ducing spoofs.
This book invites discussion of just
what constitutes power—technol-
ogy, money, weapons, or something
less tangible.
Macaulay’s book can serve as an
introduction to the postmodern
genre. Inferencing is central to
reading this complex picturebook
that “demands” readers try to con-
nect the four stories.
continued on next page
 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
Table 1. Continued
Title and author
A River of Words: The Story of Wil-
liam Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant.
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet.
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the
Iron Curtain by Peter Sis.
Freedom Summer by Deborah
Wiles. Illustrated by Jerome
Lagarrigue.
When Marian Sang by Pam Muñoz
Ryan. Illustrated by Brian Selznick.
The Grand Mosque of Paris by Karen
Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland
DeSaix.
Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal: A World-
wide Cinderella by Paul Fleischman.
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis.
Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011
Book in brief
This picturebook biography with
mixed media collages delves into
the experiences that shaped the
poet (and doctor) William Carlos
Williams.
The author chronicles his early
years in Czechoslovakia growing up
behind the Iron Curtain.
Set in the South during the time
of segregation, the book centers
around the friendship of a White
boy and an African American boy.
This biography of Marian An-
derson reveals the famed singer’s
determination and focus in the face
of racial discrimination.
The authors lay out evidence of
Muslim efforts to provide a safe ha-
ven for Jews in the Grand Mosque
of Paris during the Nazi occupation
of that city.
The author blends elements of
Cinderella variants from around the
world to create an original tale that
is supported by illustrations that
incorporate folk art motifs from
around the world.
page
27
Affordances
The book can foster talk about
the writing process and the craft-
ing of free verse poetry. This is a
good companion book to Sharon
Creech’s Love That Dog.
This memoir invites an exploration
of the crafting of setting through
the use of visual artifacts. Students’
visual literacy can be fostered by ex-
ploring Sis’s use of color to convey
symbolic meanings.
Discussions of this book are likely
to address issues of social justice.
The book offers the opportunity
to explore character emotions and
character change.
The distinctive presentation of
text and illustration as an “operatic
work” can serve to launch discus-
sions of the sometimes elusive
concept of “style.” Characterization
is central in a well written biogra-
phy. The rich characterization in
this picturebook offers students the
opportunity to explore this literary
element.
In the post 9/11 age, this book can
spark important discussion about
relationships among diverse reli-
gious groups. Students can explore
the books in the bibliography to
gain insight into ways in which
authors of informational works may
conduct research.
The book is an “invitation” for stu-
dents to seek out and read Cinder-
ella variants from cultures around
the world.
continued on next page
 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
page
28 Table 1. Continued

Title and author Book in brief Affordances

Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson.
Beginning in the era of slavery, this This book offers students a model
is the story of eight generations of lyrical language that sparkles.
of women in Jacqueline Wood-
son’s family and the creativity and
strength that tie these generations
together.

Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret
Wild. Illustrated by Anne Spudvilas.
Set in a harrowing, post-apocalyptic
world, a boy cowers alone in an
apartment, fearful of the dangers
(the “woolvs”) that lurk outside.
The ending offers a glimmer of
hope as the boy finds the courage
to go off into the world to seek his
one friend who has disappeared.
The book offers much for older
students to discuss: Could such a
world come about? How? What
are the “woolvs” the boy fears?
Students can explore the setting
by seeking the pictorial and visual
elements that combine to create a
disturbing futuristic vision of the
world.

A Wreath for Emmett Till by
Marilyn Nelson. Illustrated by
Philippe Lardy.
This is a moving tribute to Emmett
Till, a young black boy lynched in
1955, whose death was a galvaniz-
ing force behind the civil rights
movement. Marilyn Nelson uses
a highly structured and unusual
poetic form called a heroic crown
of sonnets.
Students can talk over the poet’s
choice of language to evoke the
horrific injustice, and how the
formal structure of the heroic
crown of sonnets brings dignity
and reflection. The poet uses rich
plant imagery to convey symbolic
meanings.

Picturebooks in Place in Middle
School Classrooms
It’s no secret that picturebooks support instruc-
tion across the curriculum, but Sara, a 7th-grade
teacher, wanted to make illustrated texts central
to her students’ work in a unit on oppression and
resistance. As a student in a graduate children’s
literature class, she believed picturebooks would
strengthen the novel study she was planning,
support her students’ understandings, and grow
their reading and writing. Sara saw her first step
as articulating what she wanted picturebooks to
help students experience and accomplish just as
clearly as she could explain the critical impor-
tance of the novels, poetry, articles, artifacts, and
online and human resources she typically incor-
porated into her teaching.
She also believed she should plan sufficient
time not just for the introduction of powerfully
illustrated texts (with the likely result of bending
her students’ stereotypes about picturebooks),
but time for students’ immersion in these for-
mats—time for choosing, perusing, making dis-
coveries, and talking over those discoveries. She
knew she would give specific guidance in those
places where images conveyed meanings beyond
words and where the economy of written lan-
guage clarified complexity. She knew, too, that
her students would learn to think and apply visual
understandings as they worked with well-chosen
examples of illustrated texts.
To initiate her students into the inquiry that
would lead them to literature circles around the
award-winning novel Number the Stars (Lowry,
1989), Sara began by sharing Tom Feelings’s
(1995) The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Car-
go. This completely wordless text is illustrated on
oversized pages with moving pen and ink images
of African peoples captured, chained, and forced

Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011

 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
into the punishing conditions of slave ship steer-
age. One reviewer wrote that she could almost
“hear the screams” of anger, grief, and despair
(Hawkins, 1996, p. 132). Sara turned pages si-
lently (for like Tom Feelings, she had no words
to equal what the pages evoke). After the book’s
covers were closed, a quiet conversation grew
around the immediate responses to the atrocities
of slave trade, as well as connections to other ex-
amples of inhumanity across history and abuses
of power in the students’ own world. Sara real-
ized that even without guidance, her students
had already begun to interpret the images in
The Middle Passage through the artist’s choice of
black, white, and gray, the contrast between the
sharply rendered captives and the insubstantial
portrayal of their conquerors, and the foreshad-
owing of the somber gray endpapers.
Sara had planned for follow-up explora-
tions of these big ideas through a set of related
picturebooks. After she read a short excerpt
and previewed each title in the stack, she asked
pairs of students to choose a book and then ex-
plore, read, discuss, take notes, and be ready to
share discoveries of text, image, and their own
insights. The stack included Dr. Seuss’s The
Sneetches (1961), Mem Fox’s Feathers and Fools
The students experience Tom Feelings’s retelling of his-
tory through his powerful illustrations, as they slowly
turn the pages of The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black
Cargo.
Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011
page
(2000), Irmela Wendt’s The End of War (1995), 29
Eve Bunting’s Terrible Things: An Allegory of the
Holocaust (1989), Ken Mochizuki’s Baseball Saved
Us (1995), Patricia Polacco’s The Butterfly (2009),
Roberto Innocenti’s Rose
Blanche (1985), Yoshiko
After she read a short ex-
Uchida’s The Bracelet cerpt and previewed each
(1996), Allen Say’s Home
of the Brave (2002), and
title in the stack, she asked
Meg Wiviott’s Benno pairs of students to choose
and the Night of Broken
Glass (2010). As Sara’s
a book and then explore,
students worked, she read, discuss, take notes,
circled the room, lis-
tening to their talk and
and be ready to share dis-
helping them to notice coveries of text, image, and
how the text and images
contributed to depth of
their own insights.
meanings. On this very
first day with picturebooks, students began to
collect the themes, words, and visual thinking
that would guide their inquiry into injustice.
***
Dani’s sixth graders were writing and devel-
oping digital stories of their lives, communities,
and families. Many were immediately struck with
the model provided by Carmen Lomas Garza in
her Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia (2005) in
which brilliantly colored paintings reveal the ev-
eryday beauty of family life, while text in both
Spanish and English opens the experience to
broader audiences. Other students gravitated to
poetic renderings of the challenges of place mod-
eled by Jane Medina’s My Name Is Jorge on Both
Sides of the River (2004) and Juan Herrera’s Upside
Down Boy/ El niño de cabeza (2000). Some were
drawn to Walter Dean Myers’s Harlem (1997),
an illustrated poetic tribute to home. All Dani’s
students pored over Shaun Tan’s (2007) word-
less graphic novel, The Arrival, puzzling out its
ways of representing the universal circumstances
that cause families to uproot and relocate—with
talk spilling into their own families’ origins and
moves. In addition to being a supportive resource
for second language learners in this classroom,
 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
page
30 the use of picturebooks allowed Dani’s readers,
whatever their current strengths, to participate
fully. Dani noticed that students who had been
her most reluctant to choose books, to read, and
to compose were engaged with these graphic,
wordless, poetic, bilingual, and multicultural pic-
turebooks.
The Potential of Picturebooks for
Middle Graders
Quality picturebooks lead students of all ages to
discover, discern, interpret, infer, posit, support,
connect, talk, write, and represent multimodally
(Carlisle, 1992; Carr, Buchanan, Wentz, Weiss,
& Brant, 2001). As one teacher put it:
My class was nearly 100% engaged and active in
reading, analyzing, and discussing their texts. They
worked together, they shared texts with each other,
and they engaged in culturally and academically rel-
evant dialogues that linked to their cultural back-
grounds—riots in LA, life in Mexico, and the immi-
gration laws in Arizona. (L. Hahn Ganser, personal
communication, May 5, 2010)
And as illustrator Chris Riddell might suggest,
“Hand the picturebooks back to the readers and
writers, and stick around to help them make even
CONNECTIONS FROM READWRITETHINK
The Power of Picturebooks: Resources That
Support Language and Learning in Middle Grade
Classrooms
As the title states, there IS power in picturebooks.
This is illustrated in the ReadWriteThink.org les-
son plan “Picture Books as Framing Texts: Re-
search Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers.” In
this lesson, students use picturebooks as frames
for structuring research projects. They read the
framing text, brainstorm the details included in
the text, and discuss what the writer has chosen
to include and leave out. Students are given a
research assignment and identify key questions
to answer as they research. They return to the
framing text and analyze its structure, looking for
elements of organization and the kinds of infor-
mation included on each page.
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-
resources/lesson-plans/picture-books-framing-
texts-306.html
—Lisa Fink
www.readwritethink.org

greater discoveries.” Whether effective teach-

ers are using picturebooks as models for student
writing, as materials to support instruction in
content area classes, or as conversation starters
that lead to discoveries of themes and concepts,
these captivating resources are an asset in the
classroom, serving students’ language and learn-
ing during the middle years and beyond.

References
Bader, B. (1976). American picturebooks from Noah’s
ark to the beast within. New York: Macmillan.
Bunting, E. (1989). Terrible things: An allegory of the
holocaust (S. Gammell, Illus.). Philadelphia: Jewish
Publication Society.
David Wiesner’s Tuesday encourages students to use their
Carlisle, L. R. (1992). Picture books: An easy place to
imaginations, as they make sense of the strange occur-
rences that continue to take place and predict what might think. In S. Benedict & L. Carlisle (Eds.), Beyond
happen next. words: Picture books for older readers and writers
(pp. 49–58). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011

 Roser, Martinez, and Fowler-Amato | The Power of Picturebooks
page

Carr, K. S., Buchanan, D. L., Wentz, J. B., Weiss, M. L.,
& Brant, K. J. (2001). Not just for the primary
grades: A bibliography of picture books for second-
ary content teachers. Journal of Adolescent and
Adult Literacy, 45, 146–153.
Feelings, T. (1995). The middle passage: White ships/
black cargo. New York: Dial Books.
Fox, M. (2000). Feathers and fools. London: Sandpiper.
Hawkins, B. (1996). Adult books for young adults:
Nonfiction. School Library Journal, 42(2), 132.
Herrera, J. (2000). The upside down boy/ El niño de
cabeza (E. Gómez, Illus.). San Francisco: Chil-
dren’s Book Press.
Innocenti, R. (1985). Rose Blanche. Mankato, MN:
Creative Paperbacks.
Lewis, D. (2001). Reading contemporary picture books:
Picturing text. New York: Routledge.
Lomas Garza, C. (2005). Family pictures/Cuadros de
familia. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
Lowry, L. (1989). Number the stars. New York: Laurel-
Leaf Books.
Martinez, M., Harmon, J., & Roser, N. (2009). Using
picture books with older learners. In K. Wood &
W. Blanton (Eds.), Literacy instruction for adoles-
cents: Research-based practice (pp. 287–305). New
York: Guilford Press.
Medina, J. (2004). My name is Jorge on both sides of the
river: Poems in English and Spanish (F. Vanden
Broeck, Illus.). Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press. 31
Mochizuki, K. (1995). Baseball saved us (D. Lee, Illus.).
New York: Lee & Low Books.
Myers, W. (1997). Harlem (C. Myers, Illus.). New
York: Scholastic.
Polacco, P. (2009). The butterfly. New York: Puffin.
Riddell, C. (2010). Wyrmeweald: Paul Stewart & Chris
Riddell. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from
http://www.stewartandriddell.co.uk/http://
www.nrel.gov/learning/re_biofuels.html.
Say, A. (2002). Home of the brave. New York: Houghton
Mifflin.
Seuss, Dr. (1961). The sneetches and other stories. New
York: Random House.
Tan, S. (2007). The arrival. New York: Arthur A.
Levine Books.
Uchida, Y. (1996). The bracelet (J. Yardley, Illus.). New
York: Putnam.
Wendt, I. (1995). The end of war (A. Boratynski, Illus.).
Jerusalem: Simcha Publishing.
Wiviott, M. (2010). Benno and the night of broken glass
(J. Bisaillon, Illus.). Minneapolis: Kar-Ben Publish-
ing.
Wolfenbarger, C., & Sipe, L. (2007). A unique visual
and literary art form: Recent research on picture-
books. Language Arts, 84, 273–280.

Nancy Roser is a professor of Language and Literacy Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Miriam Martinez is a professor of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching at the University of
Texas at San Antonio. Michelle Fowler-Amato is a doctoral student in Language and Literacy
Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Voices from the Middle, Volume 19 Number 1, September 2011

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.