"Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children."
""WE BELIEVE," the manifesto read, "we must cease writing the same book again and again.""
"Books for children should be "fresh, honest, piquant, and beautiful," and unafraid to be odd: "Even books meant to put kids to sleep should give them strange dreams.""
""WE CONDEMN ... the amnesiacs who treasure unruly classics while praising the bland today.""
Picture-book sales declined and new titles struggled as buyers increasingly favored established classics by authors like Seuss and Sendak. Creators attributed part of the decline to artistic stagnation and repetitive formulas rather than solely to market or parental choices. A group of twenty-one creators issued a manifesto calling for originality, urging that books be fresh, honest, piquant, beautiful, and unafraid to be odd. Parents often returned to unruly classics while many new books were dominated by celebrity authors and branded tie-ins. A broader artistic revolution in picture books had been building for decades before the noted slump.
Read at Slate Magazine
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