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Picture books have an amazing power; they combine text and images to inspire, educate, and entertain. They remove barriers that other forms of literature create, because they are accessible for all. They invite readers into a world that, according to "“Reading Outside the Boundaries: Children’s Literature as Pedagogy for Building Empathy and Understanding of Social Justice in the College Classroom” by Theresa M. Bouley and Phoebe C. Godfrey, “liberates them to be child-like again, and gives them permission to open their hearts and thus their minds” (37). Picture books provide opportunities that other genres may not. Exposing high-school and college students to children’s literature has the potential to create a cycle, to not only help redevelop the reading-culture that our society has come to overlook, but also to re-establish values that it no longer commends. If students can rediscover their love for reading within the pages of picture books, when they become adults, then they will see the value in sharing those same books with the children in their lives. This project will give my students the chance to evaluate numerous pictures on multiple levels. They will ask challenging questions: How do the text and images work together to communicate a message? What does that message reveal about society in the time that the picture book was written? How relevant is that message today? Students will study them through not only their own eyes, but also through the eyes of a child; therefore, giving them the opportunity to revisit their childhood and rediscover a love of reading, through the pages of a picture book. Will you help me make this learning opportunity a possibility for my students?
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