Picture books and growing up

Being that picture books were so heavily associated with childhood memories of grade school, it was nearly procedural for us to outgrew our short stories for chapter novels when we entered middle school. And when we were "promoted" to Troy High, we were weaned away yet again from recreational reading and instead steered towards literature that was considered more "intellectual". McCloud predicts our adult habits when he writes that our next transition is when we "finally arrive at "real books"- those with no pictures at all". 

As a child, I lived in blissful ignorance, and never once questioned what was happening when we traded in our Geronimo Stiltons for our Harry Potters and Percy Jacksons, later for our Jane Austens and John Steinbecks. But reflecting now as a junior, one school year away from high school graduation, I realize now that they were great indicators of maturing. 

We often hear that we are in the midst of four most formative years to explore what we like (and who we like), prepare for our futures, and reach self-discovery. But I think that is arguable. Because did you really learn more from reading Barack Obama's 768-page memoir than The Giving Tree? 


This isn't to say that the latter is superior to the former. Instead, to acknowledge that sometimes, the best life lessons can be taken from elementary parables. We can get too caught up in a world of pretentiousness- who's taking more APs, who got one more correct question on that Stats test, who got a half point higher on the chromatic audition- that we forget to stop and take ourselves into perspective. We are now in a time of our development where we are "coming of age"- for the second and final time. It is important to realize that we have much to learn from the "picture book" generation and even our former selves in our own childhoods, during which our personalities were crystallized and our character and morals molded- the true formative years. 

Comments

  1. Jay ShynOctober 2, 2022 at 8:33 PM

    Hello Emily,
    I also think that the elementary level literature can convey important life lessons. Although basic, the ideas implemented in children storybooks are crucial in building morals early in our lives. The more advanced literature that we are expected to learn in high school contain the same themes, but they are often merely more decorated with longer words and have weirdly complicated plot lines.

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  2. kushyOctober 2, 2022 at 8:38 PM

    I agree with the fact that perhaps the most important life lessons are learned in our formative years. Too often we overcomplicate and overanalyze our lives that we fail to realize that the answers to the most complicated questions comes from the simplest stories. Plus who has the time to read a 768 page memoir when you can get the same "life lessons" from the Tortoise and the Hare? A lot of joke that it's really "not that deep" when sometimes in life it really isn't that deep.

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