ABSTRACT
In 1988, the author could explore how the picture-book form used both visual and verbal information to communicate with a fairly clear sense about just what a picture book was: it was almost always a short story or succinct conveyor of information for an audience of young children, printed on paper and containing few words and, most often, one colourful illustration on each of its eight or twelve double-paged spreads. If a growing number of graphic novels for young readers, including many readers older than the traditional picture-book audience, invite that kind of thinking, then so do a variety of forms that did not even exist in 1988—new developments such as e-book versions of picture books and picture book apps. In any case, a picture book app seems no more likely than a physical picture book to lead to detachment.
