ABSTRACT
Inextricably linked and yet significantly different, the picturebook and the illustrated book are often confused for one another. The picturebook is best described as a work of visual literature. A distinctive feature of picturebooks and illustrated books that highlights their differences concerns our conceptualization of the relationship between text and image. Classic definitions of picturebooks typically describe picture-storybooks, although more broadly, the category of picturebooks includes nonfiction, poetry, and other genres that are not centered on story. Poetry books range from a single poem represented as a picturebook to anthologized poetry representing many poets. Single-poem picturebooks are typically illustrated by one person and the illustrations have visual unity and flow, such as inSwirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature. Cultures around the world have various roots to which they point when considering the origins of print illustrated books.
