The history of chapter books and picture books converge somewhere in the distant past in a religious battle against false idols and “graven images.” Right up to and well beyond the time of the invention of the printing press, the Christian religion in particular was intent on stamping out all the graven images that people worshipped. To some extent this is a battle that goes on today, as the animist religions and such still have idols of bird gods and what have you.

But how this converges with chapter books and pictures books is an interesting story. You see, “in the beginning was the word, and the word was good” was something that religious folks were taking extremely literally when the printing press was invented. In its most narrow interpretation this meant that all images were bad. Yes, even an illuminated manuscript produced by the monks who had painstakingly copied biblical translations were seen through this filter.

That’s the way of humanity – there is no law that cannot be interpreted too narrowly until it makes no sense at all.

In any case, once the printing presses got humming and distributed around the world this notion of “words good, pictures bad” still had  popular currency. And this meant that books that were “words only”, in many places were the only kinds of books that got printed. You can see the effects of this right up to the modern age.

Of course, cutting or etching plates for images was a big technological challenge and much more time-consuming than typesetting. But this “words good, pictures bad” thing existed, sure as shooting, as the cowboys liked to say.

It is funny how these things pass through from generation to generation, sometimes losing all connection with their beginnings. Each generation puts their own spin on it. And before you know it, you have kids living in your own house who think picture books are for little kids – when in fact they love to read them, and secretly do when no adults or other kids are around to observe, taunt and tease.

The taunting and teasing itself is a curious thing, is it not? Who made these kids the keepers of the sanctity of the word over the pictures.

Now the effects of this on the chapter books for 1st graders, or chapter books for second graders have some surprising implications. You see, it is widely thought that when kids learn to read, there is a part of their brains that turns the words into “pictures in the brain” that help the child make sense of the words. Read a book or magazine on your own and if you pay close attention, you can uncover this process happening inside your own mind.

This is all well and good – but there is a pretty sizable portion of the population that can’t create these images in their heads at all, or who do it poorly or in some inhibited fashion. I’ve never seen a study on this. But in my career, I have had the privilege of showing 100s if not 1000s of people brochures and websites in all forms of development – with and without pictures. Based on my own experience, I can tell you that up to 80% of all human beings have some difficulty comprehending words alone without pictures to help them out.

Does this mean that they can’t create pictures in their head at all. No. But the lack of pictures in a brochure or website or catalog inhibited the transfer of meaning to their brain to a very high degree. As soon as I put the pictures in place, we could all talk about the brochure and website in question and share the same meaning. Whereas, without the pictures in place, it was like trying to have a conversation with a French person, speaking only English.

Obviously this wholesale attitude that pictures are bad and words are good is eroding. Television and movies and the internet and video games and magazines….all these mediums are picture rich. And wildly popular.

Don’t you find it passing strange that books – the vessels that transmit learning from one generation to the next – are still bound by this “words only” strictures? At the very least there ought to be as many kids chapter books (ebooks) available that are full of color pictures. Nearly 70% of U.S. fourth grade students read below grade level.

Sometimes these things are right in front of us to see. But invisible to all. Maybe we need a good chapter book series (with pictures – available as an ebook) to illuminate the history of our prejudice against pictures in chapter books for kids.

There is a wonderful scholarly work you might read if your child struggles with words-only text. The topic is dual coding.  Here’s a link: Imagery and Text by Sadoski and Paivio