International Children’s Book Day

Early Picture Books Were Designed as “Talking Visual Encyclopedias”

Long before modern storybooks, early children’s picture books such as John Amos Comenius’s 1658 Orbis Sensualium Pictus were built as visual catalogs of the world, pairing simple Latin and vernacular words with woodcut illustrations of everyday objects, trades, animals, and Bible scenes.

They were intended to be read aloud and discussed with adults so that children could connect printed words, images, and real-life experience, a format that helped lay the groundwork for both language learning and scientific observation in childhood.  

Children’s Fiction Can Physically Shape the Developing Brain 

A large study of more than 10,000 children in the United States found that those who read for pleasure most days between ages 2 and 9 had measurably thicker brain regions associated with cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and imagination by early adolescence.

These avid readers also performed better on tests of verbal learning and reasoning and showed fewer mental health difficulties, suggesting that regular engagement with stories can alter brain structure in ways that support both thinking and emotional well‑being.  

Storybooks Are a Major Source of Vocabulary Children Never Hear in Conversation  

Natural adult–child conversation tends to recycle a limited set of everyday words, but children’s books routinely use rarer and more complex vocabulary.

Studies comparing speech and children’s literature have found that picture books and storybooks expose young readers to more low‑frequency words per thousand than even educated adult talk, which helps explain why regular shared reading is strongly linked with larger vocabularies and later reading comprehension.  

Fiction Helps Children Rehearse Empathy in a “Safe Sandbox” 

Psychologists studying how children understand others’ minds have shown that frequent engagement with stories, especially those featuring complex characters, correlates with stronger “theory of mind,” or the ability to infer what others think and feel.

By following characters through conflicts and resolutions, young readers practice taking different perspectives and recognizing emotions, which over time is associated with higher empathy and more prosocial behavior in real life.  

Multilingual Picture Books Support Both Heritage Languages and Inclusion

Bilingual and multilingual children’s books are increasingly used in classrooms and libraries to validate home languages while teaching a dominant national language.

For example, titles that present text in English alongside Cree, Spanish, or other languages give children a chance to see their family tongue in print, while also inviting monolingual classmates into that culture, a practice librarians and educators credit with boosting both literacy and a sense of belonging among minority-language children.  

Most of the World’s Children Still Have Very Few Books at Home

Global surveys by children’s publisher Scholastic have highlighted stark contrasts in access to books: while children in Australia reported an average of about 159 books at home, children in India reported an average of 89, and those in Canada about 80.

Large numbers of children in every country surveyed said they had fewer than 10 books of their own, underscoring why schools, libraries, and book-donation programs remain critical for giving many young readers any meaningful contact with children’s literature at all.  

Illustration Has Become a Recognized Art Form Through Children’s Books

Over the 20th century, illustration for children’s books shifted from being seen as mere decoration to a respected artistic discipline in its own right, with international awards such as the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration recognizing lifetime achievement in the field.

Illustrators are now judged on visual storytelling, emotional nuance, and cultural authenticity, and their artwork is collected by major museums and libraries, reflecting how central images have become to the way children experience and interpret stories.  

More About Children’s Literature

Children’s literature has a history that’s long and, appropriately enough, storied. It started with a Bohemian educator, Jan Komensky. Komensky wrote a picture book, “Orbis Sensualium Pictus,” or “Visible World in Pictures,” in 1658.

It was a reading primer with copperplate printed images. It was a far cry from today’s colorful, modern children’s books. Still, it started a movement. Fast forward to the next great advancement – John Newbery’s “A Little Pretty Pocket-Book” in 1744. It gained fame for being the first children’s storybook.

Newbery’s book was purely for enjoyment, unlike the earlier primers, which were intended expressly for teaching reading. Newbery received accolades posthumously earned recognition as “The Father of Children’s Literature.”

The children’s literature movement continued the upward trajectory during the middle to late 1800s. Those were the days when iconic authors like Hans Christian Anderson and Lewis Carroll wrote whimsical tales.