Many studies have shown that the best way to create lifelong readers is to begin sharing books with children when they are very young . I believe there's an art parallel. The glorious illustrations tucked safely between the covers of picture books start many children on a lasting path of appreciating art. Our children live in a visual world and pictures matter to them.

When I go into classrooms, I ask children to select read-aloud books by "judging them by their covers." When I ask about why they've chosen a particular book, they usually point to the illustrations. Sometimes it's the mood. The book looks funny or beautiful. Often they've become intrigued with a character whose picture dominates a book's front. Other times the illustrative style or colors make them curious about the story held inside.

We've spoken much about how illustrations make stories work. Unlike many art forms, children's book art has careful and specific criteria. It must be unique and appealing while it bends itself around a story to complete and enrich the text. While the job description of an illustrator is carefully defined, the mediums and ingenuity of using them seem endless. I've thrilled to the visual treats of woodcuts, watercolors, oils, markers, crayons, collage, cloth, three dimensional constructions, or combinations of these different mediums. I've marveled at the way an artist has chosen just the right materials, feeling, and approach to match and extend a story.

Perhaps that's my favorite gift of children's book illustrations....the way they open up paths to wondering. Why do the monochromes of one book make us feel the sad and serious theme? Why does another illustrator vary color with black and white illustration to show the passage of time? Would a certain book have succeeded without its illustrations? How did an illustrator decide a certain technique was the best choice for the book?

Children's book art touches people of all ages. I remember a friend who mourned her children's aging out of picture books, then told me determinedly, "I don't care, I'm just going to buy them for myself!" Many adults collect picture books for the splendors and richness of illustrations aren't age exclusive. Indeed adults may better appreciate how a gesture or a character's expression deepens a story. Three decades of reading, reviewing, and admiring children's books, has proved to me that some of the finest art work in America exists on the pages of picture books.

I first thought about the power of illustration when a college professor described an early picture book memory. From a young age, she remembered the detailing and brightness of her first fairy tale book. In adulthood, she rediscovered the book and found the illustrations were only small black and white drawings. Over the years, the pictures had lived, grown, and blossomed in her heart and mind. I think illustrations have this effect on many of us. Opening a picture book draws you immediately into secret worlds, sensory journeys, and image adventures that live inside you forever. A familiar picture from a remembered book can transport you to a specific room, bring back distinct smells, sounds, or even a certain lap on which you once sat. When illustrations tell tales, they remind us of our own stories.