While the two major picture book categories are obviously fiction (stories) and non fiction (information) books, there are important subsets of these which are worth exploring.This article looks at broad categories of picture books, rather than specific themes or topics.

Concept Books
Concepts include telling the time, colors, opposites, counting, numbers, alphabet, letters, shapes and size. They also include spatial relationships e.g. over, under or up, down etc. These books can be either fiction or non fiction.

Anthropomorphic Books
These books feature animals or inanimate objects with human characteristics. The animals may wear clothes and talk to each other or interact with humans.

Wordless Picture Books
Sometimes known as “picture books with no text”, these books encourage imagination. The child or adult can tell their own story, which can change with each retelling.

Easy Readers
Easy Readers are designed as transition books to independent reading, and chapter books. The Cat in the Hat is one example, although even that may be too lengthy. A non fiction example is the Dorling Kindersley (DK) Eyewitness Readers Series (Levels 1 & 2).

Reading Scheme Books
These books are written specifically for the Education market. Each book is part of a series, and is carefully structured to the series reading level, developmental level and vocabulary progression.

Realistic Fiction
These are stories set in contemporary or historic times, usually including children as characters. This category accounts for the majority of picture books.

Poetry & Rhymes
These range from short collections of favorite poems and Mother Goose rhymes, to stories in verse, skipping rhymes, multicultural poems and famous poems in picture book form.

Fantasy
Dragons, magic and flights of the imagination such as Where the Wild Things Are transport the young reader to a land of make believe. These stories can have imaginary or contemporary settings.

Traditional Literature
This covers fairytales, folktales, myths and legends. Other traditional literature such as bible stories are also included here.

Information Books
This refers to factual books. Some story books add factual information at the back of a story about e.g. buterflies. This capitalises on the interest sparked by the story to find out more.

Hybrid Books
Some information books are written as a story. These are not generally popular with schools needing books for student research. As they are neither a story nor an information book, locating specific information is difficult.

Why Does It Matter?
Learning more about the category you wish to target with your picture book will assist you to focus your writing to the target audience and the overall purpose of the book.

<<< Back to Home Page - Grow Your Writing Business
<<< Articles Index - Grow Your Children’s Writing Business

Writing for Kids & Teens