Is there a difference between illustrated books and picture books?
Ilan Stavans: Picture books are peculiar items. They aren’t the same thing as illustrated books, in which the illustrations are subordinated to a text. Imagine, for instance, Gustave Doré’s illustrations of Rabelais’s “Gargantua and Pantagruel,” or Barry Moser’s of the “Pennyroyal Caxton Bible.” In the picture book, the equation between word and image is symmetrical, or at least appears to be so. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” among the most influential picture books and the one that established our understanding of what picture books are, juxtaposes just a few sentences with a parade of illustrations that enable the reader to understand the complex inner world of the child who serves as protagonist. In the Jewish tradition, the prohibition against idolatry delayed the use of images in books. The illustrated books emerge during the Renaissance in the form of the Passover Haggadah, designed to keep the children’s attention focused on the Moses saga. What makes a picture b
