Mentor Texts for Writers: The Sum and Parts of Picture Books by Patricia Toht

 Fellow GROGger, Patricia Toht, always delights me with her posts. I always learn new things from her and how she analyzes texts. I hope you enjoy this analysis of how to dig into picture books. 

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It’s suggested that, as writers, we should read 100 books in the genre we’d like to write. Having hosted story times at both a bookstore and a preschool program, I’ve happily read more than ten times that many picture books. What a joy!

Now that I’m writing picture books myself, I’ve discovered that my brain has a pretty good feel for the general rhythm found in most picture books – the rise and fall of action, three-part movements, melodious sentences, etc. This is invaluable when I’m working on pacing and page turns.

But using mentor texts doesn’t stop with that overarching rhythm. With each new book I write, I find challenges that would benefit from a narrower study. My current WIP has rhyming text, as well as a suggestion for a wordless spread, so I have two specifics to look into:

 

Challenge #1 – Rhyming Text

 

Sources for texts: My own library, industry reviews (Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book), blog reviews, and a list developed during last year’s RhyPiBoMo (Rhyming Picture Book Month).

 

Analysis:

• How many stanzas in the book?
• What is the type of stanza (e.g. couplet, quatrain, free verse, etc.)?
• What is the rhyme scheme?
• Are there any variations in the rhyme?

 

Findings: Julia Donaldson’s books proved to be terrific mentor texts for me. Often written in quatrains with an ABCB rhyme scheme, they often had smaller embedded refrains. I typed up several of them to get a feel for the rhythm, nuances and page breaks.

For more specific findings about rhyming picture books, see my blog post about it here. 

 

Challenge #2 – the Wordless Spread

 

Sources for texts: It turns out that there’s no easy way to search for picture books that contain wordless spreads! Luck for me, a blog post at PictureBookBuilders gave me a few titles to begin my search with. A question posed to Facebook friends from PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) added more.

 

Analysis:

• Where in the book does the spread occur?
• What is the use of the spread? (Is it a visual punch line? Does it slow or quicken the pace? Does it compress time? )
• What emotion is conveyed?

 

Findings: I gathered all of my findings in a spreadsheet.

You can find a written summary on the GROG.

As before, the perfect mentor text for me floated to the top – QUEEEN VICTORIA’S BATHING MACHINE. Again, I typed it up, noting page breaks, location of the wordless spread and its function, which gave me insights for my own book.

 

From my experience of looking at mentor texts, I can offer a few suggestions for picture book writers:

 

• Read picture books for the sum (the whole book) as well as its parts (individual elements).

 

• Reviews in trade magazines and blog sites (including this very one!) are helpful sources for mentor texts.

 

• Join writing groups. Fellow authors will amaze you with their knowledge!

 

• Develop a systematic way of comparing titles. I often use an Excel spread sheet, adding columns as I notice more helpful comparisons.

 

• Remember that it’s good to learn the “rules,” but it’s also okay to break them sometimes.

 

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Patricia Toht is a Chicagoland native who was also lucky enough to live in England for several years. She owned a children’s bookshop, Never Never Land, before turning her hand to writing. She is the author of two upcoming picture books by Walker Books, PICK A PUMPKIN and PICK A PINE TREE (Autumn, 2017). Her poetry appears in AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!: A GLOBAL GATHERING OF SPORTS POEMS (Friesen Press) and THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY FOR CELEBRATIONS (Pomelo Books).