The current publishing industry perception is that 500 words is the ideal length for a picture book. As a new writer, I have received this advice repeatedly. The reason behind the word count? Publishers believe that today’s busy parents want short titles to put their children to sleep quickly.
But there are publishers who prefer longer picture books, especially when a popular author is behind the title. Patricia Polacco comes to mind. Trinka Hakes Noble’s The Orange Shoes was my favorite picture book of 2007 and it easily breaks the 500-word barrier. And Flashlight Press wants manuscripts to be as close as possible to 1000 words. So it’s not the entire industry going wild for short.
Since I’m participating in the 21-day comment challenge with nearly 100 kidlit bloggers, I thought I’d ask you. Is length a factor when deciding upon a picture book purchase?
In our house, the story’s the thing. Short or long, as long as the kids love it and ask for it repeatedly, I’ll buy it.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 
15 comments
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November 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Vivian
Good question. I like the longer picture books geared toward older children.
Best of luck with your writing!
November 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm
KIm
It’s the story for us, too. Though I must admit that most of the picture books we own fall into the 500 word or less category.
November 14, 2008 at 1:15 am
Rena
We like the longer ones, but my boys are 9 and 6, so that has a lot to do with it. I think there is always a happy medium and both types should be made available to people. We’re also a homeschooling family, so a lot of the books we buy and check out from the library get read for school purposes, and not just before bedtime.
November 14, 2008 at 11:12 am
Christy
I don’t like long picture books. I have 3 young children and what I’ve noticed is that they usually don’t have the attention span. Also, when I’ve read some longer books, I’ve found myself trying to skip pages and hoping the kids don’t notice. (found out my husband does the same thing too.) I love books, but reading long picture books outloud is kind of like a parental form of torture.
Just my opinion.
Now that my oldest is becoming an indepentant reader, maybe my idea will change. But from the time as the sole reader: I dislike them.
Christy
November 14, 2008 at 12:39 pm
tara
Some great responses so far. Keep ’em coming.
Christy, how old are your children? What are some of your favorite PBs?
November 14, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Sherry
No, I have eight children, and I’ve compiled a book list of picture books called Picture Book Preschool. And I never even considered the length. I don’t like the books that have lots of words on one page and then you have to turn the page to see the illustration that goes with them. But other than that, I’m good with any length as long as the the story works.
November 14, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Sherrie
I don’t care what the length is as long as the story is good. Our favorite picture books right now are two extremes. “Bark, George” is only about 200 words, but I’m so impressed that Jules Feiffer could write such a brilliantly funny book with so few words. Our other favorite, “Pinkalicious” has about 700 words. I love how the Kann sisters play with words and colors in this book and the illustrations are brilliant.
November 15, 2008 at 9:19 am
kimbaise
Okay, this is a great question and one that I need to hear comments on. Right now I’m working on a bedtime picture book collaboration of 3 short stories/ poems in one book. I’m wondering if I should keep each story at 167 words…or under 200. I’ll have to start counting to see where I’m at:)
Thanks for the enlightenment!
November 15, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Corey
I am one of those people who believe “less is more.” I don’t the patience to read long picture books. I can read a 1000 page novel, but if it is a picture book I can’t even get through it if it has too many words on a page. If i listed all my favorites (i.e. Knuffle Bunny) they would probably all be in eh three to four hundred word range.
November 16, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Christine
In our house, we like longer picture books with more words. I use them also in the fourth grade CCD class I teach. Kids from 4 or 5 years up want more “meat” so to speak. But I’ll admit, sometimes at bedtime, I’ll tell my kindergartener when he’s selecting a book, “Make it a quickie. It’s late and we’re all tired.”
November 20, 2008 at 2:18 pm
hollybookscoops
The length of the book never determines my decision about whether to buy a book or not. We go for great stories and great illustrations every time. If it’s late and we need a quick read, I’ll either ‘tell’ the story if the words are too long while we follow along with the pics or I skip pages and my kids don’t mind. They’d rather have any story than no story- we even did ‘say no to drugs books’ for bed time recently. Just hadn’t had the time to do it during the day. I must say my kids didn’t care in the least that the pages had tons of words. I just read the relevant ones and we talked about all the pictures and everything else they were wondering about.
I do always hear though, that if you can cut it out, shorter and less words is always better.
November 21, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Andrea of JOMB
Great topic! I’m catching up after having been offline for 6 days…
We love lots of interesting, well written text, when it adds to the story. Even so, every word must count. Many books we review use many words simply due to need for editing.
We often hear that kids these days don’t have the attention span for longer books as a reason for the abundance of lightweight children’s books on lightweight topics. I agree, instead, with what you’ve indicated. It’s the parents & teachers that don’t have the attention span (time? interest?). Our girls love to bring one of their favourite picture books to school with them each day and are often disappointed when their teachers refuse to read them because they have “too many words”. yikes!
November 21, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Andrea of JOMB
oops! when I said “many books we review”, above, I meant to write “many books we *are sent for possible review*”
July 24, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Heather Pontious
I am a 5th grade teacher and an aspiring writer. My fifth graders love picture books still. I love picture books, but I still want a plot I can sink my teeth into a bit or one to make me ponder. There are a wide variety of picture books published with varying word counts. I find the short ones rely heavily on an artist to sell it to me. While the art can be just mediocre for a good solid story that I care to revisit over and over. These are the books I buy. The others are library picks. I have two versions of one story I am writing now. One is edited for a picture book, ages 4-8, and has about 875 words. The other is edited for an early reader and has about 1666 words. I’m still polishing, but I am torn. I feel the shorter version has much less voice.
April 15, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Kerry Aradhya
Hi, Tara. I’m finishing up a draft of a new picture book manuscript, and it is a little longer than most of mine….still (barely) under 500 words, though. I’m glad I found your post about length. Good to hear what other writers and parents are thinking! As a parent, I am sort of sad to say that I, too, prefer to read shorter picture books at bedtime. But during the day, anything goes. And as a writer, I just write whatever comes out. Usually what comes out is short!