It's giving kids on Sesame Street playing in a construction site, or maybe Peter and Archie up to their waists in a literal junkyard fort in Goggles. I love this genre of children's books.
How have I never pieced together that the Hobans were related - also here for the gossip column on various husband/wife children’s picture book duos :)
I don’t know any good gossip about kids book duos but I never miss an opportunity to tell people that Evaline Ness was married to Eliot Ness, the guy who took down Al Capone.
Ahhhh, but the thing I love about What Is It is that with a toddler on your lap or snuggled next to you, you can point to the sock and say, “Giraffe!” and the child will dissolve in giggles and say “Noooo! It’s a sock!” This can go on endlessly and it is is wildly fun for the both of you — but it also gives the child a sense of knowing what is right and the opportunity to - gasp! - correct a grown-up, which is so empowering for them.
>The fact that the tabletops are the same size but the legs, these beautiful X’s, are different sizes.
It's more fun than that! I'm pretty sure that's two benches on top, not a table with different legs, but it's proportioned so they cover the whole tabletop when paired.
If you're gonna trash teddy-bears-posed-in-real-places photos in picture books, you must start with the Lonely Doll books. Because gahhhhh. They were mesmerizing in their awfulness.
Wow. This is so inspiring. I just love how each book is a true open-ended provocation for the child, inviting inquiry and interaction with every page, and whoever is reading with them. This is giving me A LOT to ponder. Like we need more Socratic books like these, and fewer books that didactially explain. And who knew that Tana was the original creator of the cat video?! P.S. I am especially going to be pondering whether illustration-based books can achieve a similar level of engagement - my guess is maybe yes, in the same way that some of the best paintings invite us to observe carefully and wonder. I also think of Chris Van Allensburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as an example of a wordless illustrated book that provokes the reader (albeit an older one) to observe, inquire, and tell their own stories. But there is something acutely different about how photographs replicate the experience of perception in the real world that makes the experience that much more immediate, tangible, and engaging. I’ll be contemplating this for a long while, I expect…
Obsessed with Profiles in Literature. When are we gonna get that reboot??
This is a wonderful post that has got my brain WORKING. Love this idea of the “enoughness” of Tana Hoban’s photographs, because it leaves space for a reader’s interpretation to be enough (ie. this is a picture of a rabbit and whatever you observe about the rabbit is correct).
Also feel her books can work as a sneaky tool to demystify art (which is maybe the point you are making when talking about “is it red? is it yellow? is it blue?”). Noticing things and being interested in them is the first step to appreciating and, possibly/hopefully, making art!
Which brings me back to a part of the Profiles in Literature interview that I really enjoyed - Susan Hirschman’s great answer to the question of how she became a children’s book editor. She was “interested in it.” Loved that!
I have a special spot in my heart for well-done photograph-illustrative books, and I think a lot of what I tend to enjoy comes down to whether it was actually photo-illustrated or imaged. Meaning, did it feel like the photographs have a certain point of view that must have been, upon reflection, "set up" (for lack of a better word...) to tell an actual story (whether narrative or conceptual) by the end of the book. Alas, so many of these sort of books seemingly start with photographs and then try to cobble together a story after the fact; and while it's true that humans can see a story in anything--or ascribe meaning--and that is a genuinely amazing thing, that's also why AI-generated slop is flooding the market, because as soon as we say "well it's actually the viewer/reader/spectator that creates meaning" then what is the need for a creator at all? So says I, who no one wants to hear from.
I also think the teddy book looks charming, probably because the first photographs I took with my Fisher-Price via Kodak kids' camera were staged pics of my own toys. Another Elayne demerit! :)
I am admittedly out of my wheelhouse on these particular books. But my favorites fiction photographic fiction picture books (and maybe it's nostalgia on the first two) include The Red Balloon and The Sleepy Little Lion (natch; though Mac didn't mention the MWB ones, and come to think of it, neither did Jon, even though one was duck-centric! Is there a hot take there?), Moon Pops (which I really love!), Claymates, Hanamils, and of course, there is a rich grey area (There's a Ghost in this House and Knuffle Bunny being great examples).
You guys really seemed to want tea, so here's some: I like the idea of mimicking the feel of songwriter for people who write (but don't illustrate) picture books, and also? It's a tough gig. So, I humbly present: illwriter? Ha ha ha. Sigh.
When I was a kid, I had a picture book called My Donkey Benjamin that I adored, probably because I yearned to wander the craggy hills of a Greece with a donkey. Oh, and I think April Pulley Sayre's photographic picture books actually feel like concrete poems in a very clever way. As for Hoban's obvious (Rorschachian) genius... I think perspective might be the most interesting thing in the world to play with and talk about. And boy did she lean in...
I love this. When I was a child in the 70s I adored so many picture books but those with photos affected me very strongly and in a different way that those with drawings. It was like someone could see the world like I saw it as a child, but from different and fascinating angles. They would transport me. I remember this book called Angelita about a girl who immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico which I repeatedly checked out from the library. Also I remember The Red Balloon and The Lonely Doll took me walking alongside other children (and objects) in the same way. I actually didn't discover Tana Hoban until much later as a parent but her books feel much the same way.
Great! This is the first time I've ever seen anybody talking about these. I make picture books with photos, but they have my watercolor and ink drawings over top of them. Been making them for fun for a decade or so. Also, this is my first post on any social media type thing in that long too, so yeah, Hey. And thanks
Garth Williams illustrated the FIRST Frances book, "Bedtime for Frances," and it was he who decided she should be a badger (which I think I learned in one of your conversations, where Ursula Nordstrom mentioned it). Lillian Hoban did the rest of them, not as well.
I feel like the photographic genre never made it big in British picture book publishing. Hoban’s Black and White board book is still published here but that might be it. This post was so fascinating on the relation between word, image and referent - does an illustrated style create a more complex relationship between the child and the thing depicted, and what happens when you call attention to that?
I have to add - as a Russell Hoban fan (and he wrote so many amazing examples) - I think you have his biographical details reversed. The first Frances book was illustrated by Garth Williams and then Lilian Hoban took on the series in a similar style.
Wow that garbage photo. Publishers today would NEVER!!!!
It's giving kids on Sesame Street playing in a construction site, or maybe Peter and Archie up to their waists in a literal junkyard fort in Goggles. I love this genre of children's books.
Or, ERA in children's MEDIA, I should say.
How have I never pieced together that the Hobans were related - also here for the gossip column on various husband/wife children’s picture book duos :)
I don’t know any good gossip about kids book duos but I never miss an opportunity to tell people that Evaline Ness was married to Eliot Ness, the guy who took down Al Capone.
What!! Thanks for sharing that— she's one of my favorite favorites.
I read that just this week!
This is incredible!
Ahhhh, but the thing I love about What Is It is that with a toddler on your lap or snuggled next to you, you can point to the sock and say, “Giraffe!” and the child will dissolve in giggles and say “Noooo! It’s a sock!” This can go on endlessly and it is is wildly fun for the both of you — but it also gives the child a sense of knowing what is right and the opportunity to - gasp! - correct a grown-up, which is so empowering for them.
>The fact that the tabletops are the same size but the legs, these beautiful X’s, are different sizes.
It's more fun than that! I'm pretty sure that's two benches on top, not a table with different legs, but it's proportioned so they cover the whole tabletop when paired.
WHAT IS IT, indeed.
If you're gonna trash teddy-bears-posed-in-real-places photos in picture books, you must start with the Lonely Doll books. Because gahhhhh. They were mesmerizing in their awfulness.
There have been a few articles about the Lonely Doll books. This is an older one from 2004: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/fashion/the-unsettling-stories-of-two-lonely-dolls.html and a more recent New Yorker piece from 2017: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-cultish-allure-of-the-creepy-childrens-book-the-lonely-doll As a child, I was also fascinated by the "Very Young" series - particularly A Very Young Dancer. Here is a 2011 NYT article about that: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/arts/dance/a-very-young-dancer-and-the-life-that-followed.html
Wow. This is so inspiring. I just love how each book is a true open-ended provocation for the child, inviting inquiry and interaction with every page, and whoever is reading with them. This is giving me A LOT to ponder. Like we need more Socratic books like these, and fewer books that didactially explain. And who knew that Tana was the original creator of the cat video?! P.S. I am especially going to be pondering whether illustration-based books can achieve a similar level of engagement - my guess is maybe yes, in the same way that some of the best paintings invite us to observe carefully and wonder. I also think of Chris Van Allensburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick as an example of a wordless illustrated book that provokes the reader (albeit an older one) to observe, inquire, and tell their own stories. But there is something acutely different about how photographs replicate the experience of perception in the real world that makes the experience that much more immediate, tangible, and engaging. I’ll be contemplating this for a long while, I expect…
Obsessed with Profiles in Literature. When are we gonna get that reboot??
This is a wonderful post that has got my brain WORKING. Love this idea of the “enoughness” of Tana Hoban’s photographs, because it leaves space for a reader’s interpretation to be enough (ie. this is a picture of a rabbit and whatever you observe about the rabbit is correct).
Also feel her books can work as a sneaky tool to demystify art (which is maybe the point you are making when talking about “is it red? is it yellow? is it blue?”). Noticing things and being interested in them is the first step to appreciating and, possibly/hopefully, making art!
Which brings me back to a part of the Profiles in Literature interview that I really enjoyed - Susan Hirschman’s great answer to the question of how she became a children’s book editor. She was “interested in it.” Loved that!
I have a special spot in my heart for well-done photograph-illustrative books, and I think a lot of what I tend to enjoy comes down to whether it was actually photo-illustrated or imaged. Meaning, did it feel like the photographs have a certain point of view that must have been, upon reflection, "set up" (for lack of a better word...) to tell an actual story (whether narrative or conceptual) by the end of the book. Alas, so many of these sort of books seemingly start with photographs and then try to cobble together a story after the fact; and while it's true that humans can see a story in anything--or ascribe meaning--and that is a genuinely amazing thing, that's also why AI-generated slop is flooding the market, because as soon as we say "well it's actually the viewer/reader/spectator that creates meaning" then what is the need for a creator at all? So says I, who no one wants to hear from.
I also think the teddy book looks charming, probably because the first photographs I took with my Fisher-Price via Kodak kids' camera were staged pics of my own toys. Another Elayne demerit! :)
I am admittedly out of my wheelhouse on these particular books. But my favorites fiction photographic fiction picture books (and maybe it's nostalgia on the first two) include The Red Balloon and The Sleepy Little Lion (natch; though Mac didn't mention the MWB ones, and come to think of it, neither did Jon, even though one was duck-centric! Is there a hot take there?), Moon Pops (which I really love!), Claymates, Hanamils, and of course, there is a rich grey area (There's a Ghost in this House and Knuffle Bunny being great examples).
You guys really seemed to want tea, so here's some: I like the idea of mimicking the feel of songwriter for people who write (but don't illustrate) picture books, and also? It's a tough gig. So, I humbly present: illwriter? Ha ha ha. Sigh.
"AI-generated slop" is my favorite new phrase.
When I was a kid, I had a picture book called My Donkey Benjamin that I adored, probably because I yearned to wander the craggy hills of a Greece with a donkey. Oh, and I think April Pulley Sayre's photographic picture books actually feel like concrete poems in a very clever way. As for Hoban's obvious (Rorschachian) genius... I think perspective might be the most interesting thing in the world to play with and talk about. And boy did she lean in...
I’ve never heard of her books, but I’m definitely going to have to find some now!
Also, sorry to disappoint Mac, but those are two benches on top of the table, not another table.
:(
but also thank you
I love this. When I was a child in the 70s I adored so many picture books but those with photos affected me very strongly and in a different way that those with drawings. It was like someone could see the world like I saw it as a child, but from different and fascinating angles. They would transport me. I remember this book called Angelita about a girl who immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico which I repeatedly checked out from the library. Also I remember The Red Balloon and The Lonely Doll took me walking alongside other children (and objects) in the same way. I actually didn't discover Tana Hoban until much later as a parent but her books feel much the same way.
Great! This is the first time I've ever seen anybody talking about these. I make picture books with photos, but they have my watercolor and ink drawings over top of them. Been making them for fun for a decade or so. Also, this is my first post on any social media type thing in that long too, so yeah, Hey. And thanks
Garth Williams illustrated the FIRST Frances book, "Bedtime for Frances," and it was he who decided she should be a badger (which I think I learned in one of your conversations, where Ursula Nordstrom mentioned it). Lillian Hoban did the rest of them, not as well.
Thank you for the correction!
I feel like the photographic genre never made it big in British picture book publishing. Hoban’s Black and White board book is still published here but that might be it. This post was so fascinating on the relation between word, image and referent - does an illustrated style create a more complex relationship between the child and the thing depicted, and what happens when you call attention to that?
I have to add - as a Russell Hoban fan (and he wrote so many amazing examples) - I think you have his biographical details reversed. The first Frances book was illustrated by Garth Williams and then Lilian Hoban took on the series in a similar style.
You’re right about RB. Thank you 🫡
Love Hoban!
Another photograph book I love to look at and recommend is Nina Crews' THE NEIGHBORHOOD MOTHER GOOSE
Just read this interesting NYT article by Leonard Marcus on the history of photograph-illustrated picture books, and thought it might be good to share here. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/books/review/edward-steichen-lewis-hine-tana-hoban-childrens-picture-books.html