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Emotional Content in Picture Books
By Ira Saxena
The awareness towards the growth of child-centric literature brought into focus the magnitude of picture-books as a tool in the learning process for children. As soon as the child steps into the social realm, picture books offer easy-to-learn medium for the child. The familiarity with words, language and speech through reading the pictures and text for communication are all packed in a small bundle in a picture book. Picture books are profusely illustrated simple stories and information to aid the learning process and enhance social skills.

Needless to mention, cognitive psychology recognizes picture books as a potential tool for visual literacy amongst pre-schoolers and beginner readers. They actually give direction to emotional literacy and learning about present emotions. Like all fiction, picture books represent emotions of the fictional characters’ as well as their interpretation of each other’s emotions. However, unlike novels, picture books evoke our emotional engagement through images as well as words and, moreover, through amplification of words by the images.