Just thinking out loud here…

It’s another great year for wordless picture books.

What draws us to stories told exclusively through illustration? A good story is paramount, of course, but I think there’s something about our brains that respond to visuals first. It’s how we take in the world.

I keep coming back to the idea that wordless books have the side effect of making the reader feel smart.

I don’t mean this in a negative way. In wordless books, the reader isn’t guided through the story – she must interpret the narrative on her own. This gives a feeling of accomplishment. Perhaps even subconsciously, you feel smart for “getting it”.

Is this a bad thing? Not at all. But I wonder if this perception means that we (without necessarily knowing it) see wordless books as having a leg up in some way. Are we more likely to have positive impressions of a wordless book because it’s wordless?

Is a story better when it’s in more our heads than on the page?

What do you think?