December 2025 - Picture Book People

Picture Book Prompt 133

“The 2½-year-old lives in a world of opposite extremes: “I will—I won’t . . . I can—I can’t . . . Yes—No.” He thrives by shuttling from one extreme to the other. His choices are all multiple choices; he wants both of any possible alternatives. And if alternatives are not offered, he sets them up himself.”
—Frances Ilg, Louise Bates Ames, and Sidney Baker

This behavior may be typical of a 2½-year-old, but all children—adults too, if we’re honest—sometimes live in just this way. Imagine a child who insists on two opposites at once: I want it! I don’t want it! I can do it! Help me! Explore a situation that captures the whirlwind of shifting demands, the comedy, the frustration, and the truth of wanting everything at once.

Picture Book Prompt 132

“They are deceptively simple. I admit that. But for me, all my life I try to simplify things. As a child in school, things were very hard for me to understand often, and I developed a knack, I think. I developed a process to simplify things so I would understand them.”
—Eric Carle

Picture books make the complex simple—not by shrinking ideas, but by distilling them so children can feel and understand. Choose something big—love, loss, belonging, courage—and explore how you might make it simple enough for a child to hold. If you’re working on a draft, look at one passage and ask: What’s the simplest way to show this? What can fall away so that only the essential truth remains?

Picture Book Prompt 131

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
—From Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

Explore the kinds of impossible things a child might imagine—before breakfast or any time of day. Let the impossible pile up, growing wilder and more delightful with each new thought. See how far you can go before lunch!