The multidimensionality of children’s picture books for upper grades

Massey, S.R. (2015). The multidimensionality of children’s picture books for upper grades. English Journal, 104(5), 45-58.


Picture books are some of my favorite literature in print today. The sheer variety and quality out there today is staggering. When I taught children’s literature courses, I often told my students that there is a picture book out there for almost any topic, theme, or subject area, and that is even more the case today than it was several years ago. What is more, there are so many lists and reviews online now that a teacher wanting to assemble a set of texts for a specific instructional purpose should be able to do that much more easily than it was “in my day” as an elementary teacher, when compiling a text set usually meant a car trip to several libraries.

Massey here essentially makes the same case I made with my own students for using children’s literature texts, but she also makes a case for using picture books to build literacy skills in the upper grades, middle school, and even high school. I remember that it never was a “hard sell” to talk about using children’s literature with future elementary teachers, and middle school teachers could usually be convinced (the math and science teachers were a harder sell though), but future secondary teachers often looked askance at any suggestion that these “baby books” be used in high school classes. Massey’s article would be helpful in showing teachers that picture books are not “baby books” but potentially useful texts.

The most useful part of the article is Massey’s examples of how picture books can be used in each subject area. She describes specific ways that specific texts can be used when teaching various aspects of language arts, mathematics, history/social studies/culture, science, and arts/design/music. Then comes the big bonus that teachers currently in the classroom will love: the article ends with a five-page list of exemplary texts organized by subject area and classified by topic. This wonderful list is only a starting point, but it may be just the scaffold that a teacher needs to try using picture books with older students. I am confident that once a teacher tries this, he or she will be “hooked” and go on beyond this list.

A further bonus is the sidebar that concludes the article, “Teacher Website Resources”. Some of these are already favorite sites of mine, and others were new resources that I plan to bookmark. This list of 18 websites provides solid resources that can make the creation of text sets for upper grade and secondary classes easier. Massey has given us a resource-packed article that I plan to share with future teachers and fellow teacher educators.