Picture books grow up for an older audience

Illustrated books for an audience beyond the youngest readers are a welcome growth area in publishing, renewing the worth of paper books

As e-readers and tablets challenge print books to prove their worth, asking what exactly paper can do that screen can’t, illustration for young readers – apparently well beyond picture-book age – is having a quiet revolution. Middle-grade and young adult novels, even without the “graphic” prefix, are increasingly moving beyond occasional line-drawings and chapter headings to involve the adventurous use of images throughout. And the results are often spectacular.

SF Said’s partnership with Dave McKean, which gave us Varjak Paw (2003) and, most recently, Phoenix, sets a strong precedent. It’s impossible to envisage the amber-eyed fighter Varjak other than in McKean’s lean, angular interpretation; and the galactic quest at the heart of Phoenix would lose much of its breathtaking scope and feel if the book’s interwoven images were lost. This is hard-working, deep-rooted art, not an optional extra or decorative flourish, or a “cheat” doing the reader’s imaginative job for them. Here, the images are as challenging and complex as the story’s words, and as essential in communicating its meaning.

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