More Doodles than Details? A Look at Children's Book Illustrations
Level of Education of Students Involved
Undergraduate
Faculty Sponsor
Abbie Thompson
College
College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)
Discipline(s)
Psychology
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Symposium Date
Spring 4-24-2025
Abstract
Purpose: Children connect images in books to real-life objects when the pictures are highly iconic, or realistic looking, known as iconicity (Ganea et al., 2008; Simcock & DeLoache, 2006). However, it is unknown to what extent children’s books include highly realistic images. While iconicity benefits learning, do parents select books that feature images with high iconicity? This study examines the level of iconicity in the most frequently checked-out books from libraries in six Indiana counties.
Procedure: Based on circulation data from 2023, the top 100 picture books from each library were selected (N=600). We are using an existing coding scheme for the level of detail developed by Wagner (2017). Books are classified as simple lines, basic drawings, detailed drawings, photographs, or mixed.
Results: The majority of books contain basic drawings. Of the 405 total books coded; 217 are basic drawings, 150 are detailed drawings, 10 are mixed styles, 16 are photographs, and 12 are simple line drawings.
Conclusions: The results of this study recognize the importance of iconicity in children’s books. The study aims to determine whether parents buy books with detailed images that are more supportive of learning. Very few books contained highly iconic images - photographs. We also see that detailed images occurred less than basic drawings. Parents, caregivers, educators, and book publishers should know about book image features that foster children's learning. These findings could influence parents’ choices, early childhood education, and library programming.
Recommended Citation
Bozinovsky, Ana; McCann, Meghan; and Zisterer, Sophia, "More Doodles than Details? A Look at Children's Book Illustrations" (2025). Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 1409.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/cus/1409
Biographical Information about Author(s)
The three research assistants range from freshman to seniors, with majors in Psychology, Pre-Med Psychology, and Health Science. The members are interested in the Learning and Language Acquisition lab, specifically related to children’s language development and the images used within children’s books.