Crossover Picturebooks

"Although crossover fiction is now recognized as a distinct literary genre and marketing category by critics, publishers, booksellers, writers, and readers, the term "crossover" is generally used in a very narrow sense for children's and young adult novels read by adults. Picturebooks that cross from young readers to an adult audience have been overlooked, despite the fact that picturebooks, more than any other genre, can genuinely be books for all ages, and indeed, many contemporary picturebooks deny and defy publishers' often very age-specific categories of readers. This study will examine an international corpus of contemporary picturebooks--including artists' books, celebrity picturebooks, and others-- that appeal to readers of all ages. A wide selection of picturebooks in many languages from around the globe will be analyzed. The study will focus on contemporary picturebooks, with emphasis on those published since 1990, but important earlier examples will also be mentioned to provide a historical context"--