RIP Picture Books?

"It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin’s system not to encourage a child’s mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster…."
-Charles Dickens Dombey & Son

If you follow THIS LINK you will find an article from the New York Time about how parents are no longer buying Picture books for their children. Here's the gist of it: picture books sales are way down, in part, they surmise, because people are trying to get their children reading earlier and earlier, and they don't want them to waste time with "baby books."

I love picture books, I think the best of them are works of art. For Hannah's first birthday, we requested that those closest to her, her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles each gift Hannah a book that was dear to them growing up. Here were some of the picks:

Adam: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Grandpa Tim: The Bike Lesson by Stan and Jan Bernstein
Grandma Margie: Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman
Uncle Sean: One Woolly Wombat
Nana Kris: The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop
Aunt Allie: Madeline by Ludwig Belemans
Aunt Aubrey: Corduroy by Don Freeman
Uncle Austin: There's an Alligator Under my Bed by Mercer Mayer
Uncle Avery: Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle
Uncle Addison: Love you Forever by Robert Munch

Aunt Meggie and I both picked more advanced children's books (I picked Peter Pan, Megan picked Ella Enchanted) but Hannah and I have LOVED reading the picture books together. She love to carry around picture books and point and "read" them. Although I look forward to introducing her to Beverly Clearly, Gail Carson Levine, J.K. Rowling and many more beloved authors we are relishing in Eric Carle, Mo Willems, Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman, etc.

I love to read picture books, I hope that people will buy more books and that they will not go away forever.

What are some of your favorite picture books?