Do illustrations "dumb down" books?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve had this debate with a friend of mine many of times. See, I am a very visual person. I love pictures. I like to read, but I love books that have photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and other graphics. My friendly dislikes this- he claims that pictures ruin his mental image of a story.

My favorite section of a Library is the Oversize collection. This is usually large books which are riddled with photographs/illustrations. One of the reasons I like books like this is that I can get through them quickly- I can look at a picture far faster than read a page worth of text.

When I was younger my Grandmother got me these little adaptations of famous novels. They were called ‘Moby books’ and had a picture on every other page. I loved it, it was like reading a storyboard or something :slight_smile:

2

I’m a super super SUPER visual person and I’ve hated illustrations in books because they were always different than how I imagined the scene.

3

In some instances, the illustrations become almost as well recognized as the books themselves. John Tenniel’s illustrations for “Alice in Wonderland” are a case in point - they’re immediately recognizable.

As to the OP, I appreciate the illustrations, though I do recognize that some folks feel like they ruin the experience (sort of like music videos).