Chapter Book (1991)

[David Bowie]

From:    "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>

: My daughter taught herself to read at the age of 4 1/2 and for her
: fifth birthday all she wanted was a "chapter book".  (We gave her
: _Charlotte's Web_). This was in 1991.

: Her nursery school teacher told us that "chapter book" was a standard
: term among nursery-school and similar educators.  I don't recall whether
: the teacher gave us a definition and if so what it was, but from context
: it was pretty clear that my daughter meant "a book long enough to have
: chapters" and did not care whether said book had illustrations or not.

Definitely a term in common use among educators, *and* by parents of
elementary school age children pretty widely, at least in the geogrphically
scattered parts of my social circle.

The requirements for a chapter book are: (1) It is not a picture book, in
that the text is fairly dense on the page and formatted like a novel for
grown-ups, though the font is usually larger; (2) it is longer than a
picture book; (3) pictures are limited to one per chapter, except for a
possible occasional pictographic accent; and (4) crucially, the book is
divided into--generally short--chapters.

It seems to be another convention of chapter books that the illustrations
are black and white, not color.

Examples: Andrew Clements's _Frindle_, the _Little bear_ books, the _Magic
tree house_ series.

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.