When people scoff at children's picture books, I feel that they are often underestimating the effect that these books have on children and that it must be easy to write children's books. I could wax poetic about them losing the imaginative spark that would connect them to Neverland, but I won't do that. However, there is something disheartening about people referring to children's illustrated literature as inferior.
Contemplating on why they would call it lesser, perhaps they are thinking with the briefness of the written narrative and the quality of the illustrations. Maybe they underestimate the skill it requires to create children's books and forget the imagination that is needed as well. It easy to write off something that appears that it requires little skill. However, when consideration is taken with the work involved and the effect on children, it might take the most heartless people to call children's picture books "lesser". I still remember some of my favorite illustrated books -- Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast are examples off the top of my head.
I cannot say that I haven't had similar reactions to books that I might think are of lesser "value" than the books I remember as a kid. I also tend to think lesser of YA books that are widely popular (except for Harry Potter if only because I remember my youngest brother reading it while we grew up). Perhaps I am just a book snob and I consider some books -- picture, chapter, or even "for grown-ups" -- to be not worth their ink on the page. But overall, people who make broad sweeping generalizations about children's picture books to be lesser literature perhaps don't remember what makes them special.
