Janet McAllister: Give us more imaginative picture books, please

Hill & Hole. Photo / Supplied

It's rather sad that adults are largely deprived of one of the greatest joys on earth. I'm talking about picture books.

We give these colourful, sumptuous treasures to children, but aren't usually offered any to pore over ourselves. We treat pictures in books as a utilitarian stop-gap measure that we tolerate only under duress; they're icky things to be dumped when the kids learn to read.

Sure, grown-ups are still allowed illustrated coffee table books - but only if they're respectably non-fiction. And it's true that at last month's book festival, Hicksville graphic novelist Dylan Horrocks called the present era the "golden age of comics". This is fantastic news, because Horrocks meant that flimsies and graphic novels are not all about men in capes these days, but have diversified to include the everyday lives of women and men in Iran, India and Japan.

Cause for local celebration: bro'Town designer Ant Sang's recently released Shaolin Burning, a historical fantasy set in 17th-century China.

But still. Sometimes I don't want ink line-drawings and speech bubbles in multiple panels. Sometimes, I want a short story, with lots of large artworks that work with - or slyly against - the words.

Perennial favourites include Willy the Champ creator Anthony Browne (who has a new memoir out), Fiona French, whose backdrops are eye-catching patterns, Peter Gossage (particularly his reprinted Maui series) and Brian Wildsmith, who paints psychedelic animals.

In short, I want what the industry calls "sophisticated" picture books. I want books like Nick Bantock's Griffin & Sabine series, featuring fun, embedded envelopes to open, and Shaun Tan's large body of imaginative work focused on the experiences of immigrants, including The Arrival.

The judges of last month's NZ Post Children's Book Awards would have liked some more sophisticated picture book entries too, particularly books "which can be enjoyed by readers of all ages". But the awards are for children's books, and so maybe it's kind of cheating if picture books get placed specifically because they also target adults.

However, one sophisticated, original, all-ages book did sneak in as a picture book finalist - Hill & Hole, beautifully illustrated by Vasanti Unka and whimsically written by Kyle Mewburn, who already has a slew of awards for earlier books. I like it a lot - much better, I have to admit, than The Moon and Farmer McPhee, by Margaret Mahy and David Elliot, which not only won the picture book section but the overall Book of the Year prize this year. Mahy's rhymes are great out loud, but the plot is fairly derivative, although the judges liked the "take time to smell the roses" moral.

Also, too many farmers - and they're always male farmers - already star in our picture book crop. On booksellers' New Zealand picture book shelves you'll also find books about Anzac Day, books about the Little Yellow Digger, Maori myths and whole aviaries of native birds, particularly pukeko.

If it weren't for some contemporary Maori stories (Robyn Kahukiwa's are excellent), I would have thought I'd time-travelled back to 1950s nationalistic, conservative New Zealand, obsessed with road building (even in these environmentally conscious times, that bit's still true). There are neither many fantasy books nor many realistic books about urban New Zealand childhoods.

So: some more imaginative picture books, both for children and adults, please. They satisfy the senses - after all, they're the only books in these busy days that I can guarantee I'll finish.