The Picture Book Problem

Writing a picture book 
is like writing War and Peace 
in haiku.                    
          Mem Fox


Spotted this in the comments on a discussion of writing children's books on the blog of literary agent Elana Roth (line breaks my own).  


In a post titled "The Picture Book Problem," Roth writes:

There is clearly a problem with picture books these days. Conferences are loaded with people who feel driven to write them. (I've polled people before and it feels like 75% of the room is there because they write picture books. Some day I'll ask them exactly WHY they feel so compelled to do this.

Perhaps compulsion is the right way to think about it ... really you should not try to write a picture book unless you feel compelled to do so.