Picture Books

As a child I read all of "The Borrowers" series.  Little tiny people who live in the walls of a house and their adventures of not being seen by humans and staying away from the family cat.  Years later as an adult I saw one of the Borrowers books that I had never read.  What fun, I thought, to take a trip down memory lane and so I checked it out at the library.

After I was done reading it I thought how refreshing it was that there were pictures (black and white drawings) in it to go along with the story.  It took me days to remember that I had read a childrens book, not an adult book and that of course, it would have drawings and pictures in it.

Recently my daughter had me pick up Jodi Picoult's newest book that she wrote with her teenage daughter Samantha Van Leer.  I glanced through it just to take a look and discovered . . . pictures!  Several.  Some full page, some just a little something on a page.

Why don't adult books have pictures in them?  At what point did we as adults decide that we were too old for art?