Tonight, as I was reading a chapter book to the kids I babysit for, the younger one (who was playing beside the bed) suddenly jumped up to look at the page I was reading.  He'd heard something he was interested in, and wanted to see if there was an illustration of it.

There wasn't, as we had just started a new book without illustrations.  It's a great book, but it had me thinking about how much kids often miss those illustrations.

There are a lot of chapter books that try to bridge the gap, either with line drawings or full color illustrations.  The Chronicles of Narnia, Roald Dahl, E. Nesbit, and many other children's chapter books have fantastic simple black-and-white drawings, and I think that it helps them bridge the gap between having pictures on every page, and having no pictures at all.

Before we started the chapter book without pictures, we had just finished Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand, a chapter book about the Neverland fairies by the author of Ella Enchanted.  Her Neverland books are aimed at a slightly younger audience, and have exquisite watercolor illustrations peppering their pages.  There are more illustrations, and prettier illustrations, than most children's chapter books have, and I think this does an even better job of helping kids bridge the gap between picture books and chapter books for older readers.  It certainly helped to keep the kids I babysit for entertained and focused on the book, because they were always watching for the next beautiful, full-color illustration.

The Neverland books are cute stories, too, incidentally, and are easy to read aloud if your child isn't up to reading them on her own quite yet.  I would highly recommend them to parents with girly-girls, especially Tinkerbell fans!