How much text per page for a children's book?

The most solid figures come from English-language publishing. They are submission guidelines for authors, designed for publishers; they describe fairly accurately what actually gets printed.

Board book (0 to 3): up to about 100 words. First picture book (0 to 3): up to about 400 words. Picture book (3 to 7): about 500 to 600 words, up to 750 for ages 3 to 8 according to the SCBWI. Non-fiction picture book (5 to 9): 1,000 to 2,000 words, exceptionally up to 3,000.¹²

The SCBWI, the American association of children's authors and illustrators, gives 500 to 750 words in its own guide for a picture book for ages 3 to 8.¹ If a book looks “wordy” as you flick through it, statistically you're often right.

A figure we don't repeat: you sometimes read of an 800-word ceiling for SCBWI submissions. The page where it appeared no longer exists, and no accessible SCBWI page still gives that figure. Current calls for submissions range from 1,000 to 2,000 words and contradict each other. So we give no ceiling.

A children's publishing specialist counted the words in famous titles. It isn't a study; the figures still put the guidance above into perspective:⁴

Goodnight Moon about 130 words · The Very Hungry Caterpillar about 220 · Where the Wild Things Are about 330 · The Polar Express more than 1,600.

Three of the four best-known picture books in the world are well below what passes for the norm. That's the real finding of this section: among books that last, brevity is the rule. The Polar Express shows at the same time that there are exceptions: a long picture book works when it carries you along.

You probably know the rule: a three-year-old can concentrate for six minutes, a five-year-old for ten. The figures vary from page to page: the one we cite as an example gives 8 to 12 minutes at four and 12 to 18 minutes at five or six. That alone should raise an eyebrow.

Tables by age band circulate on many parenting pages.⁶ We found no original study. The page we cite as an example gives no source for its table.

The research that does exist measures attention in other settings: in class, with standardised tests, and never during a story on the sofa. The only observational study we found arrives at about seven minutes of real attention in first-grade pupils.⁵

In practice: treat the formula as a rough pointer at most. If your four-year-old stays with a story for twenty minutes, there's nothing unusual about it, and if they get up after four minutes, that's fine too. Reading aloud is also not a concentration exercise in the sense of these measurements: there are pictures, closeness, a voice, and the right to interrupt.

1. Open a spread and count the sentences. For ages 2 to 4, a few short sentences per spread read easily.

2. Read it aloud in your head. If you stumble reading silently, you'll stumble aloud too, every evening.

3. Look for repetition. Refrains your child can say with you stretch their attention more than any cut.

4. Look at the picture alone. Does it tell the scene without the text? Then the book still works when your child stops listening and just looks.

For the rest, the most useful guide is also the least precise: read a little and often rather than long and rarely. Our page on reading aloud has more on that.