"Fill your house with piles of books, in every nook and corner." - Dr. SeussChildren's picture books are a staple in every young person's life, from Dr. Seuss to Maurice Sendak. They shape thoughts, values, give them life lessons and open them to cultures and experiences they may never be a part of. Often, history was passed down orally for centuries before being put on paper. They connect generations to each other. And they manage to do all of this through entertaining characters and vibrant colors. Their words encourage learning development and their stories spark the imagination. However, in recent decades, a new category of books has appeared on the market: wordless picture books. These have become a growing trend in today's society. There is debate among academics, teachers, and parents about whether or not these books stimulate imagination, language skills, and literacy as much as a book with words would do. Wordless children's books are beneficial for today's children and can provide unique insight into how their imaginations work and insight into their developmental processes. Using images to tell stories is not a new concept; it has been used for thousands of years to tell the story of a tribe or nation. This is also not a new idea for babies, they are given 'books' with pictures, which may have fabric pages or different textures to represent different animals. What is new, however, is the use of these images in the form of a book presented to older children. This new genre appeared about eighty-two years ago and is the first wordless picture book, according to Jacalyn Eddy in her book Creating an Empire in Children's Book Publishing, .... .. middle of paper ......06. Print.Fagerlie, Anna M. “Using Wordless Picture Books with Children.” Elementary English 52:92-94. Web. April 2014. Jalongo, Mary Renck, Denise Dragich, Natalie K. Conrad and Ann Zhang. “Using wordless picture books to support emergent literacy.” Journal of Early Childhood Education. Flight. 29:167-170. Internet. April 2014. Kümmerling-Meibauer, Bettina and Jörg Meibauer. “First images, first concepts: first conceptual books.” The John Hopkins University Press: The Lion and the Unicorn 29: 324-347. Web. April 2014. Lysaker, Judith T. and Angela Miller. “Engaging the Social Imagination: The Work of Developing Wordless Book Reading.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 13: 147-174. Internet. April 2014. Lysaker, Judith T. "Young Children's Readings of Wordless Picture Books: What Does 'Me' Have to Do with It?" Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 6: 33-55. Internet. Apr. 2014.