Sales of Picture Books Slow-Going

Picture books have such poor sales these days at the Children's Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees typically place new copies on shelves, watch them languish, then return them to publishers. “So many of them just die a sad little death, and we never see them again,” owner Terri Schmitz said.

The picture book—a mainstay of children's literature, with its large print and lavish illustrations wrapped in a glossy jacket—may be fading.

It isn't going away, with perennials such as the Sendaks and Seusses still selling well. Yet publishers have scaled back the number of titles