This is the sort of book we like

(For you and I are very small),

With pictures stuck in anyhow,

And hardly any words at all.

You will not understand a word

Of all the words, including mine;

Never you trouble; you can see,

And all directness is divine –

Stand up and keep your childishness:

Read all the pedants’ screeds and strictures;

But don’t believe in anything

That can’t be told in coloured pictures.

Inscribed by G. K. Chesterton to
a young friend, in a picture book
by Randolph Caldecott