Picture books constitute the first format through which most children experience literature. Young readers respond positively to the visual images and written language of picture books that tell a story. While offered primarily for the pleasure of an implied child viewer, "reading picture books aloud can be an important contribution to children's development of literacy, especially visual literacy." In the process of listening to picture storybooks, children build up knowledge about semiotics, defined as systems of representation (including signs and symbols), as they observe how authors and artists share ways of making meaning. Young artists use signs to stand for or to represent something other than themselves. This article presents how children invest signs with meaning as they draw and write.