Welcome to day 14 of 40 craft lessons from 40 picture books.
Imagine a fly-on-the-wall telling you a story! That’s third-person objective POV in a nutshell. If you like a fancier term, some call it “camera-eye POV.”
This POV shows the story through an outside observer who reports only actions and dialogue. It doesn’t peek into characters’ thoughts or feelings, and the narrator has minimal influence because everything is presented objectively.
A great example is Sam and Dave Dig a Hole (2014, Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen), which follows a day in the lives of two friends. We see exactly what they do, step by step—their shovels hitting the dirt, the strange things they pass by, and the hole growing deeper. The narrator never tells us what Sam or Dave is thinking or feeling; we infer their curiosity, frustration, and determination from their actions and expressions, which the illustrations capture beautifully.
You’ll often see third-person objective POV in stories where actions matter more than inner thoughts, such as mysteries, adventures, or picture books. Nowadays, third-person limited POV dominates modern storytelling. Still, in picture books, objective POV might still work because the illustrations show what the characters feel, while the text keeps the story moving.
I hope reading this blog post has given you new ideas. See you tomorrow for Day 15. If you would like to read these 40 craft lessons on WhatsApp, please join the channel.