The mass-market children’s picture book is defined by its ties with large retail outlets and is qualified as “mainstream” as it participates in a widely shared culture that cuts across social milieus. It has rarely been studied in France despite a growing body of research in children’s literature. In this article we propose an initial analysis of its current status within both the academic research on this literary genre and school curricula. Views on this complex and under-researched field oscillate between dismissal, invisibility and under-exposure and they are caught between a historiographical movement focused on a relatively narrow body of research and school curricula that show a varying and ambivalent interest in these books. This first article strives to explore the complex relationships between academic research, the body of books found in school curricula and social practices. It also discusses the key question of a transdisciplinary viewpoint allowing the emergence of a shared epistemology on children's picture books.