Ha, I know what you mean about the pictures. The movie's never quite as good as the book, and the illustrator never quite captures it, does she? And TV is better with the subtitles on. But that's how I feel now, as an adult with better reading comprehension than listening comprehension.
Generalizing here, but poor kids in the developing world are not read to on their mothers' laps. Nor are they sprawled on the carpet with the Sunday comics, or even watching Sesame Street. We in the developed world really take for granted all the pre-literacy work it takes to get a first grader reading aloud in class. For small children (and under-served adults) just acquiring literacy, a page full of text is an overwhelming, discouraging sight. Even leaving aside the contextual clues you get from the images themselves, illustrations are valuable just as a way to break the written content into manageable chunks.
I'm all for wiring the developing world. Believe me I'm *exquisitely* sensitive to how expensive per title paper media is in a developing economy. I lived high on the hog by local standards on 300 USD a month while I was there, and did all my reading out of a free library in the capital city, 8 hours away. I couldn't have afforded books and newspapers in my town, even if there had been anyone selling them.
I do mail care packages of children's books back to my old stomping grounds. And I keep an Amazon wishlist of appropriate titles so that friends and family can chip in if they want. And I sent my old laptop down there recently for a school computer lab they want to start.
OLPC and Project Gutenburg and the rest are great steps forward, and perhaps it is small-minded of me to rain on their parade. But the German aid agency (GTZ) that donated my town library's books had the best of intentions, too. It's a little late for me to get heavily involved with any of these organizations, so don't mind me as I wring my hands here and fret :)