Book Building!
I have the fun and fortunate opportunity to be updating and revising my children’s poetry book of action rhymes, Spinning Circles, released several years ago. You’d think it would be an easy, quick task. It’s not! Still, as a writer, a creator, I’m enjoying the job, but it’s tedious and time-consuming.
I thought this would be a good place to share some of my opinions and tips on how in general, book production creatively comes together.
The original picture book had both illustrations and photographs accompanying the verse. This time we’re producing the book for smaller hands – a smaller size, changing fonts to funkier ones and adding new photographs. A designer/illustrator was hired to add spot illustrations and work with me to make the compilation flow from beginning to end. The focus is to give the pages an update to present day exercise and creativity popular for children. That’s not to say some standard ideas and “actions” don’t work today just as well as they did decades ago (what kid doesn’t love playing with a big gift box, and finally opening it to find a stuffed animal inside?)...
Over the years I’ve read Spinning Circles and taken it into many children’s classrooms, summer camps and library workshops to read and share activities from. With its vintage feel, a game of Duck, Duck, Goose depicted in one of the poems has lost a bit of relevance to kids today, so that one for instance is being replaced with a poem about children gardening – helping to grow vegetables and flowers and getting that prerequisite bumpy wheelbarrow ride in the backyard.
As the text flushes out, the storyboard becomes developed. That’s the outline draft showing the pages- actual drawn rectangles divided in half to represent the double-page spreads of the book.
As the individual poetry and images wed, the art director and I need to start considering the flow on the whole. If one page is quite full and lively, then it’s ok to slow it down and space out the next. I don’t think a dramatic shift is needed, but keeping a gentle rocking back and forth like a teeter-totter is soothing, allowing the young reader interest in turning the next page.
Also, because you want the child to re-read the book over and over again, even if you’re creating a simple board book, add some cute, fun or surprising details in the illustrations/artwork. I still remember finding a delightful “something” I hadn’t noticed before in the picture books I read as a child. Richard Scarry was a genius at this!
Finally, the general color palette should be considered. Do you want the high point of the book to explode? Then that’s where you could incorporate a bright change of hue or splash of light. But if your book takes place in the desert, you know overall you’ll be dipping into the browns, tans, oranges, grays, pale yellows, with complimenting cactus greens and baby blue skies.
Happy book creating, and I hope it takes you to new adventures!
I thought this would be a good place to share some of my opinions and tips on how in general, book production creatively comes together.
The original picture book had both illustrations and photographs accompanying the verse. This time we’re producing the book for smaller hands – a smaller size, changing fonts to funkier ones and adding new photographs. A designer/illustrator was hired to add spot illustrations and work with me to make the compilation flow from beginning to end. The focus is to give the pages an update to present day exercise and creativity popular for children. That’s not to say some standard ideas and “actions” don’t work today just as well as they did decades ago (what kid doesn’t love playing with a big gift box, and finally opening it to find a stuffed animal inside?)...
Over the years I’ve read Spinning Circles and taken it into many children’s classrooms, summer camps and library workshops to read and share activities from. With its vintage feel, a game of Duck, Duck, Goose depicted in one of the poems has lost a bit of relevance to kids today, so that one for instance is being replaced with a poem about children gardening – helping to grow vegetables and flowers and getting that prerequisite bumpy wheelbarrow ride in the backyard.
As the text flushes out, the storyboard becomes developed. That’s the outline draft showing the pages- actual drawn rectangles divided in half to represent the double-page spreads of the book.
As the individual poetry and images wed, the art director and I need to start considering the flow on the whole. If one page is quite full and lively, then it’s ok to slow it down and space out the next. I don’t think a dramatic shift is needed, but keeping a gentle rocking back and forth like a teeter-totter is soothing, allowing the young reader interest in turning the next page.
Also, because you want the child to re-read the book over and over again, even if you’re creating a simple board book, add some cute, fun or surprising details in the illustrations/artwork. I still remember finding a delightful “something” I hadn’t noticed before in the picture books I read as a child. Richard Scarry was a genius at this!
Finally, the general color palette should be considered. Do you want the high point of the book to explode? Then that’s where you could incorporate a bright change of hue or splash of light. But if your book takes place in the desert, you know overall you’ll be dipping into the browns, tans, oranges, grays, pale yellows, with complimenting cactus greens and baby blue skies.
Happy book creating, and I hope it takes you to new adventures!
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