Our fourth and final brief is to make a minimum of six pages of a children’s picture book, and include a front and back design. It has to address an issue that would affect people in some way, such as war or anxiety, and it has to be aimed at an audience of between 3 and 11.

I’ve decided to do some research on children’s books. In our seminar Mike had us looking at several children’s picture books to get an idea of what sort of thing we might do, but I wanted to look for myself to see what I liked or didn’t like about something. Below are several examples of children’s books that I enjoyed and that I felt that I could definitely draw inspiration from.

 

The reason why I like these children picture books is because of the way they are drawn. I know it’s difficult to see because there’s not a lot of similarity between the four of them, aside from the fact that the majority of them use animals as a way of connecting with their audience, but I think the sort of illustrations I’d like to use are ones that are simple and with not a lot of definition to them. For example, the simple shape of the crocodile in The Crocodile Who Doesn’t Like Water and the pigeon in Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! are all curved lines and soft watercolour like paintings and I really like that idea. This can be seen in The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, but the drawings are a little more complicated and detailed. I do like Quentin Blake’s drawings though (who illustrates many Roald Dahl books), and perhaps it would be better to include a little detail in my designs.

The Stick Man is included in this because I liked the idea. It follows a stick man who has a stick family and a tree that he lives in quite happily, but unfortunately he is often mistaken for just a simple stick, and is taken away from his family by a dog, a swan and children playing with him. I thought the idea was very unusual and interesting and even though it doesn’t address an issue like we are supposed to do in our books, I do like it. The illustrations are also very good, but I think they’re perhaps a little too complicated for me.

I think these four books also roughly account to the same age range of around six to eight or nine, which I think I will probably also use in my book. I don’t want to appeal to children too young because I think I would find it difficult to describe an issue without complicating or confusing the intended audience, so I think that six to eight is a good age range.