Existing children's books

  To get a greater understanding of my project I looked into existing children’s books, majority I looked into fairytale books as that will be what I am creating. While reading the stories so I could choose ones to include; I also looked at things like layout, typography and style.

  Fairy Tales told by Berlie Doherty

      This book retells the classic fairytales we all know such as; Cinderella, Sleeping beauty, Rumplestiltskin and Rapunzel. These are stories we all know and love and have been retold many times each time the writer adding a bit of themselves into the story, but she also retells The wild swans and The fire-bird, theses are not so common within fairytale books. I like the mix of stories she tells each with enchanting images by Jane Ray. The layout of this book is quite different to the other I have found the images and text are contained within frames across the pages rather than using the whole page, I really like this difference as the backgrounds link to the story which makes the stories feel secret and make the book feel enchanting, appealing to children.

Cinderella -Fairy Tales told by Berlie Doherty Illustrated by Jane Ray pg 18-19
Figure 1

Snow White -Fairy Tales told by Berlie Doherty Illustrated by Jane Ray pg 112-113
Figure 2

      I also found that the art style changes depending on the story some are using silhouettes (figure 2) and other full colour paintings (figure 1). I rather like the change in layout thought the book as it mixes it up making the stories feel separate and not one, I will remember to keep the idea of changing layouts when I am roughing my own book up so not to bore. But I did find that they hadn’t thought about the gutter in the book as some of the images are lost in it and this ruins the images, its prevalent in figure 2 but I still feel its missing a bit because of the gutter. 

The Classic Treasury of Princess Fairy Tales

     This book contains only fairytales that includes princesses as it says in the book title, I think this is a lovely idea but it cuts down your audience to half as little boys won’t be interested in stories just about girls. It again retells tales of Snow white, Cinderella and Beauty and the beast and other these stories seem the most popular as we all know them and they are favourites all around the world. 

The twelve dancing princesses - The Classic Treasury of Princess Fairy Tales retold by Margaret Clark Illustrated by Peter Malone pg 32-33 Figure 3

     The layout of this book is typical image one side and the other text (figure 3), as most story books are but they also added small images on top the title and on the bottom of pages where there isn’t a full page image. When laying out my book I want the images and text to gel more and not feel separate like in this book. I feel to make it more successful I need to create a link and bond between the text and illustration. 

Treasury of Favourite Tales

     This collection contains stories not just about princes and princesses but other tales such as Pinocchio and Alice in wonderland. I mostly looked at this book as it seems to be aimed at younger children aged 4-6, it seems its illustrations are more childish than the other two books which are aimed at children aged 7-10. The layout seems to be more text wrapped around the illustration (figure 4) like in picture books than text and an image this is why I believe it’s aimed at younger children. I do like the layout but I want to aim my book at an older child like the other two around 7-10. I still feel it was important to look as this book as it was different to what else I had looked at. I also find it odd as this book doesn’t say who illustrated it or who re wrote the tales.

The princess and the pea - Treasury of Favourite Tales pg 132-133
Figure 4

Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

     The Violet fairy book is full of unusual tales, not your Snow white or Cinderella and I think this is good because there are a lot of good heart warming fairytales that just aren’t as well known. I think it’s important that we don’t forget the other tales because they all enchanting in their own way. This book mainly contains text but has some etched illustrations scattered thought it (figure 5).

Three Princes and their beasts -Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang Illustrated by Dorothy Gregory pg 34-35
Figure 5

    The layout of the pages seems to be and image in the middle of the text or a small images at the top of the page. This seems to be the layout of the older fairytale books but I would like to add more illustrations but like the idea of putting a small image at the top of a [age if the page is majority text, this will help the two seem more linked rather than text image.

Beauty and the beast by Max Eilenberg

    I decided to talk about this single book because of how the text and images work together throughout the book. Almost every page is unique giving the pages there own identity, keeping the reader interested. I particularly like how in figure 6 the image only slightly creeps over on to the page with the text. This gives the image a flowing feeling and integrates the two together.

- Beauty and the beast by Max Eilenberg Illustrated by Angela Barrett
Figure 6 

    I also like the repetition and similarity of figure 7 and 8; it’s as if the text separating them becomes part of the image until he’s human when a similar image is used but there closer. Also the canter image isn’t ruined by the guttering because the way the book is bound. If I want any image to be centred I will have to see how to bind my book to see if it’s plausible.

- Beauty and the beast by Max Eilenberg Illustrated by Angela Barrett 
Figure 7

- Beauty and the beast by Max Eilenberg Illustrated by Angela Barrett 
Figure 8