I want parents input on a children's book project...

Hello all you beautiful mommies and daddies out there

I'm hoping I can get a little input from some of you, if you would be so kind

I'm about to enter into my last year of college soon. I go to an art school and major in illustration. I'm veeeery interested in children's book illustration and would like to try my hand at something like that for my senior thesis. I felt rather ambitious a few months ago and thought I might try my hand and writing a nice little simple children's book...nothing I plan on publishing, just for the fun of it really, and to have something new to illustrate, as well as have the whole project be my creation. I'm not thinking of anything for older children really. not like the harry potters or those little novels we had to read in 4th grade. Writing is not that much of my forte. I always liked writing little crazy short stories though and so I thought I could manage a small child's book...maybe like those ....um...Golden Books? Dunno if that's what they're called...the small ones that always had the little golden spines. I've been trying to find some of my old books to get my creative juices flowing. I just got the idea to ask some of you guys, since you have the little ones and I don't, what you think about children's books...what kinds of stories are the really great ones, the ones that really excite the little ones. What would you like to see in a book? Moral stories? Good old fantasies? animals?

The whole reason behind me wanting to be an artist in the first place has to do with making little ones happy. I originally wanted to work for Disney as an animator because I grew up loving Disney movies and cartoons and wanted to keep that magic I felt then alive for all the new kiddos out there. I thought that would be such a rewarding job y'know? But Disney ... well... they sorta lost the magic already :/. Not to mention stupid Eisner wants to do away with traditional animation anyway, and that's what I love. SO... after having a class with a Children's book illustrator as my prof, I fell in love with that idea. I'm sort of a child still at heart anyway. Mom always says I'm 22 goin on 2. It's just been so long, and I don't really know any kids or have any little ones in the family ... so a little help would be wonderful. My creative juices always need help though...heh, especially in the summertime as everything instinctively shuts down on me so I can veg out lol.

Anything you guys wanna throw out at me would be great! I hope to hear from you soon!


thanks in advance
Tiffy

 

I have an idea I really like. I private messaged you about it.

 

hmm, i dont really have any suggestions for you re content type. the books we read vary depending on mood, current interests, etc. Juvenile literature has come a long way since the little golden books. if you have a couple of hours sometime, go to your local library, sit down in the juv section and skim thru a bunch of the books.

 

Little ones like things having to do with poop and bugars and messes and loud noises, colors shapes and textures. Things they can relate to like friends and mommies. Helping. Playing, sliding, moving, pushing, and very expressive faces. And just toal sillyness. Garbage trucks, bugs, balls hitting cans, traffic cones, hammers, robots, leggos, hoops, tunnels, holes, anything they can knock over, chalk, crunching leaves, stomping, eating, spitting things out, throwing, Books that ask questions on every page that get their minds flowing...like if you give a pig a pancake...what do you think he will want? Pop up books are cool but they don't last long. Curiosity is endless.

 

I'd like to see more children's books with breastfeeding babies and toddlers in them. They are so hard to find. My kids all BF into toddlerhood, and didn't even know what bottles were. It would be nice to see breastfeeding children in books, with no apologies.

 

I never liked books with a too moral aspect. The ones where the whole story seems just to be written around the message.

One of my fave books as a child was the one about a tortoise having birthday and all animals came and brought her smething, but all of their presents were something they liked themselves, e.g. the lion brought a nice big piece of meat, the elephant a mud bath and so on. In the evening the totoise was really sad because its birthday was already over and it hadn't been given anything it really liked ... and then the mouse came and rolled a huge lettuce up the hill where the tortoise lived. The mouse apologized because it had come so late, but the lettuce was sooo heavy. But the tortoise was happy because it loved lettuce and the birthday had finally become a great day. I remember I always nearly had to cry with the tortoise and loved the mouse because it made the tortoise happy again.

Another thing I liked (and my sister as well) are "searching books" like "Jacob and Pontus" where Jacob is searching his cat Pontus, he's walking through the house and the garden and so on and on every pig you could see a little part of Pontus - we had much fun searching the hidden cat on every page.

 

Richard Scaries wheres goldbug is fun too