3. Each Peach, Pear, Plum
Each Peach, Pear, Plum is a book leading you through a story of how everyone in this area links
together in some unexpected ways, but always in sight of the last person. It connects the
characters by using the phrase “I spy” before stating who else is there. I really like how they have
that repetitiveness to keeps the children entertained as their being read the story and it also would
make it easier for them to read along as they learn to read as it would be less complex words and it
is less word variety for them to get confused with. This could also, for some, create excitement as
they read as something like that has shown up again and again to make them laugh over it showing
up again. This could be some de ja vu type effect for the children or it could be more of a funny
running joke through the book.
There is also a small frame around each image on the page. This is always a roughly drawn box with
no fully straight lines, with this method they give it a more childlike aesthetic where it seems care
free and fantasy-esque as they are not confined to strict areas.
The font is easy to read and simple, as to not take away from the creativity and sketch style of the
drawings. It is also supposed to be easy to ready as it is a serif font, so it is easy to read with the
little flicks.
4. Hickory Dickory Dock
Hickory Dickory Dock is a board book of children’s nursery rhymes.
It has the full double pages for just one nursery rhyme, and uses it for a full illustration, fitting the words
into a clear area that was left to fit the words into. I find this way is very nice as it gives the young children
reading, or being read to, something to look at and try to analyse. As I find that I often get enthralled with
trying to find all the fun little aspects in the backgrounds of illustrations, and often spend a lot more time
looking at the finer details instead of the bigger picture, even in less detailed ones, they can find fun in
counting flower petals or trying to trace the designs.
This book has certain words in the verses in bold instead of just all the same, which helps having the words
stick out a while and helps to attract the eye and makes it so that it is more exciting and entertains the
children that are reading the books.
6. At ages 4-5 children generally start learning to read by themselves. This
means that my product, aged for 3 year olds and older, would be able to
accompany the child as they grow and learn to read, and help them along
with it as they can focus more on the images at the younger ages and have it
read to them, developing to being able to read it alone as they may know
what it says through repetition of it. It is average of around 2 to 3 for
children to be interested in nursery rhymes, according to a Netmums forum
that I found online. This shows that aging this book towards 3 year olds
would be a good idea as it would probably be just around the time that they
would be getting interested and wanting the books of them to be read with
pictures, or be getting taught the rhymes and wanting something to help
them follow along with their teachers or parents.
3 to 7 year old children
7. Survey Results
I conducted a survey that 10 people answered for me to give me an idea of
the possible audience. Half of these are in the 18 to 24 year old age range,
with 3 just slightly under that, at 9 to 17. Out of these results, 7 of them
suggested that they either do or did enjoy nursery rhymes in their lives.
Which gives me the idea that most people would enjoy them, and even if
they didn't, I’m sure that they would still probably get them for a young
family member. I asked them what their favourite features are in nursery
rhyme books and the winning features were which rhymes were included
and what the illustrations looked like. This tells me that I am going to need to
be careful in choosing which ones I wish to include and probably in which
order I present them. It would also probably be a good idea to be careful to
make sure that I’m proud of the illustrations as they are also apparently quite
important to the people who may be buying this book. This would probably
be because they would want it to look appealing to the young audience and
still be very suitable for such young ones.
8. One of my questions in the survey was asking which are their
favourite nursery rhymes out of a list that I created, with space to
write in any that I forgot. This one was used, but the only comment in
that section was that the respondent liked them all equally.
This resulted in the most popular rhymes being itsy bitsy spider, Mary
had a little lamb, Row, row, row your boat, Baa baa black sheep, and
It’s raining its pouring.
This means that I will ensure that I include these first and then make
sure that the rest of the popular ones are included after in order to
ensure that everyone is pleased with the rhymes included.
This was possibly the most important question of the whole
questionnaire as it gives me a much clearer idea of the content to
provide where as the rest was not really important to my project.
10. Nursery Rhyme Books
My market is mostly parents and older family members of young children.
This means that this book that I produce will need to be appealing to the
older people as well as being interesting and bright enough to keep the
younger audience that will actually be reading it - or having it read to them –
interested and excited by them. For this reason, I need to either make it very
appealing to children to make the adults think that it would suit them more,
or include some aspects that should appeal to the adults as a joke. This could
include some small adult jokes hidden away in the book that the children
would not understand and instead would just glance over.
The market for nursery rhymes is quite consistent as young children are likely
to always be using them to learn their words and rhymes in a fun and less
academic format.
11. Publishing
There are many ways that I can have this book published or printed
in professional ways. One of these is Blurb, which has a children’s
book option that would start at £12.09 per copy of 34 pages
although there are many options. Which is one of the cheaper ones
for self publishing, from a quick glance.
There is also Book Printing UK that will print my books. For % copies
of an A4 colour book, I would be looking at £85.83. Although it is
only £78.43 if I was only requesting 2 copies.
Daxzoo is another book printing site that would require me to print
as a booklet, but would be a lot cheaper as it would only be £9.60
for 2 copies on A4, full colour. It would only require as a booklet due
to the number of pages as it would require 53 to be doublesided,
although a paperback version is not much more money.
http://www.blurb.co.uk/formats
https://www.bookprintinguk.com/
bpuk-quotes/step-quote-finish.php
https://doxzoo.com/documents/book-printing
12. Bibliography
• Allan Ahlberg and Janet AhlbergAllan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg
(1978). Each Peach Pear Plum. America: Viking Kestral. 39.
• Anon (2013). Hickory Dickory Dock. London: Little Tiger Group. 0-24.
• Lisa S. (2014). What age did your child learn nursery
rhymes. Available: https://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/being-
mum-794/parenting-advice-192/1136536-what-age-did-your-child-
learn-nursery-rhymes.html. Last accessed .
