Childrens Book Research

1. Children's Book Research
By Chris Bailey

2. The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Front Cover:
The front cover shows a terrified boy running from a wolf. The title of the
book is written around the illustration, with the significant words coloured
in red and increased in size: “BOY-CRIED-WOLF”. The entire front cover is
covered in the illustration, with hardly any room left to spare, this is why
the authors name is compacted into the bottom right corner.
Front Cover Art:
The images on the front cover are very basic, rough looking drawings. Such
as the colourless eyes and big round mouth. There are very simple lines
showing motion from the arms and legs of the boy, and the wolf behind
him. The colours are not very bright, they are quite cold and not very
exciting. There is a lot of dark colours (browns and greys).
Front Cover Font:
The font used on the front cover is the same as used inside the book, just
scaled up a lot. The font appears to be Times, this is a very simple and easy
to read font that also stands out immensely.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf/dp/1842708333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422452856&sr=8-1&keywords=the+boy+who+cried+wolf+book

3. The Boy Who Cried Wolf:
Text Placement:
The text is placed beneath the large illustration. This allows the child to
enjoy the large eye catching image, before they move on to reading the
text.
Image Placement: The Image is in the upper centre of the page, with a
small empty border around it. This leaves just enough room for the text.
The image is very eye catching as it is central in the image and takes up
most of the page.
Image/Text Balance: There is a lot more image than text, this is due to
the very low amount of text, the image is used to further show what the
text is describing.
Number Of Pages: There are 28 pages in the book, with an illustration
for every page with the story text. There are so many pages for such a
simple story because there is so little text on each page.
Image Reference: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf/dp/1842708333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422452856&sr=8-1&keywords=the+boy+who+cried+wolf+book#reader_1842708333

4. The Boy Who Cried Wolf:
Images:
The images are very simple, yet contain all the details needed. It
shows us the boy and his clothes, what appears to be his village
behind him, and the rural environment with sparse trees and
tall mountains. It also shows his bicycle and small details such
as the scattered stones on the path.
Colours: The colours are all very natural and relaxed. Lots of
greens and browns, pale yellow, reds and blues. This means that
the images aren’t over powering and the text can still be read
without the child losing concentration.
Image Reference: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf/dp/1842708333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422452856&sr=8-1&keywords=the+boy+who+cried+wolf+book#reader_1842708333

5. Little Red Riding Hood
Front cover: The front cover shows little red riding
hood skipping joyfully down a path surrounded by
bright green landscape. Behind her is her cottage
house and her mother watching her skip away.
The colours are all very bright and saturated,
giving the effect of happiness and excitement on
the first impressions.
There is a large amount of red and green on the
front cover, the red banner down the side, little
red riding hoods apparel, the font colour, and the
bright green grassy background.
The font used is a mix between classic and fun
curves, giving the effect of the old fairy tale with a
modern twist.

6. Little Red Riding Hood
Text Placement: The text is placed above the
illustrations, so they are the first thing the reader
looks at, before moving onto viewing the
illustration. The font is medium in size, times
new roman, and is black, standing out greatly
from the pure white background.
Image Placement: The images are placed
beneath the text, and fall out of the books
borders in order to give them more depth, such
as little red riding hoods dress falling past the
frame and the granny peaking from around the
side of it.
Image/Text balance: The images are very big and
take up almost all of the page, where as the text
only takes up a very small proportion of it.
Number of pages: This particular book has 32
pages, each with an illustration and text.

7. Little Red Riding Hood
The images include quite a lot of detail, yet
they still stick to the traditional old school
cartoon theme. The colours and drawings all
appear free hand and sketched making them
similar to the original old story illustrations.
The colours aren’t as bright and immersive as
the front cover. The background is pale white,
which allows the illustrations and text to sit
above it nicely, but it is very boring and un-
complex compared to the front cover.

8. The Three Little Pigs
The Front Cover: The front cover shows 5
pigs altogether, 3 of which are the main
subjects of the image, and 2 which appear to
be parent pigs. The colours are very dry and
washed out, making the book look traditional
and almost worn for that old look. The
illustrations are very traditional compared to
the computer generated ones you frequently
see nowadays on children's books.
The text is in a classical looking font with a
but of a wobble to it to give it that look of
freedom and child friendliness. The colour is
blue just like the banner down the left hand
side. Blue it the most common colour in the
entire image with lots of blue denim as the
pigs apparel.

9. The Three Little Pigs
Text Placement: The text is placed above the illustrations,
about 2/3 of the way up which appears un-usual. This has
been done because the large amount of space below and
the small amount above is dense with illustrations. The text
is in new times roman, in black against a white background
which allows it to stand out very clearly.
Image Placement: The images have been placed very well as
they fit perfectly on the page without having to cut any
corners or squeeze the text too high.
Image/Text balance: There is a large amount of illustrations
on the page compared to relatively small amount of text.
This allows the child to view the detailed image of the pigs
after reading the writing to improve the understanding and
interpretation of what they just read.
The contains 32 fully illustrated pages with text.

10. The Three Little Pigs
Very similar to the front cover, the images
keep the same house style of traditional hand
drawn images, with old rusty looking washed
out colours for the aged effect. The images
are not made to be bold or stand out very
much, making this much more of a bed time
story than an exciting picture book for the
early afternoon.