Children’s story research

By Dan Bell

‘Rhinos don’t eat pancakes’• This book was written by Anna Kemp and illustrated by Sara Ogilvie. The book was published by ‘Simon

And Schuster’

• The rhino dominates most of the pages in the book.

• The book is mainly illustrations though there is a lot of text in the book.

• The colours contrast each other quite well, they are all very basic and there is not too many either.

• The illustrations look like they have been hand drawn. The drawings are very simple, it has a 2D effect with not really any depth.

• The text changes on a regular basis; it is always in serif font but sometimes it is in italics and other times in bold and capitals.

• The amount of text on each page varies. It ranges from just 1 sentence to between 2 and 6 per page.

• There are 30 pages in this book. The book is designed for parents to read to their children but would be aimed at people aged 4-7 because it is quite long.

• This book is mainly landscape and sometimes it takes up 2 pages with the text and illustration running across both of them.

‘The tiger who came to tea’• The book was both written and illustrated by Judith Kerr and was published by ‘HarperCollins Children’s

books

• The book is mainly illustrations with a small bit of text to go with it. There is more than one picture on each page, all of the pictures will have a piece of text that is no more than 2 sentences to go with it.

• All of the colours in the book are very basic but they do contrast very well with each other.

• The illustrations again appear to be hand drawn. They are very simple and easy to draw with only a 2D effect.

• The text doesn’t change at all. It is in a serif font.

• The text on each page is very short and simple; on some of the pages there is more than one illustration and with those illustrations a small piece of writing.

• There are 28 pages in this book. The book is dominated by pictures in order to get more young children to read the book. The text in the book is also very easy for them to understand.

• The book is mainly portrait but the part where they are walking to the café is landscape.

‘Monsters love underpants’

• This boom was written by Claire Freedman and illustrated by Ben Cort. ‘Simon and Schuster UK’ published the book.

• Each page in the book has pictures of monsters wearing a pair of underpants.

• The book is illustrations all the way through with a small piece of text at the side.

• There is a large variety of colours in this book. The colours on each page contrast and blend in with each other e.g. when the setting is in the dark or a darker coloured room, the monsters will also be a dark colour but light enough for you to be able to see them.

• The illustrations all have a 2D effect though they do look like they’ve been made by a computer.

• The text never changes fonts though there is a lot of use of words that are all in capitals and exclamation marks. The writing is in serifs.

• The amount of text on each double page spread seems to stay the same. There is a lot of use of rhyming in this book. There is never any more than 4 lines

• This book contains 24 pages and is all landscape with the picture going across the page and the text being to one side.