Graphic Narrative Richard Burn

There are many different types of children’s books.

These books are targeted specifically to a certain age group, their capability of reading & how/what they are learning.

Common themes in children’s books include things such as legends, myths, fairytales & folklore. These themes are most commonly used because they are easy for children to understand, illustrated easily & are also well known for teachings.

They will also have a specific look to them depending on the points mentioned above

The main different types of children's books are:

Children's Books

These group is usually broken down into two, but do overlap

For babies & toddlers, the most common type of book will be a picture book. This will usually have basic concepts such as the alphabet, numbers & shapes. Visually stimulating to focus the eye of a young child by using contrasting colors.

As the child ages a little, the books they read will start containing more words to combine with the illustrations.

The illustrations used will usually been made using different media such as oil, pen, water colour amongst others.

Both parts of the book (the visual & the written) are important, they have to harmonize with one another to make sense to the child.

These books with words will usually be read to the child first, then once the child feels confident, they will read it for themselves.

0 -5 Children

The books these children read are usually classed as ‘Early Reader Books’

These books allow children to learn whilst they read. It builds on their reading skills

In terms of content, compared to the 0-5 books, they still include illustrations that help with the story. Again comparing, you will find more text which helps with the point mentioned above.

A popular kind of ‘Early Reader Books’ is the ‘The Magic Key' series that follows Chip, Biff & Kipper by Roderick Hunt & illustrated by Alex Brychta. These are part of the Oxford Reading Tree. They go up in levels, according to age.

5-7 Children

Once children are at this age, they have the reading skills to start reading chapters.

7-9 short chapters. Short chapters are appropriate for children these ages. This is a starter to move on from just paragraphs. Illustrations may still be apparent, but are not used as much.

9 – 11 long chapters. Long chapters are appropriate for children these ages. This move the child's reading skills even further. Illustrations have almost left the picture.

Different stories, not necessarily for education, are here now as children start to know what they like.

7–11 Children

These books do not include any illustrations in them (for the vast majority). They are mostly written text.

These books are usually in novel format.

They will include a storyline that the audience will like: learning is not involved.

Young Adult (12-17)

The fonts used in children's books is important.

Serif fonts such as Times Roman, Goudy, Garamond, and Baskerville.

These fonts are easy to follow, compared to non-serif fonts such Arial & Calibri.

Fonts

A graphic novel is narrative that is vastly telling the story through illustrations.

There are different ways to produce such a piece of narrative, you can use a traditional formula or a more experimental path.

A graphic novel is different to a comic book as it is usually bigger & more durable in the way it is produced.

Graphic Novel

Graphic novels inspire & aspire from a book or TV show

An example of such would be Scott Pilgrim, as they started out as a graphic novel series

Other examples of this include V for Vendetta which started off as a graphic novel.

Inspiration

The illustrations in graphic novels are what makes them unique to other types of novels: it is hugely important

Illustration helps tell the story, set the scene & helps to set the tone.

These illustrations can be done in many different ways e.g.

Black and white Collages Contrast colour Mixture of different media

Illustration

The text also plays an important role in graphic novels.

It is used for speech & parts of the storyline that are difficult to portray through graphics

The amount of text used varies on the piece of work.

Text

Balloon tale = speech

Joining bubbles with connecters = conversation

Burst Bubble = loud – broken speech

Thought bubble = thoughts of character (less used now) (internal monologue used instead)

Captions = Location & TimeInternal MonologueSpoken CaptionsNarrative captions

Layouts are also important for a graphic novel.

The original layout for comics/graphic novels was 6/9 boxes on one page that you would read from left to right

As they grew in popularity, the layouts have become more creative & challenging. Different shaped boxes & overlay are commonly used.

You have to be careful though with the layout as it can cause problems e.g. hard to follow

Layout