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More than once I have had a client send me a fantastic story tucked into the wrong format&#;and when I ask them about it, inevitably they ask me, &#;So, what genre is my children&#;s book exactly?&#; It&#;s easy to see how this happens when we are talking about children&#;s books. Surprisingly they are one of the more complicated formats &#;&#; with so many sub-categories and target age groups and guidelines &#;&#; even seasoned writers get a little confused as to which category their story fits. Even I get confused at times with all the (ever-fluctuating) industry standards. Although the formats can feel confusing, they are manageable, and in this article we are going to look at all of the main children&#;s book formats in order to grasp some standards and write our own children&#;s books in the most effective ways possible.
Additionally it&#;s easy to confuse the formats with genre so let&#;s settle that first since many times people use the words interchangeably when talking about children&#;s books. If you are asking about the genre of your children&#;s book then you are wondering if your book is fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, etc. However, when I get the question: What genre is my children&#;s book? more often than not people are asking in which category does their book belong &#;&#; which age group will be reading it &#;&#; and that is what we are going to look at here.
This is a great resource for anyone new to writing children&#;s books, for authors who plan to self-publish, and for parents or educators. It&#;s important to remember that these are guidelines, and sometimes it&#;s okay to break the rules. However&#;
There is one kids book golden rule that is rarely broken, and it goes a little something like this:
Children want to read stories about other children who are a little bit older than themselves.
This means if your protagonist is ten-years-old your readership is likely seven- to nine-year-olds.
One of the best examples I can recall that breaks this rule and does it spectacularly is found in Philip Pullman&#;s His Dark Materials trilogy where the protagonist, Lyra, is eleven-years-old. The fantasy trilogy, however, was marketed as a young adult book series. (But fantasy is good at breaking the rules, right?)
So, keeping the golden rule in mind, let&#;s look at the individual formats.
Board Books
Board books are those tough little things you give to the smallest of readers. Often ten or less pages, they are made from thick cardstock or cardboard, and target children 0&#;4 years old. These books are heavy duty, light on text and have a lot of illustration. In fact, many times a board book will contain no more than 10&#;20 words total. Board books are meant to be read to children who are early emerging readers, meaning they are listening to the story, but board books are also meant to be chewed on, slept with, and treated as a toy.
Board books will often cover early learning concepts such as opposites, counting, letters, feelings, or simple family dynamics. They may or may not span time, and if they do, it will be no longer than a short period, definitely less than a day. Sometimes board books will not tell a story, but rather follow a theme. For example, the pages may simply list a color and have an accompanying illustration.
Best Examples:
Picture Books
Most often when people think of children&#;s books, they are referring to picture books. At standard, picture books are 32 pages long, including the cover pages, introductions, back flaps, and copyright information. Though the standard is 32 pages, they can technically come in page lengths that are any multiples of 8: 16, 24, 32, 40 or 48 pages. They are reliant on both text and illustration and text length can range from 100&#; words, sometimes more. However, the best picture books are short on text and rely equally or heavily on illustration. Sometimes picture books can cross over into board books and be published in both formats. Picture books are for children aged 2&#;10 years (at the high end), with an average target age of 2&#;7 years old.
Picture books talk about universal themes and offer intriguing or kid-relatable situations while challenging the reader&#;s or listener&#;s imagination. Themes are approachable and there is usually one main character, one plot, and one story line. Picture books use rhythm and cadence to engage the young listener and they employ repetition. In the book Writing Picture Books, Anne Winford Paul explains that picture books should offer a simple question and answer. This idea holds true for most picture books out there and it&#;s a great rule of thumb to follow. One theme, one throughline, one main character or idea, with an answer at the end.
Early Readers
Early readers are books with slightly more text than found in your average picture book. They have 32 to 64 pages, with simple, repetitive text. Usually every page or every other page has an illustration. These books are targeted towards new and emerging readers and often repeat a particular sight word or phrase for these early readers to memorize. They have a simple sentence structure, can be read aloud or silently, and often come in series form.
Topics and themes are lighthearted and books usually explore one idea, subject or theme. Many times books are character based, as seen in the examples below. The word count doesn&#;t rise above words on the high end. Sometimes easy readers will have a couple of chapters or sections making it easy for a child to set the book aside for a break if they need to take one. You can find a wide variety of well done non-fiction books in this category as well, such as the National Geographic Little Kids First Big Books series. My favorite contemporary early readers are the Elephant and Piggie Books by Mo Willems.
Chapter Books
Some of my favorite children&#;s books are found in the chapter book format. I like this category because for the first time we start to see subplots and more complex story lines. Before middle grade came along as a category, chapter books were the only bridge to close the gap between picture books and young adult. Many of our classic favorites as adults today are found in this format: Charlotte&#;s Web, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and basically anything by Roald Dahl. This format is also home to some of those timeless classic series like the Magic Tree House books.
Chapter books will have few to no illustrations and are typically not much longer than 100 pages. They are for young advancing readers, typically for elementary school aged children. These books can range in difficulty with some offering simple language as one might find in Catwings or Flat Stanley, to more complex sentence structures and plot lines as found in the examples below. Many chapter books are single character or subject based and they may contain a simple subplot or two. There are also fantastic nonfiction examples found in this category such as the
I Survived Books.
Chapter books span a wide audience and reading levels vary. For this reason, there really is no average word count within the range. Following the simple idea that should your book be for a younger reader, you will have fewer words, is a good loose guideline to follow. For this category definitely take time to read some comp books before writing your manuscript so you get a feel for the language and length.
Middle Grade
Middle Grade novels can be divided into two subcategories: books for middle grade school children and books for upper elementary school children. They contain longer chapters than found in chapter books, often no illustrations, and can have over 100 pages. Sometimes they can mingle with either chapter books or young adult, but they absolutely deserve a format of their own. The readership is voracious at this age, so series are popular.
It&#;s hard to say exactly when middle grade novels became &#;a thing&#; but it is worth noting it was about the same time as the Harry Potter series emerged; with Harry Potter, for the first time ever, we saw readers growing up with their main character. I&#;m not attributing the emergence of the middle grade category to the publication of the Harry Potter books, but I do think at that time publishers realized there was a need for a whole new set of books that would reach this since underdeveloped and under-explored market.
Let&#;s look at the two subcategories in more detail.
Lower Middle Grade
Lower Middle Grade is a really fun format to read and explore. The themes will be complex but approachable: no kissing, no gory violence, subtle politics, if any. The stories will have a subplot or two. Oftentimes lower middle grade employs elements like humor or explores factual, science-based ideas or historical events. They are also great candidates for fantasy or magic realism since the readership is in that magical place between childhood and ability to &#;believe&#; before teetering into the pre-teen years.
The lower middle grade format is typically under 35,000 words with more like 25,000 as an average.
Upper Middle Grade
Upper Middle Grade might be my favorite children&#;s book format of all. I love that the readership is able to follow complex plots and storylines plus explore more mature themes without getting into quite as much teen angst as we find in young adult. Relationships may hint at romance, but it is still innocent&#; probably still no kissing. Complicated themes can be explored in an age appropriate way from the protagonists point of view.
The books are a bit longer, up to about 70,000 words max with an average around 50,000. Sometimes this sub-catgory is referred to as &#;tween&#; especially when the themes of the book explicitly explore pre-teen related issues.
Young Adult
Young Adult books are read by teens ages thirteen to adult. In fact, the books can cross over into adult literature, especially if they are fantasy or sci-fi based. (There is an emerging category, New Adult Fiction, that targets readers between the ages of eighteen and thirty.) Young Adult books have complex stories, plots, and characters. They read like an adult novel, but explore issues and topics that teens can relate to. Themes can employ really complex or even difficult subjects such as sex, violence, drugs, abuse, suicide&#; the list goes on. Not all young adult books will focus on these ideas, but often at least one of them is present since these are real-world issues that teens come face-to-face with on a daily basis.
Word count can go as high as 90,000 but keeping it around 70,000 is a safe bet. Some coming of age classics emerge from this category as well as really fantastic examples of fantasy series.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of Printed Kid Books with Illustrated Cardboard Narratives. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
It&#;s important to remember that these are just guidelines. If you plan to stray, have good reason. If you&#;re still asking the question, what genre is my children&#;s book? and want a little more guidance, contact me below. I&#;m happy to help! Sometimes authors have a great idea, a great start, but they just can&#;t seem to make it work. That&#;s what an editor is for; let&#;s talk.
Children&#;s picture books are fun to design! They&#;re colorful, full of images, and everything is packed into a small number of words and pages.
To design a children&#;s picture book, you&#;ll need to consider lots of factors: book size, page count, quality of images, flow of text, color, and more. Let&#;s take a look at those factors.
Start by doing some research. Look at lots of children&#;s picture books and board books to get a feel for what type of book you&#;ll be designing. Will it be a large book with big illustrations? Or a small one with few words and simple images? Here are some steps to get you started.
The word count for children&#;s picture books is usually somewhere between 250 and 1,000 words (the younger the audience, the shorter the story). Some books have only a word or two per page. The text should already be edited before you begin designing.
Start by familiarizing yourself with both the story and the author&#;s vision for the book. Read the story several times and note where natural pauses occur (for example, where a page might be turned). Also note which paragraphs lend themselves to an illustration.
If you&#;ve already been supplied with illustrations, you&#;ll be designing the book around the illustrations. Check their size and resolution, and make sure the illustrations are high enough resolution to print.
If you&#;re working with an illustrator or creating the illustrations yourself, you&#;ll need to plan how to divide the story among the pages and how best to illustrate each 2-page spread. Creating a storyboard or mockup is helpful, and that&#;s discussed below.
The trim sizes available for children&#;s color picture books and board books are practically unlimited, ranging from very small to large. So how can you narrow your choices down?
It&#;s always best to use a standard size. That way, the book can be printed almost anywhere in the world by offset press, digital printing, and/or print-on-demand (POD).
Will the book be a paperback, hardcover, or a board book? Some printers only produce paperbacks, while others offer hardcovers in limited sizes. Board books are most often printed offset but can be produced on digital and POD printers.
Regardless of what type of book you&#;re designing, stick to standard sizes and you&#;ll have lots of options for printing. Popular mid-sized children&#;s picture books are:
Be aware that sizes and shapes are quite limited for POD printing. Here are the standard trim sizes and shapes offered by Amazon KDP and IngramSpark (two large POD printers):
Note that Amazon KDP and IngramSpark print paperbacks and hardcovers. Also note that neither printer offers the landscape format.
Board book sizes generally range from 5&#; × 5&#; to 10&#; × 10&#;. Offset printers offer a large variety of sizes. Pint Size Productions offers POD printing for board books (5.625&#; × 5.625&#; square, 16 pages).
There are lots of digital and offset printers to choose from, and they all offer a variety of sizes and shapes for color printing. Don&#;t hesitate to go online and learn what sizes and formats are available at various book printers. Also browse your local bookstore and library to see what sizes and shapes will best suit your children&#;s picture book.
The standard page count for a children&#;s picture book is 24 or 32. In fact, 24 is often the minimum page count for perfect binding (slimmer books can be saddle-stitched). Multiples of 8 or 12 are most cost effective for offset printing, and POD printers require multiples of 4. The standard page count for a board book is 16.
Remember that the book will include non-story pages too, such as the title page and copyright page. You might also include some back matter, including a page about the author and illustrator, and info about social media.
Now that you&#;ve narrowed down the trim size, format, and page count of the book, it&#;s time to plan out the pages. An easy way to do this is to make a storyboard or mockup of all the pages using the text and rough illustrations. There&#;s a great template for a 32-page storyboard that you can download for free from Inky Girl. She also shows examples of how the storyboard can be used to explore illustration ideas.
Remember that the images don&#;t have to illustrate exactly what is said in the story, but rather they can embellish and fill in gaps. Make sure the illustrations leave enough space to add the text to the pages.
You&#;ll want to discuss with the illustrator not only the subject but also the format of each illustration. You can use one or more formats throughout the book. Here are some examples of various formats:
2-page spreads. Children&#;s books often include illustrations that fill two facing pages. Here are a few things to consider when using this format:
Full-page illustrations. Some children&#;s books include just a few full-page illustrations (say, four or six) placed strategically throughout the book. And some have a full-page illustration on every right-hand page, and text on every left-hand page. Full-page illustrations can also be used opposite spot (small) illustrations, so they&#;re very versatile. Here are a few things to consider when using full-page illustrations:
Spot illustrations. Sometimes a sentence or paragraph in the story doesn&#;t warrant a full-page illustration or 2-page spread. In that case, a spot illustration will do just fine. Spot illustrations can be placed alone on a page, or grouped with other spot illustrations if space is a concern. Here are a few things to consider when using spot illustrations:
When you create a mockup or storyboard for the book, you&#;ll see how many pages are needed for the story and illustrations. Often the first and last pages of the book are the only ones not being used for two-page spreads. So where does your title page, copyright info, and anything else you want to include go?
The first page of the book is a right-hand page, and it&#;s your title page. The title page often duplicates the info on the front cover, including the book title and author&#;s and illustrator&#;s names.
The copyright info usually goes on page 2 (the back of the title page) and can be combined with an optional dedication. In children&#;s books, the story sometimes starts on page 2 with a 2-page spread&#;what to do with the copyright info in this case? Try creatively incorporating it into an illustration on page 2 (for example, set it in small type on the side of a building). Or, you could add it to the last page of the book instead.
The last page of the book can include everything that didn&#;t fit on the cover or in the front pages of the book: author and illustrator bios with photos, social media info, and even acknowledgements, if you plan to include them.
There are several ways the design of a children&#;s picture book can sell the story and support the flow of the story through the pages.
The book cover should appeal to its market, in other words, to its potential buyers and readers (i.e., adults) as well as kids. The front cover illustration will reflect the story, yet doesn&#;t need to include every character or action that appears inside the book. Keep it simple.
The front cover includes the book title and the author&#;s and illustrator&#;s names. If you choose to use a display font for the title, make sure it&#;s easy to read from a distance and on a small thumbnail.
The back cover should include a minimum of bar code and price, but can also include things that don&#;t fit inside the book, such as author and illustrator photos and bios, social media info, and so on.
For the pages, choose an easy-to-read font (serif or sans serif) at a largish size (such as 16 pt). It can be tempting to use a display font, perhaps one that&#;s used on the cover, but it&#;s best to use a very readable serif or sans serif. Look for a font that has a friendly or playful feel to it. Here are a couple of examples:
Often children&#;s picture books only include a couple of sentences, a line or two of a rhyme, or a short paragraph per page or spread, so make sure all the text fits into the spaces in the illustrations at the font size you&#;ve chosen. You may have to adjust the size of all the text to make one specific paragraph fit nicely into an illustration. Create a paragraph style and apply it to all of the text so you can experiment with font size and leading (linespacing) throughout the book.
Make sure the text is easy to read on top of the illustrations. There should be an area of dark or light color where you can add the text to an illustration. You may need to lighten the area so that dark or black text is easy to read, or darken the area so that white or light text is easy to read.
It&#;s helpful to add margins to the pages even if the illustrations are 2-page spreads with a full bleed. Consider adding margins to all four sides (say 0.5&#; to the top, bottom, inside, and outside). That way you&#;ll be sure not to place any text too close to the edges of the pages or the gutter. You can also align your paragraphs to the top and/or bottom margins to create a consistent look throughout the book.
Don&#;t place important elements of the illustrations (faces, for example) in the gutter. Sometimes an illustration that covers a 2-page spread might have the most important character or action in the middle of the artwork, so you may have to enlarge or shrink the artwork so that part can be seen. If you didn&#;t work with the illustrator directly to avoid issues like this, you&#;ll need permission to modify the artwork.
Children&#;s picture books look best with a consistent color palette throughout. The illustrations contain the artist&#;s colors, and this is your starting point. Create a color palette using the Color Theme tools in InDesign, and select colors directly from the illustrations (see chapter 58 of Book Design Made Simple, Second Edition).
Aside from color contained in the illustrations, color can also be added to text, page backgrounds, and even specific words. Maintain a consistent flow of color throughout the book by adding color to any pages without illustrations (perhaps at the front and back of the book). Stick to the same intensity of color used in the illustrations (i.e., bold colors or soft colors).
For hardcover books, you&#;ll have the option of adding colored endsheets inside the front and back covers (for an extra cost). You can print on the endsheets also for an extra treat for readers. If your book involves a treasure hunt, for instance, you could put a map of the hunt area for the readers to refer to. Naturally, this will be another extra cost.
You might assume that children&#;s picture books are quick to design because they contain so few words and pages. You&#;ll find, however, that because they are so short, every single word and image is important! Children&#;s picture books offer designers an opportunity to collaborate with authors and illustrators in a unique way, and to have an influence on the flow of the story with text and image placement, and use of color. Have fun and enjoy the design process!
Read more: POD book publishing » explore options of printing at Amazon KDP and IngramSpark.
And more: What does a children&#;s book editor do » because professional editing is essential.
And even more: Book bar code » where to get one and what to encode in it.
Book Design Made Simple. You can do it yourself.
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