Month: April 2016

The Rat without a home final document

Above is my final book as a PDF with a few little changes to ensure that the characters are not transparent and that the dog doesn’t look like he is floating. Below are the individual final pages with the same changes applied. I moved the text away from the edge of the page so that there was no risk of being cut off if my book was ever printed. and the characters are now not see through! The pages I did for the inside of the book are not in order they are pages 1,5,6,& 7 in the story.

 

Aims

My book aims to reassure children in care that it’s OK for things not to work out the first times as eventually you will always find somewhere you belong. My book aims to target children in care and the main character is crafted to be relate able as all he wants is a forever home and to not be sad any more and a lot of children in care can relate with that feeling.

Synopsis

The Rat is sad because he doesn’t have a home so he decides to go look for a home. On his journey he meets a family of birds who are nice to him so he asks to live with them. They say no so he carries on. He then meets a family of ducks who are nice to him so he asks if he can live with them. they say no so he carries on. He then gets tired and rests. The next day he comes across a lost dog. The rat offers to help the dog search for his owner. When the dog and his owner are reunited the rat is asked if he would like to come live with them. He says yes.

http://www.4children.org.uk

4 Children delivers childcare, family support and youth services across more than 150 settings, including children’s centres, nurseries, schools and RAF bases. 4 Children concentrates on helping broken family or families with problems that would usually result in the child being taken into care. This is to prevent more children being put into the care system. I have used this charity as a review on the back of my book as 4 Children are recognised as a charity that aims to help children and families thrive.

https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-protection-system/children-in-care/

this site informed me in detail on what a child in care actually means. “A child who is being looked after by their local authority is known as a child in care.”  They also have a research and resources page which gave me a lot of numbers as to how big my target audience is, in the UK my audience is 69540 children as this is the number of children currently being cared for by the local authority.

https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/what-we-do/support-for-children-in-care/

Action for children support children and young people in care with fostering, adoption and residential care services. They also provide residential childcare. They also have a specific page for adoption as they try to provide there children with a permanent home. As my book is about adoption I could get this company to endorse my book, or use them to market it.

I chose to write my text on a separate white page as children would find it easier to read off of. I got this idea from existing books which have their text on blank back grounds or white parts of the pages. Books below are; not now Bernard, The tiger who came to tea, the very hungry caterpillar and Winnie the pooh.

Not now Bernard has the text on a white background and the illustrations in a box style so both illustration and text are on the same page.I could’ve used this style for my book but I wanted bigger text so children could read it by themselves. This is because children in care often wont have an adult around to read them stories so they will have to read them themselves.

The tiger who came to tea is set out in a similar way. However, the drawings are mainly the characters with little or no back ground and these characters are not boxed in by anything. If my drawing skills were better I could’ve set my text and images out this way however, my skills meant that this was an unlikely option as it would draw more attention to the bad drawing. The text is also quite small and some children aged 5-10  may struggle to read text that small by themselves.

The Very hungry caterpillar has the right sized text for my target age group on a white back ground with the illustrations above the text. Again both the text and illustration are on the same page which works when the illustrations have no background. My book will have backgrounds so splitting the text onto one page and the illustration onto another is essential.

Winnie the pooh has both text and illustrations on the same page again. However, when there is a big important illustration they will put the illustration on one page and the text onto the other. The illustrations are usually encased in a white border with a fade out effect.

 

Books about adoption

My family is forever tells the story of the narrators adoption. From the adoptive parents preparations and excitement, their long journey by plane to meet her, to their life together as a family. This book centres on the process of adoption from the view point of the child. My book is similar in subject matter but my book deals with the ups and downs that children in care have to go through in order to get to this point.

 

We belong together is a book by Todd Parr it explores the ways people can come together to make a family. This book uses stick figure type characters and represents many different types of families. This book uses bright colours which is similar to mine in a way however my colours are pastel instead of neon bright. This book again shows the different processes of adoptions but not what the children have to go through before that point.

I am struggling to find a book which looks at what children in the care system have to go through before they find their forever families. So maybe my book fills a gap in the market for children in the care system?

The front cover for my book is meant to be eye catching so I have used a variety of pastel bright colours as the background of the front cover. I chose pastels because they are a little less hard on the eyes and gives the book a soft feel to it which is important as the book is about a touchy subject matter. The main characters of the book are included on the front cover as they are meant to be characters that the children this book is aimed at will like or relate to. The Rat is bigger than the dog as he is meant to act as an older brother figure to the dog throughout the book. This is evidenced when he helps the dog, who is lost and scared when they first meet, find his owner.

The first page of the book shows the rat beginning his journey at the crossroads. the crossroads represent the different paths a person can take throughout their lives. It also shows that every journey starts with a choice. The whole tone with colours is pastel to create a soft look. This is done to sort of soften the blow of the usbject matter as it can upset some people who can relate to the story. I decided to keep the page with text clear with a white background as children aged 5-10 will find it easier to read of a white background than a multicoloured background.

I then created the fourth page of the story which shows the Rat become tired on his journey after meeting two families who rejected him. This is meant to be relate able to times when children in care have been sent to live with foster families and its not worked out. On this page the rat doesn’t have a bag pack as he is resting. The background is meant to be a park or wildlife reserve of some kind. Somewhere the rat can stop and have a rest without being bothered. Again the text page is blank so it’s easier for children to read off of.

The fifth page of my book introduces a new character, Dog. Dog is lost and scared when Rat comes across him, when Rat offers to help Dog he becomes a sort of big brother figure in the eyes of the reader. This is represent the friendships that children in care often make as they don’t have any strong parental figures in the care system they start to care for each other like siblings and look out for one an other. One thing I am unhappy about with this page is that the dogs white patch for some reason in copying over has disappeared or is more see through than expected as I used a low opacity brush for the characters. I also hate my drawings in general but the story in this book is well done for the subject matter.

The sixth page of the book shows Dog and Rat on their journey when Dog spots something that makes him excited and runs off to investigate. This shows that sometimes a child in care will find someone looking to adopt and get attached to them. On the following page Dog and his owner are reunited and Rat gets sad because he thinks he has to leave, then Dog and his owner ask Rat to come live with them. This represents when children in care finally find a forever family as it is usually unexpected when it happens. The background in this I am disappointed with, I tried to keep it bright as children like bright colours but I think it looks really messy and childish. If I had more time and more drawing skills I would change the background on this page.

I am actually quite proud of the back cover of this book. I like the rainbow pastel colours used on the background and I like the synopsis. The font I love because it is like a mix between handwriting and simple fonts like Helvetica. This makes it easy to read with a childish/ child friend edge to it.  The quotes from reviews I have put on there as most books have reviews on the back of them. The bar code is there as all books have a bar code, I got the bar code from Google images as I am not publishing this book I do not see that being a problem. The price is also similar to prices of other short childrens books.