Naima B. Robert – Introduction to the Children’s Book Masterclass
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AI: Transcript ©
In this lesson, I am going to be
sharing with you some of the wonderful
variety to be found
in the children's book world. And if you
know me, then you know that I absolutely
love children's books
And I just cannot get enough of them
and cannot get enough of talking about them.
But we are not here just to randomly
go through children's books.
I would like to take you on a
journey
through the world of children's books by sharing
just a few examples
so you can get a feel for what's
possible, for what's out there, for what's working,
for
maybe what your future project would look like.
So let's do this in a chronological way.
I'm going to treat fiction and nonfiction,
the same because there are fiction books for
children and there are nonfiction books for children.
Just as a recap, fiction means that the
story is made up.
Nonfiction means that it's fact based.
In between those two, there is creative
nonfiction,
which is basically a fact based story
or a story told in order to teach.
Okay. We'll see some examples of those inshallah.
Alright. So let's start with the youngest
children.
If you are familiar with children, if you
have any of your own or if you've
been to the library and you've seen the
children's section, you will see that there is
a section
especially for the littlest ones
and that is the babies and toddler section.
You will find that those books have particular
characteristics,
Mainly that they typically have fewer words or
none at all.
The illustrations are very vibrant and the books
are very hardy. And that is for reasons
that I'm sure I don't have to explain
to you, mashallah.
It's pretty clear why those books need to
be quite hard wearing.
Now baby and toddler books come under the
general umbrella
of picture books. Picture books in general are
considered to be written for 0 to 5
years old. Some can stretch above 5 but
in general,
they are seen as catering to the 0
to 5 age group.
That means that
language wise, there will be issues with regards
to how much language is used, how many
words there are. And in children's in sorry,
babies and toddlers,
babies less than 300, Toddlers
under 500.
Picture books in general will be about a1000.
So I have some examples here of some
picture books. Some this is one of my
favorites here. It's a bit ratty and nutty.
But, it's a very beautiful, reassuring
story
set in the Inuit culture in, Canada
about a little girl asking her mama if
she loves her. So you'll see on the
inside,
not too many words,
quite a simple,
story, quite simple premise,
but really, told in a very beautiful way.
So I will read you just a couple
of pages inshallah from this one. Again, that's
the cover.
And this would be more for toddlers.
Mama, do you love me?
Yes I do dear one.
How much?
I love you more than the raven loves
his treasure.
More than the dog loves his tail
and more than the whale loves his spout.
How long?
I'll love you until the umiak flies into
the darkness.
Until the stars turn to fish in the
sky and the puffin howls at the moon.'
So this is a fairly sophisticated
toddlers book, Masha'Allah.
There are obviously toddler books with just one
word per page, no words per page.
DiaZu is a good example of a very
simple toddler's book with simple illustrations
and,
the the examples of that are bound. So
so many of them.
Next, we go to preschool,
And this is where the more typical,
picture book is, is located.
So you may be familiar with this book.
It's now a modern classic. Hannah surprise.
Obviously it's not created
for toddlers because it's,
paperback and toddlers don't do very well with
paperbacks. But it is a picture book, a
classic picture book in the sense that the
pictures
are a very important part of the storytelling.
And in fact, in this book in particular,
the pictures are a crucial part of the
storytelling because the words don't actually tell what
is actually happening. It's the pictures that show
what's happening and then the ending is a
surprise
for, the main character, Handa, but not for
us because we've been seeing the plot unfold
through the pictures the whole way. But you'll
see
the illustrations
are very vibrant
and the language is still quite simple.
Okay? And,
you know, has a rhythm to it, has
a sense of repetition to it, which is
something that we will touch on later in
the master class. Okay? So that's Hannah's Surprise
picture book.
Another classic picture book which is quite different
to Handa Surprise,
is this one here. You may be familiar
with it.
That's Judith Kurz, the tiger who came to
tea.
And this is a classic in the UK,
because it's a very off the wall story.
But I'll read you the first part so
you'll see what I mean.
Once there was a little girl called Sophie
and she was having tea with her mummy
in the kitchen.
Suddenly,
there was a ring at the door.
Sophie's mummy said,
'I wonder who that can be.
It can't be the milkman
because he came this morning.
And it can't be the boy from the
grocer because this isn't the day he comes.
And it can't be daddy
because he has his keys.
We'd better open the door and see.'
Sophie opened the door
and there
was a big,
furry,
stripy
tiger.
The tiger said,
'Excuse me.
But I'm very hungry.
Do you think I could have tea with
you?'
Sophie's mummy said, of course,
come in. And you'll have to read the
rest of the book to find out what
the tiger ends up doing. But that's an
example of
a well loved children's picture book that has
an element of fantasy and imagination,
and but based in a very domestic setting.
And we will go into the kind of,
stylistic
traditions
found in different children's books later on in
the master class. Right now we're just taking
a little look.
So
after the picture books, I do believe, I
have some picture books that are nonfiction as
well.
Think of an Eel is one of them.
And I shared this in the extra training.
This is written in a more prose poetry
style. So it's creative nonfiction but it is
nonfiction. It's not, it's not a narrative story.
And,
yeah. It's,
I'll just read you a little bit of
it so you can see but get a
feel for the language.
Eel swims for 3 years till he reaches
the shore but the river's too cold.
There's still snow on the mountains.
So he waits in the water.
Turns into an elver.
Now he looks like a shoelace made out
of glass.
The next one.
When spring warms the shoreline, the smell of
fresh water excites the glass elver.
Into the river he swims like a mad
thing. He wriggles up rapids,
climbs rocks around waterfalls.
Riverbanks
guide him. Nothing will stop him.
So that's just, like, a taste of the
wonderful language
in the, in this particular series of books.
But this here is a picture book but
it's nonfiction. Okay? And I have another example
of a nonfiction
picture book
and that is, this one here.
And this is more like a textbook. Okay.
So I shouldn't call it a picture book,
really. It's more like a textbook. Alright. So
you'll see it is written for children. And
this is the amazing thing about nonfiction,
in children's books. People really, really overlook the
value of nonfiction
And especially
presenting facts in an exciting and creative way.
I think this is a trick that many,
many of us are missing and I'd love
to see more creative non fiction coming from
us Muslim writers. But you'll see here
you can see it's quite a simple setup.
There's the main piece of artwork
and then there's information
about the, the artist. And there'll be some
cartoons here as well to illustrate other things.
There'll be, you know, some Internet links.
And obviously, it's written in a way that
is meant to appeal to children, to their
sense of curiosity, their sense of excitement,
and there's also,
some activities that they can do. And I
cannot wait to dive into the nonfiction,
segment with you guys because it's actually really,
really exciting. Masha'Allah.
Right. So we're moving up now to early
readers.
Early readers
are higher age group than, picture books. Early
readers are written for the child to read
them themselves. Okay? So the language has to
be pitched to the reading level of the
child, not the age. So this is an
example of an early reader. As you can
see, very, very simple. So can I? And
all through the book it's actually very, very,
very simple.
Illustrations still play an important part because at
this age children are still, you know, really
really interested in the illustrations.
So you can see there, push and pull.
Push and pull.
Pull
and push.
And my daughter actually learned to read with
these particular books so there you go. They
do work. This example might be more familiar
to you guys.
Yep. It's Peter and Jane.
And obviously, we know Peter and Jane is
based on the keywords in the ladybird reading
series.
So reading series and early readers are much
stricter when it comes to the vocabulary that
you can use.
Story wise, there's a bit of flexibility, but
early readers, it's all about
giving the children
the story in the words that they are
able to read or can learn to read.
So,
yep. Here comes Peter. Here comes Jane. We
know how that goes.
Right. And then moving up from early readers,
we're getting to
chapter books, which are basically for 6 to
9 year olds.
I've got this one here by Judy Blume.
Not sure whether you're familiar with her. She's
a very famous
and celebrated American author.
And you'll see that in chapter books now,
the stories are split into chapters.
And they
have illustrations.
Okay? Illustrations are still an important part of
things
in the early the young readers age, so
the chapter book age. So, you'll see this
one is not very thick. Okay? It's not
very long and there are
slightly longer than that. There is some flexibility
there but you're bearing in mind that you
are writing for basically 6 to 9 year
olds. And then,
up from that, you have the 9 to
12 year olds and this is the middle
grade
section.
Middle grade
encompasses books like The Muslims by Zainab Meehan.
Okay.
Middle grade obviously is longer.
The chapters are longer. They often will rely
less on illustration.
Okay? So you've got The Muslims by Zainab
Meehan. You've got this one by Beverly Naidu
as well, another classic
of world literature, really, Journey to Joburg. And
so you see in here, in this chapter
book, illustrations are very, very minimal. Okay. You
see that illustration and then you don't see
illustrations for a long time. Okay. And obviously
the story is more mature.
There is more to the story in terms
of plot, in terms of character development.
Now you're getting into more novel style writing.
Okay?
And then, we've got other books like this
which is, you know, a story book that's
obviously written for children but is historical.
And,
obviously illustrations
are a really important part of it but
the main thing is that it's written for
children at children's level. So, hey,
there is too much variety and that was
not even the tip of the iceberg. Insha'Allah,
as we go through this master class, I
will be introducing you to more and more
wonderful books so that you can feel empowered
to see where your sweet spot is. What
kind of books do you lean towards? Do
you like funny books? Do you like moving
books? Are you drawn to a particular illustration
style? Are you drawn to a particular type
of plot or character or storytelling style?
Through the masterclass, you'll get a chance to
find out what your sweet spot is and,
possibly base your story in that area where
you feel the most comfortable. See you in
the next lesson. Assalamu alaykum.