Shaped Books

Group 1. Vehicle-shaped books:

1.This book is small enough to be held by an adult on his palm. All the picture are photos but with bright colors. On each page, there are only one photo and the vehicle’s name.

2. Digger and Tractor are like tiny cyclopedias, which have rich information and quite a few photos on each page. What need to be mentioned here is since these are children’s books and all the pictures in these books are from real photos, the editor chose a large font size and an amiable hand-writing type for words.

Group 2. People-shaped books:

Princess and Pirates are two examples within my collections of people-shaped books. They are also like tiny cyclopedia, but different from Digger and Tractor, all pictures in them are drawn by hands. The shapes of different pages vary, so the page layout is pretty flexible. Different body parts are taken as content segments to contain different information. Words in these books are all in black, but the font size changes based the function of the words.

Scanimation Books

Book 1. Star War: 

This book is adapted based on the movie Star War. It is of 7in * 5in size. Black and white is the dominant hue of this book. All the inner pages are black. Scannimation pictures have white background. All the words in this book are either red or white. They float on the black background, enforcing the visual contrast. Scanimation pictures are the only image style in this book. Because scannimation can show different actions within one frame, the black and white hue of this book would not bore the readers but have them focus on those pictures.

Book 2. Swing and Gallop: 

This 5in*8in book takes advantages of the features of scanimation picture to demonstrate different actions of people and animals, like “swing” and “callop”. Each facing pages introduces an action: the left hand side page brings up a question “can you …?”, which is written in a large size and a bright color; then on the right hand side page, this action will be demonstrated by the scanimation picture, and several related words to this action are aligned in lines below this picture to help children make more sense on this action. Since the color of all scanimation pictures in this book is black and grey, in order to make this book more attractive to children, seven bright colors(red, blue, orange, green, yellow and pink) are used for words and page decoration elements. Some words are even combined with different colored letters. 

Book 3. Dancing dreams: 

In this 10in*13in book, scanimation is not the only image style. Actually, most of the pictures in this are delicate and colorful illustrations which can be commonly found in other children’s picture books. Scanimation pictures are only added to each right hand side page within a small area. Since the scanimation pictures in this book are also full of colors, the words of this book are all black and in a single type. I think the most exciting creation in this book is the design of those dancing platforms. The author smartly combined the scanimation pictures with common illustrations. 

Pop Out Books

Book 1.Tigger’s GIANT : 

This book is of a  larger size, about 11in *14 in. All the pictures in this book are illustrated first with pencils and then water color paints. They are of a delicate quality in showing details. Folded flaps are the only pop out form in this book. Within each facing pages, 5 to 10 flaps are contained. They are of different shapes and arrange from 1in*1in to 2in* 2in in size. There is a small image covered by each flap, and the words on this image or on the back side of the flap describe the image’s features. A reading guide box shows up on every facing pages. Its green border and bold headline make pop out. The words in this guide box are in a handwriting style, which pretty match the images’ style. 

Book 2.Giant Pop-out Ocean: 

Pages in this book are all of a 10in*10in square.  Actually, More squares can be found in the layout of this book. Each left hand side page is evenly divided into four small squares. In the right upper and left bottom squares, two photos related to a sea creature are placed. In the other two squares, several words are written down to describe the photos. On the right hand side page, first a question in a large and bold word style is given to encourage children guess what the creature is. Then a line of small tiny words show up along the edge of the folded picture as hints to the above question. When children unfold this right hand side page, a large photo of a creature will pop out. This book uses only one folding style. The main color in this book is blue, emphasizing this is a book introducing sea creatures. Other frequently used colors are greyed-pink, grey-pink, grey purple and grey-green. They enforce the brightness of photos used in this books. 

Book 3. Bedtime Bugs: 

This 7in*6in sized small book uses funny but friendly looked bugs to describe the whole process of getting ready to sleep. Bugs, the main character of this book, are humanized through creative illustrations. All the pictures are of bright and pure colors and the background image are simply drawn to send main characters forward. Most words in this book are black-colored, aligned in lines and put on the left hand side white page. This book is its diversified pop out forms, vertical and horizontal dragging out pop-outs, spinning pop-outs, folding flaps and a smaller inside pop out book, which make this book full of motion. 

Small inside pop out book

Spin

Drag out horizontally

Feel and Touch Books

Book 1. Baby Animals：

The size of this book is about 5in*6in, which is smaller than the common adult books. On each facing pages one or two photos of a baby animal are displayed. The background color of each facing pages is pure and delightful, like yellow green, red or blue, which is either strongly contrasting (the bunny, puppy and lamb page) to or similar with (the duckling and tiger page) the color of the animal on this page.  A same sized oval was cut out on each animal’s body and covered with a patch of fur of this animal. Children can touch this part with their small fingers to feel its texture. Four lines of word descriptions are given to each animal. These words are in different places of each page, but all black and of a same handwriting style.

Book 2: That’s Not My Train: 
This is a 5in*5in square book. Blue, red, yellow and white are the dominant colors. Pictures in this book are drawn by hands. On each facing pages a different kind of train is passing through, and most of them are just shown the very front part. The feely patches in this book are in various textures, foil, sand paper, folded paper and rough metal. One line of corresponding words are given in black color on the top or bottom of each facing pages to describe the touching feelings of different textures, such “shiny”, “rusty”, “bumpy” and “rough”.  Two slight but interesting design points are worth mention: each train is passing by a unique landscape and some small lovely animals, like mice, bees, rabbits and birds can be found on or around each train.

“Rough” top is made of rough metal.

Book 3: Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings:
This 9in*8 in sized book combines the features of both Feel and Touch books and Folded books. A feely patch is cut out on each right hand side page. Patches on different pages are of different colors, shapes and textures. One word is given around the patch to notify its shape. When this right hand side page is unfolded, an animal or a group of this kind of animal will show up. The feely patch turns to be a body part of this animal. One word shows up somewhere on this folded page informing the animal’s name. On each left hand side page, two words are provided to describe the features of the corresponding touching patch and the animal. All the pictures in this book are drawn by hands. The background color of this book is white, which helps the black words, the feely patches and the animals stand out. The layout of each folded page is loose. Many white spaces are left. But in contrast, the unfolded pages are busy. A group of animals are in a huddle, which increase the challenge for children to count the number as well as keep a balance between busy and loose page layout styles.