Project Planning
This project will develop a children’s picture book (PB), with focus on dance as its key aspect. During this project I will be designing a PB by using references to the current literature whilst aiming to outperform the most current publications. My PB strives to engage children, be interactive and develop their language. Using PB’s with children can increase their vocabulary by 12% according to EBSCO (2017).
By incorporating both Children's Literature (CL) and Dance it can have a positive impact on the reader and audience (Sullivan 2005). This project was composed during my studies at the University of Wolverhampton. The module in which stimulated this idea was Dance in CL, the literature covered in this module ignited a passion for producing a PB which is a truthful representation of Dance culture in today’s society. As both a dance student and a parent, it is evident to me that the way dance is reflected in CL is limited. Reviewing current CL, where dance is featured, the pictures used are predominately female; also the use of technique and dance terminology is erroneous throughout many of the PB’s. Lidbury (2016) highlights similarities to my view and explores the misinterpretation and misunderstanding of how dance is featured in PB’s.
According to Peat (2018) there is particular scope for new books which include pictures. They claim that over 50% of parents are reading to their infants weekly (ibid), this statement is aligned with my project aims. Paine (2014) explores the wealth of benefits dance has for children, including both mental and physical advantages; this ideology is something that has been evident within my personal experiences with dance.
The aim of this project is to form a career being a children’s author, this project will also help mould my future and generate financial gain. With Holt (2017) stating that 45% of young adult authors can earn more than £30,000 per year, it is paramount the PB I design will be diverse, factual and inclusive in order to thrive in the current market. What I hope to achieve is to fabricate a new standard in the market for CL for PB’s in dance.
A huge limitation to this project is my lack of knowledge and experience in PB design and writing. I aim to overcome this issue by completing a plethora of research (Meobuis, 1990; Evans, 1998; Nodleman, 2005; Gamble and Yates, 2008 and Holdesworth, 2013) for what makes a PB successful in CL. I will be analysing a variety of sources; books, articles and blogs to help further my research. The existing literature on creating a PB is extensive and focuses particularly on ways to keep the reader engaged and entertained (ibid). I will now analyse these sources and appraise which elements will inform my design and which will feature within my PB.
There are over 10,000 PB’s created each year (Flood, 2018) from this only 7 of the PB's are based on ballet. This proves the lack of representation dance has in CL. Specifically, there has only been one single PB published this year, out of the thousands of publications, which actively demonstrated dance in another genre other than ballet (ibid).
I bring light to the fact that there are over 300 styles of dance, (Bryant, 2018) this is why it is crucial to investigate further as to why other Dance styles are not often being included within PB writing. As there are so many styles throughout the world of Dance, further into my career I aim to publish different styles of Dance, by producing a collection of books where each new book features a new genre. This research propels me into re-examining what my PB would include. I am passionate about portraying more trending dance styles and genres, therefore I have decided to focus my style around Hip Hop which Croft (2018) supports as this is where most children have aligned their dance interests. Flood (2018) states that by researching a new or recent topic it can increase the success of book sales by 68%. By using a new style of Dance that hasn’t yet been published as a children’s PB this brings a potential gap in the CL market. This is important to me to as this can positively represent dance in all styles. I believe this shall allow children to develop a further knowledge for styles other than Ballet, thus encouraging dance participation (Clarke, 2015).
Meobuis’ (1990) research has developed my insight into how PB’s are written and the ideas needed to be analysed before creation. These include; Where images should be displayed on the page, the importance of choosing the style, the meaning behind the use of colours and the message I would like to convey with the images within my PB. Graham (2014) has developed my thinking into different areas of PB’s, focusing on the words to include and how to represent them through illustrations, by following his research closely I have been able to develop a strong storyline where the illustrations align to the text, analysing where is best to put the images on the page in order to allow the text to still flow as a story.
Holdesworth (2013) suggests that boys, especially under the age of 6 largely avoid dance. This is a stigma I would like to tackle through the use of colour representation and how gender is featured in my PB. I aim to encourage boys through the gender equal images I will incorporate. This reading has supported my design methods by aligning my own ideas with the guide to PB codes. Using this guide within my own creation has highlighted the importance on building rapport and maintaining a communication rich relationship with the illustrator in order to achieve my project aims.
89% of Ballet PB’s sole use of colour is pink. (Okstad, 2017) Whilst exploring this for a deeper understanding, I trawled through a library collection, which showed 90% of all dance titles sole use of colour was pink, which aligned with Okstad (2017). I find that in society today, as we move towards bringing up a generation without gender stereotyping, I shall not feature pink within my PB and therefore I will explore the use of other colours (Karniol 2011). Evans (1998) and Nodleman (2005) analyse the use of colours throughout their work and which colours are best represented for children within PB’s. Using this analysis of colour and their representation, I have decided the primary colour that will feature throughout will be yellow, secondary red, but also hints of oranges. Roberts (2004) supports the use of these colours by researching the feelings they evoke, which together promotes happiness in children.
As this is my first time writing any form of children’s story I was unsure of the text or story to include but from Watkins’ (2108) research he states that PB writing is imaginative and not heavily focused on a single idea but to allow your imagination to inspire you. However, Hyland (2010) disagrees and states that PB writing is best informed from life events, as opposed to a scenario based upon make belief. My decision is to focus on the research of Watkins (2018) as I believe that children are very imaginative and that they use their imagination as a way to express themselves through make belief. (Bloggs, 2018)
When researching into characters and different ways I could represent people throughout my book, I decided that I would include are illustrations which represent people from an Ethnic minority group, As only 4% of PB’s include images which show diffraction in ethnicity (Flood, 2018) from the stereotypical image of a dancer (Wood, 2017). Specifically in Dance only 1% of book celebrated an ethnic diversity (Flood 2018). Challenging Woods (2017) views could tackle the stereotypical image of a dancer, which could also give explanation to the lack of ethnic diversity portrayed.
Another flaw that has become apparent is that there is a lack of gender diversity (Karniol, 2011) within the PB’s. Out of the 50 Dance PB’s I researched only three contained male characters none of which were the protagonist (Bergman, 2005; Jones, 2014 and Best, 2018). After collecting this evidence, to be both culturally and socially relatable, my book will feature a male character and a character from an ethnic minority group. This helps challenge the ongoing stereotypes in the creative arts industry. However, it is worth piloting this, as a precautionary measure as it may, in fact, turn out that the audience that buy and enjoy such PB’s are in fact girls, therefore, limiting my PB sales. I strive to encourage boys to purchase my PB and be interested in dance and see that it isn’t just for girls. When I have completed my PB, I plan on going into schools and libraries and offer free reading sessions of my book, thus to promote my book to both boys and girls before it goes to publication to help success.Through this I will be developing knowledge on the movements that are featured throughout the book with hope to encourage dance participation informatively.
Holabird (1995) had a successful career as an author by creating Angelina Ballerina. She has sold millions of hard copies in book form before producing a characterised television series. AXS (2017) explored the impact Holabird’s character books of a young mouse dancer and friends had on CL in dance and then media. As production has stopped for the Angelina Ballerina series this opens a gap in the market for PB’s like my own. Upon completion of this final project I aspire to be as successful as this particular author. My future goals and aspirations upon completing this initial project by compelling all the literature in which I have read, Is now to aim to challenge diversity in Dance genres by focusing on a variety of styles all of which will be featured in a new edition of a PB. This would hopefully allow my project to have financial sustainability, with aims to achieve a long term career. With Holabird paving the way for authors, this inspires me to set a long term goal similar to the journey of hers, in that my PB’s could become an animated television series and reach a larger audience.
After researching into the making of a PB, I also researched how to produce a PB, looking into the financial costs and how to get the book printed. From comparing many different printing companies, both online and in store, the company I have decided to use is Blurb (2018) they allow you to create anywhere from 1 – 10,000 PB’s. They are an online company and allow you to sell your book through their website, free of charge if you print your PB through them. You are able to view your PB online before sending off for your printed version and access help and free advice on your idea before the book is finalised. To create a single book for the purpose of this project it will cost £8, however, the more copies you purchase the cheaper the cost (ibid). By my calculations, printing more than 500 copies will allow me to sell my PB’s £5 each whilst making a profit of £3 on each of my sales, allowing this project to be finically beneficial.
From the figures as previously shown, I believe that a career as an author is able to bring enough money in to allow this career to be finically stable. Wilson (2017) agrees with this thought by stating that; an author’s career is finically beneficial, as long as the correct earnings are being made per sale. I hope that by creating a collection of books it can allow my career to be sustainable as I will be producing new material within each PB I produce I aim that readers will want to collect my series of books and appeal to a wide audience other than girls that enjoy dance. However, it is still worth noting that no amount of research can guarantee a successful book launch, it will only inform an author on the styles are well-received by the audience. There is nothing I can do to make my product 100% financially stable, as people may not want to spend £5 on a PB, but I strive to make my product financially beneficial by investing my time into the pre-book launch and connecting with my audience and readers.
When researching into a variety of different Dance PB’s many of them included incorrect terminology and technique, a title in particular was ‘I am Ballerina’ (2015) as it was very poorly executed. The illustrators showed throughout the PB are drawn incorrectly and do not match the wording used by the author. Likewise, the author used terminology within the wrong context from page 3 through to 5. Aiming to gather information on the choice of illustrations and text used, I contacted the author and illustrator of this book. Chou (2018) acknowledged without complete and sufficient research, illustrations were drawn. To quote the response “I the illustrator followed the lead of the writer, who shared her intelligence with me”. This lead to poor quality in images, an unrealistic representation that was forthcoming to a dancer. Fliess (2018) also recognises the importance of researching words and images before creating a PB. Her research was contained to media searches and YouTube dance recital videos. Youtube is not a correct representation of Dance as many individuals could be showing and demonstrating incorrect knowledge or technique. (Clarke, 2018) Fliess could have made her research more detailed by viewing dance on different platforms, (stage, classes, rehearsals and television) this could have given her more scope for her story and writing (Bryant, 2018).
I also see a gap in the market for my product, as the design I create will have accurate drawings in which the reader can learn dance with a high accuracy of text representation to allow the reader to understand the terminology behind the movement, allowing the reader to understand movement by name as without the text representation, the illustrations wouldn't portray sufficient knowledge alone as the images show us the movement that the words do not (Nodelman, 1988). As I am including fresh knowledge throughout my PB and my illustrator has dance knowledge I feel my PB will be able to portray dance accurately to the way it is in today’s society, aiming to change the overall perspective of dance from a tender age.
As many of the PB’s that have been completed lack dance knowledge, I have decided that my illustrator will be someone with specialist knowledge and training. My illustrator is a personal contact that will complete the drawings for free, for the benefit of the project. My illustrator has a BA (Hons) degree within Fine Arts and is also a qualified teacher through the IDTA. To enhance my PB further I will be working alongside a children’s teaching practitioner, in order to help formulate the wording ensuring that language is age appropriate and is targeted at enhancing children’s speech skills (Hyman, 2017). As observing and researching children, bring a catalogue of ethical issues, I will be unable to collect research based on children’s own ideas and experiences. To complete an investigation without approaching such an ethically sensitive issue, I will be focusing on the parents on behalf of their children instead. To help enable success I will be completing questionnaires with parents in order to form knowledge as to what a parent looks for within a PB. Sipe (1998) states that many PB’s need to be designed for both small children and adults, as children choose the PB and the adults read them. From their questionnaire results, I shall annotate their answers and analyse how it will help inform the concepts that make a PB exciting for children and ways in which the adults responds to them, I will use them to help and develop my PB.
Upon completion of this project, my aims are to look into publications and analyse the different types of publication. When researching into these different areas and the different forms of publications; I have decided to use self-publication. From researching Fang (2018) he states that during the beginnings of careers self-publication is the easiest way to getting yourself on a platform. However, further down my career I may look into getting myself a publisher as Fang (2018) states within many years after your initial publication, as getting a publisher can help reach a wider audience.
My overall project aim was to design a PB for dance and explore the current literature which surrounds this topic. Discussing what has happened previously and what is happening currently, identifying where my project can fit within the market. The research I have undertaken has allowed me to develop a greater understanding of how PB’s can be effective and what they compile. Whilst exploring the benefits that CL has on their development it has allowed me to reflect on the importance on this project aims and fulling these.
I am now confident in my abilities which have been enhanced by my research that I can take my PB idea and create a real life product. I have investigated the projects financial reliability and sustainability, which have facilitated this project. The analysis has demonstrated that there is a gap within the market for my product in which I aim to produce. Further research has indicated that this idea could enable a successful career. By utilising the guides mentioned throughout, this will further improve the quality of my PB.
Upon reflection, it would have been beneficial to the project aims if more research could have been conducted on publicised authors and illustrators and their opinions of their PB. This would allow me to synthesise their opinions and this would allow a deeper level of critically reflection within my own PB. This would also highlight any limitations that have appeared during their creations which I would be able to reflect upon to ensure that my research design learns from their experiences.