Helping Children Make Their Own Books

Children love to work in series.  Young artists in particular can go through a stack of paper in a short sitting.  Many enjoy making large gestures that fill a page with lines and color.  Others tell stories, adding characters and action with additional sheets.

These groups of drawings offer great possibilities for book making with young children.  All you need to begin is a stack of same sized paper.  It can be all one color or different colors - sometimes color variety is a motivator as well.

Introduce kids to the idea of making a group of drawings for a book and set them loose with markers, pens, pencils, crayons and paper.  Once complete, drawings can be bound with staples or hole punched and sewn to create simple books.  Some may even want to make the book first and then work through the blank pages filing them with unique drawings.

There are many great connections to favorite children's books as well.  Take time to notice how illustrators tell stories with their pictures and how stories build and action changes throughout the visual images in a book.  Children may be inspired to create collages like Eric Carle http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html or may prefer cartoon drawings inspired by Mo Willems http://www.mowillems.com/ .  

Whatever author you choose for inspiration, encourage kids to think about how the author/artist makes decisions about structure and images for a picture story.  Do you notice how the size of the caterpillar changes?  How about the way the face of the animal changes when it is angry, surprised, happy?  Just as adult artists learn from studying other artists, kids can learn by studying their favorite characters and books for inspiration and ideas.

A search for your favorite children's author on-line will likely take you to his or her website and possibly other articles and resources about his or her life and working process.  This is a great way for kids to experience role models for their own creative work.

Have fun with your books.  Try creating pages that fold to reveal a mystery or a simple pop-up surprise at the end.  The possibilities are endless if you use your imagination.  This is also a great way for kids to share their favorite areas of interest; dinosaurs, princesses or even a catalog of favorite stuffed animals or cartoon characters.  As long as the content comes from the child they will be enthusiastic to create, having fun while building valuable literacy skills.