The author says:
A picture book about a cute little mouse who is a fanatical gardener. It covers the topics of nature, friendship, and determination. It is aimed at 0-6-year-olds. It is very sweet and of course, has a happy ending.
Nathan says:
I think this is adequate as it stands, so let’s see if we can make it more:
- While the title type is okay, it would be confusing to beginning readers. If you could find an iteration or substitute in which the letters didn’t randomly change size, that would be perfect.
- You don’t need to tell me that it’s “beautifully illustrated” — a sample illustration is there on the cover, so I can decide on my own whether it’s beautiful or not.
- If you must tell us what the story’s about, put it under the title, not the byline. “Rosie’s Flowers: A Story About Friendship and Nature.”
- Then you can just leave the byline as “Steven Tod,” or “Written and Illustrated by Steven Tod,” or “Words and Pictures by Steven Tod,” or…
Other comments?
is it possible for the title image to take up more of the cover? In other words, is there sky above Rosie (?), or ground beneath her? Upon which you could use fades or shades, upon which to place the text? I feel that you’re not giving the image adequate prominence and typically, most kids’ illustrated characters have enough background in their image elements to do double-duty as a cover image. (Or even just enlarge the image, to take up more space and then title it across the clouds/sky in the image and all that. Give your title character the attention she’s due.)
I agree with Nathan on the titling font. Rule #1 in typography for kids’ books is highly-readable, even if you think that only the parents are reading it to the kids. Anything you can do to aid the wee reader in associating sounds/words with the printed letters is good. People always think that “cutesy” is the right way to go for kids’ books and it really isn’t. Um…Spellbound (Creative Market, wubstudio) might make a really nice title for this cover.
Please center the tagline (“A Story about…”) underneath the title, or do something so that it doesn’t look as though it’s wrongly set. Right now, with absolutely everything else centered, it looks like you made a mistake, rather than intentionally left-aligning it.
Hope that helps. It’s not bad, don’t get me wrong–but I don’t think it’s everything that it could be.
I’d recommend using a hand drawn looking font like in the example here
https://imgur.com/a/BLbJd4y
Make the art full page and integrate title with the art. your font would work if you remove the effects and fix sizing. I’d further recommend taking the gray out of the color and adding contrast. Like in the example here the sky and grass are different contrasting colors and the text is bright but matches the art. Just that simple white between the art and sky really adds lots of contrast.
Adding hand drawn swooshes to further accent words and fill empty spaces would be awesome. Keep opinion blurbs on the back of the book and use quote marks so we know it’s an opinion. (a flower or 2 on the back would be fun.)
If you decide to go with the art in a circle instead of the entire frame, try putting the art into an oval frame and to keep it classic use a classic style serif font. You could keep the title all one straight line if you’re going classic. A dark color background with gold title and gold oval frame would really make it have a classic feel. (Like the classic dark red or dark blue that cloth covers used to be.) To get a faux embossed look add a heavy shadow.
I confess, Shel, I’m not wild about the font, but I LOVE what you’ve done with the cover artwork and coloration. 🙂
So… kind of a feminine version of Stuart Little for little kids? That’s more or less my first impression, and if that’s what you intended, then you’ve succeeded. As our esteemed host says, that tagline’s rather redundant, and you should lose it; let the readers decide for themselves whether the illustrations are beautiful.
Other than that, bearing in mind how Stuart Little‘s illustrator filled the cover, you might likewise want to expand your cover’s illustration to fill it as well; maybe resize it (if you’ve got a decently high-definition resolution scan of it on your computer) or add some peripheral background details that’ll look pretty, but which you won’t mind covering with your title and byline as necessary.
Aside from the type issues I think one of the most important things to look at is the art itself. There is no reason for it to be so small, virtually lost in a sea of blue. The cover would be much more attractive, especially to a child’s eye, if the artwork filled the cover.
Other people have mentioned font issues. Try looking through the titles of some of the millions of kids books about mice. You can do a lot with average fonts by wiggling the letters a little rather than doing lots of different sizes.
I would add that the cover is doesn’t really draw my attention that much. Not all of these are great, but when I look at these photos (below) all of the put me in the middle of a plot and things are happening:
https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/top-ten-middle-grade-books-about-mice-by-holly-mueller/
I think my all time favorite as a kid was Mouse and the Motorcycle. Which, even with the name alone, is pretty attention-grabbing, at least for boys.