It was wonderful to hear from James Mitchem from DK, in our recent Information Book Award webinar. James spoke about how children's information publishing keeps finding new ways into familiar subjects, and how the best books don't try to cover everything, but leave young readers hungry to know more. In this piece, originally written for our Members-only Quarterly Newsletter, Andrew Macintyre, also a Publisher at DK, reflects on an approach to children's information books that has stood the test of time:
When I started in non-fiction at DK, a long time ago, I would often hear, "Oh, DK, I used to love your books when I was a kid!". Then, to my pleasure, as the years rolled by the people saying it actually included the many subject experts we use today when making our books – the paleontologists, the geologists, the doctors, the historians, the astronomers. Their interests started early in their lives, often sparked by immersion in books on space, dinosaurs, the middle ages, the human body, oceans and volcanoes or dozens of other fascinating non-fiction topics. These books opened doors to worlds of exciting, curated, visual information, and life-long passions began. So I'd like to talk a little about what's magical about great visual information books and how we go about creating them.
Many of us will remember the huge presence that story books had in our childhoods, transporting us to different places and opening up vast imaginative worlds in our minds. But wonderful though fiction is, it doesn't always feed the hunger for knowledge that children's rapidly developing brains crave. And fiction is not for every child; you are presented with page after page of text and there's only one place to start: page 1, word 1, with lots and lots more words stretching out in front of you.
But DK non-fiction pages are different from that linear experience: every page has multiple access, or starting, points. The pages are designed so that you can navigate around them in the order you want. Immersed in the photographs, the child may find themselves glancing at the labels beneath them, then at the annotations that are dotted around the image, and then at the captions that describe what is happening in the photo, and then last of all at the introduction to the spread! Younger kids often just look at the photos, older ones devour all of the words as well. The pages of these books can usually be read in any order; you can browse, dip in and out, and you can revisit the pages and the book again and again.
We always think of our child readers as tough customers. They may well have been gifted the book rather than choosing it themselves and, unless quickly intrigued, they may well put the book down, never to be picked up again. So our job is to ensure that from the first glance at the jacket – or maybe they open the book up randomly – we hook them by catching their attention and curiosity. And that often begins with the photographs. We spend a lot of time and energy searching for the very best photos for every subject.
Photographs are far more age-agnostic compared to illustrations. Most parents, and definitely their kids, are acutely aware of the target age of illustrations and are quick to reject books that are for younger kids. But photographic pages seem to appeal to a much wider age range. I've had the pleasure of publishing the classic DK Eyewitness series for many years and have witnessed kids who are only just learning to read being lost in the pages, all the way up to teenagers and adults engrossed in the spreads. Books for ages 8 to 80!
We don't usually start our books with an author's manuscript. It is a far more collaborative affair, with editors, designers, picture researchers, the author, and expert consultants all working together to construct the pages – deciding on the content and how to structure it, what photos to use, creating a design template. New topics for books are few and far between, and so we spend time, energy and creativity in coming up with new ways to visualise the information and to approach topics from original angles.
The non-linear and visual nature of our books mean that kids can learn at their own pace and in their own way, and the fascinating facts and eye-opening explanations feed their innate curiousity about the world around them and their thirst for knowledge. The heirachies of text, the photographs, and the carefully created page designs introduce and encourage the structured presentation of information, breaking down topics to understand them more deeply – a skill we need throughout our lives as we are exposed to huge amounts of information to assimilate, sort through, and use. So next time you are looking to gift a book to a child in your life, don't forget to consider a great information book, it may make all the difference!