Review
"This book cannot teach creativity," warns Frieda Gates in the introduction to How to Write, Illustrate, and Design Children's Books. While it may not offer a magical formula for producing a childrens book, the volume provides solid, practical information on the creation and publication processes and is likely to be of use not only to a neophyte in the field but also to already published authors and illustrators. Following an extremely general history of children's literature, the author moves into a straightforward overview of the market, including a breakdown of the different genres of children's books. She then launches logically into a discussion of the writing process, beginning with suggestions for gathering ideas and providing many helpful hints about the actual writing. The substantial section on illustration that follows offers information on supplies, picture reference sources, and numerous illustrative techniques, among them, air brush, brush stippling, print-making, and even photography. In the detailed section on getting the book published, Gates covers not only the submissions process but also general publishing procedures, including design and mechanical preparation. It is the specificity with which the author writes, punctuating her narrative with names and addresses, titles, and terms, that distinguishes the text. Her step-by-step guide for submitting a manuscript to a publisher, for example, is exactly what the often tentative aspiring author needs. To be truly effective, a volume of this sort demands many visual examples, and the book rises to the occasion. Although not as heavily and clearly illustrated as Uri Shulevitz's Writing with Pictures, the book is large and well-designed and includes 276 black-and-white and 53 color illustrations, representing the work of over 100 artists. While occasional inaccuracies mar'the text-in the section on awards, for example (where the Wilder Medal is said to be given every 5 years instead of every three), and in the discussion of review journals - the attractive volume is well put together with a helpful bibliography, a glossary, and an index and is practically overflowing with information. -- From Independent Publisher
