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Kristin Wade
British Literature
Ms. Tillery
18 April, 2012
Writing and Illustrating a Children’s Book
B. F. Skinner once said “We should not teach great books; we should teach a love of
reading,” and over the years I have learned that a love of reading all begins with the right story
and an imagination. Hello, my name is Kristin Wade and I chose to write and illustrate a
children’s book.
My product is a published book that I have written and illustrated that was based entirely
on a family story. Just the prospect of making this book excited me. I had always heard that a
student should start to think about what they want to do for their Senior Project at least one year
before senior year. I took this information and pondered it with enthusiasm, but no matter what I
thought of I knew that all of my ideas wouldn’t work. It wasn’t until the end of sophomore year
that I finally got an idea for what I should do. We had gone to my grandparents’ house and my
grandfather told my younger brother and I the story of his dog, Flip, and how the dog chased a
squirrel through the house on several occasions. This story had inspired me. I love to write, but
more than anything I love to draw and I knew that I could take this story and turn it into a book. I
chose this project because I was not only inspired by my grandfather telling the story, but I
wanted to see how far I could push my ability to make a story and illustrations flow seamlessly
together. And so, I began the long and meticulous process of creating a children’s book.
I first had to ask my grandfather to tell me the story again so that I would have the details
and I would not have to do any of the writing with only some of the original details from

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memory. Once I had my grandfather’s story written down in notes I decided to go through
picture after picture to try and find what the dog had looked like and where the story took place.
Finding pictures became a problem because there were so many of them, but very few of the
ones that I needed. I was eventually able to find the pictures that I needed and was finally able to
move on to the next step of my project which was story boarding. This was one of the most
challenging steps for me because I am terrible at starting projects. Well, once I finally got started
I began with the illustrations. I had an idea of what I wanted to happen so I thought that having
the illustrations would help me to think of the words to go along with each page. It did not turn
out to be that easy. Weeks actually went by and I still did not have the text and I did not like the
order of my illustrations. Then, as I was driving home I had an epiphany. I finally knew where to
begin and from there everything else fell into place. I loved the way the story went, but the
characters went through at least three different changes before I was happy with how they
looked. So, I had my story, but while story boarding I only made rough sketches of each page. I
needed to make final sketches. This took some time because I had to use rulers, protractors,
compasses, and the like so that I could make each picture as straight and accurate as possible.
This did not take as long as the story boarding of course. After I had my final sketches I realized
that I would have to find a way to darken them so that they would show up on my computer
screen once I scanned them. I had to get a special pen that would write easily and had fine tip so
that I could get every detail of the sketch transferred onto my computer. Once each sketch was
inked I had some help scanning and cropping each image to fit the screen the way that I needed it
to. Then came the most agonizing process of my entire project, coloring each image with my
tablet. Now, I had never used a tablet before and was unsure as to how it even worked. Luckily I
had a friend that was willing to lend me their tablet so that I could understand how it work and if

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I would be able to use it as I tried to put my book into its final stages of creation. As it turned out
I loved how the device worked and decided to get myself a tablet. Unfortunately, the program
that I used did not have a color memory; which meant that I could not use a color, rethink it and
choose another color, and then change my mind and go back to the original color. Also, there
was no function that would show you your progress on the picture while you were zoomed in on
one portion of the picture. I got past this obstacle with some thought and a lot of experimenting. I
had all of my illustrations completely drawn, inked, and colored; and thus began the final stage
of my project, publishing. For me to publish my book I had to sign up with a site called
blurb.com. After that I was able to use one of their online formatting programs to but together
my book the way I wanted it. This was the easiest part of the entire process, but I still had
problems with it. For instance, I had chosen the wrong size and cover options and was unable to
go back and fix it, so I had to start over. But, I finally finished it and sent the book to the
publisher.
As for my research topic, I wrote about the history of Scholastic Inc. This relates to my
topic solely on the basis of publishing. I learned that there are a lot of factors to running a
publishing company and many problems as well, but with perseverance anything can be
accomplished.
I learned a lot from this project and not just about how to use new programs or different
tools, but also about myself. The first thing that I learned was I am an extreme procrastinator.
Also, like I stated before, I have a hard time starting anything. These were the most prominent
attributes that I learned about myself, but I also learned that I have determination and a will to
not give up once I have started something and if I am passionate about it, like I am with this
project, I will not stop until it is done. I also learned that with a task like this you have to have

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patience, I knew that I had some patience but this project pushed it to the limit. As a career I
would not choose to pursue this profession. It would be great as a hobby, but it is too taxing and
can be stressful at times. Instead I would like to pursue a career in a field that involves working
with animals.
All in all, I had a great time working on my project and I learned a lot about the process
of making a story into a published work and I learned a lot about myself. So, when you go home
tonight, maybe you will remember an old story that you enjoyed and, who knows, you could just
make a fun project out of it. Thank you for your time.