Vista Sakinah wanted a book for stepfamilies and stepchildren that would encourage them.
We studied lots of chicken rice stores to figure out how to draw chickens that would resonate with children.
Yes, and beyond that we also kept working in the emotional beats to make it stronger.
We asked ourselves:
What would make a children's book well-loved?
Growing up, we always had those children's books that we went back over and over again, even though we had read them many times and knew the endings by heart. But there was something in them that made us love them. What was it? How could we do that in this book?
Building in the emotional beats with strong illustrations
We knew that we couldn't just write a good book, but that they needed to be made stronger with the illustrations. So we combined a use of colours, and intentional emotional beats that moved people, to encourage a stronger emotional connection with the text.
We built in a strong story arc
Ever wondered why everyone seems to cry at the same point in a movie? That's because the director has managed to gather enough emotion over the length of the movie's previous scenes, store it up within the viewer, and then build in the scene that will cause everyone to release it at the same moment. Like a collective sigh.
In this book, we purposefully created the story arc with the beginning depicting the happy start to life, and then the middle being the crux of the story, where the protagonist finds out that he might be shunned, with a stepfamily coming into the picture.
We round it off with a hopeful ending
In the end of the story, we encourage hope again by getting the reader to see that there's good, even through such a painful experience.
the results?
The client was so happy they wanted to book us again.
With this work, we were so proud of how it managed to encourage the younger step children in our midst. We might not have been the best illustrators, but we were good storytellers. And that, in itself, was enough to share a strong story that resonated.