Spent a lovely morning jumping around with a bunch of enthusiastic children at the Cathedral Infant school in Mumbai, last friday. After the readings of Icky, Yucky, Mucky and Kaka and Munni, we had a question session. “Is Maharaja Icky real?”, “How did you think up the characters?” and more such came up. In addition, there were a number of children fascinated by how a book comes about. It is a question, I have found, that often puzzles children.
So how do the characters and ideas grow into stories? How do the pictures come onto the page? Who combines everything? How and where is it printed? How do the pages come together in a book? It’s a fascinating journey and many children are often intrigued by the physical production of a book.
I thought it best to share a few links that my children have enjoyed to understand the process. The first one is a short clip and shows the traditional method of printing. Lovely video called the Birth of a Book. Here it is:
The second link follows the whole process in multiple videos from idea to book. It is a longer watch but explains everything beautifully. The video clips 4, 5 and 6 show the actual coming together of pictures and words, printing and binding.
I hope this helps answer some of those questions