Picture book skill

#Read first

Story.md for the title, the reader's age, the hero, the heart of the story, the refrain, the look and every spread's words and picture; the hero and style references wired in.

#The story

• For ages 3 to 6: 20 to 40 words a spread, short sentences, words a child knows and a few delicious ones, rhythm and a refrain the child can join in on.
• A hero with one want or fear, tries that build, a page-turn surprise, and a warm, quiet ending that brings the refrain home.
• The words leave the pictures work to do: they never describe what the picture already shows.

#Hero sheet (16:9)

The hero in front, side and back views and four expressions (happy, scared, curious, sleepy), at one scale on a plain background, in the book's style: the look every page keeps.

#Places sheet (16:9)

Every place in Story.md's Places, each once, as a design sheet rather than scenes: each place's landmark drawn on its own as a vignette on plain paper (the round green door in its oak root, the leaning sign on the path, the log in the clearing), with no sky, horizon or background around it, in the book's style, with no characters and no words. Only the places themselves: nothing the story moves or carries (the lantern Pip takes, a bag, a ball). Every spread and the cover draw these landmarks as this sheet does, each spread painting them into its own ground, light and weather (never the sheet's vignette with its patch of ground pasted in) and keeping the distances Story.md's Places give, so the journey moves on from spread to spread.

#Cover (3:4)

The hero large and full of feeling in the story's world, never giving away the page-turn surprise, the title exactly as Story.md spells it in playful hand lettering at the top, and the author's name small at the bottom when Story.md gives one.

#Spreads (16:9)

• One moment per spread, with the hero exactly as on the sheet and the book's style, palette and texture. Places stay the same from spread to spread: one home, one door, one tree, as the places sheet draws them.
• The hero's face and body show what that spread's words say they feel (scared, curious, brave), using the sheet's expressions, and they do exactly what the words say (where they look, where they stand, what they hold). The hero is large enough to read their face, a third of the spread's height or more, on every spread but one wide view at most.
• The light and time of day move as the words say (dusk to deep night), never back. Props are where the story has put them: a lantern the hero carries is in their paws, and nowhere else. What the story saves for later isn't there yet: no stars before the first star, no friend before the page-turn.
• The words go on the page beneath the picture, so the whole picture is the moment: nothing important in the middle, where the book folds.
• Every spread is one finished painting edge to edge: no unfinished areas, borders or panels within it.
• No words in the pictures: the book sets them.
• Big shapes, clear faces and feelings, a warm light, and small details to find on a second read.

#The book

Pages to turn, each filling the window:

• The cover first, shown whole: its title and hero never cropped, the picture fitted inside the page on a colour taken from it.
• Then each spread, the whole picture shown (fitted, never cropped) at the top of the page, and its words from Story.md set beneath it on the page's own warm paper, the picture and its words one page as wide as the picture, like a printed picture book: never over the picture, so nothing in it is ever covered.
• The words in a rounded, friendly typeface big enough to read aloud from (at least 28 px on a laptop), dark on the paper, centred under the picture in lines of at most 60 characters, the same size on every spread.
• Arrows, swipes and the keyboard turn the pages, with dots that show where you are; the arrows sit in the page's margins and the dots below the words, never on the picture.

#Read-aloud

Every spread's words in order, read warmly and slowly, with a pause at each page turn.

#Avoid

A hero who changes between pages, words in the pictures, frightening or sharp-edged images, long sentences, a moral said out loud, and anything important in the fold.