the branded book
In a reflection of Katherine's post on the paper she gave at Imperial last month, I thought I'd give some overview of the recent one I gave at her department, which discussed the use of branding in children's non fiction.
I came to the subject of branding because I was looking for ways to consider the notion of series within children's non-fiction. Many non-fiction children's books come in series form, for example the Horribles (pictured) or Eyewitness Guides.
There is little about series books in children's literature studies. What there is tends to be exceptions which prove the rule that children's literature studies sees series books as popularist trash, undeserving of research. As one critic put it, they are the "literary equivalent of junk food". The biggest problem for me is that the small amount of work there is talks almost exclusively about fiction. This gap in the field got me thinking about what exactly the series was in non-fiction. There is little sense of change over time, no feel of narrative whole in completing the series. It's not characters which are repeated as much as symbols, icons and styles. I started to wonder if we'd be better off thinking of Eyewitness or Horrible as "brands" rather than "series".
I also think we need to address that these books are marketed as brands. There are "spin off" products for the Horribles (Katherine's last post is an example of one, there are also toys, magazines, activity books). Such branding is as true in fiction as it is non-fiction. I once saw a Jacqueline Wilson taxi-cab; pink with the tagline "every girls best friend" emblazoned over the roof. Children's books are marketed commodities and I think children's literature studies would do well to critically reflect on this.
My paper was very much a "work in progress". In my further work on this area I want to consider the implications of branding media - branding a soap is one thing, but media carries ideas and information. Do we require our knowledge to come with a stamp of some form of trustworthy organization? I also wish to consider the formation of identity which comes with branding, ideas of "brand loyalty" and membership of a group of users of a particular brand.
I'll leave you with some links to examples of branded children's non-fiction books. I think they all use branding in different ways.
- Scholastic's Horrible Science (a CD rom of which you can currently get free with cornflakes), these are also part of a broader, Horrible Brand.
- those with the name, even photograph of a famous person in the front, generally famous for something other than writing children's books, e.g. Robert Winston's body books
- The DK series linked to google or with museums.
- Baby Einstein
As I said earlier, this is still work in progress - it'd be interesting to hear anymore about what people think on the topic.
Comments
good to champion the cause of studying the mainstream, ubiquitous stuff rather than 'high' literature. why is there an innate tendency for some academic fields to study 'high' forms instead of the most common, popular things. this happens in design, where academics study the outstanding work or people that don't represent how design actually functions in society.
just as in literature, there is a tendency in design and art to focus on the arty forms rather than the 'non-fiction' forms; a very good example is the comparative lack of research in instructional and school texts, books that are produced in huge quantities and structure our experience of school...
this points to the need to 1) study the mundane not the glamorous 2) fearlessly refer to branding, and styling, and all the other things that are an innate part of the objects we are examining without feeling as though we are slumming it and therefore 3) forge a new academic movement, multi-disciplinary approach to pop science publishing. how's that for a manifesto!
Posted by: Katherine | February 15, 2007 06:58 PM
I'm thinking of doing a manifesto-type paper for children's lit studies...
that said, I have to admit I didn't look at text books because it seemed too dull :)
Posted by: alice | February 17, 2007 01:12 PM
All the Horrible Science books are by the same author and illustrator, as are all the Murderour Maths (all by a different author, a companion to the Horrible Science). This seems to be quite a frequent occurence in some series/brands but not all - eg all the "Why can't I?" books are by Sally Hewitt, but each of the "It's true!" or "DK Guide to the..." books are by different author(s).
It almost feels as though the Horrible... brand was created as Nick Arnold and Tony De Saulles weren't quite name enough to sell the books that way - though now, I think they are almost as famous to their audience as the Horrible Science tag.
Posted by: Scott | March 8, 2007 08:18 PM
actually one of the Horrible Science books is written by someone else (Phil Gates, Evolve or Die)
Scholastic thought of Horrible Science first, then found Nick & Tony (and tried Phil), as it happened the characters of Nick and Tony made such an impact to the series (note how different they are from the Horrible Histories) they have become, as you say, brand names in their own right.
did you know some of the maths books are illustrated by the author of the Mortal Engines books?
Posted by: alice | March 9, 2007 12:51 PM
This is very interesting -- do the illustration styles differ completely amongst these series or are they roughly similar? E.g. Dorling Kindersley books are reasonably consistent in terms of approach to design and layout, across entire ranges.
Good future post idea: lets see some book spreads of different volumes to compare!
Posted by: Katherine | March 25, 2007 04:55 PM