Thesis Statement
The word adopt means “to take by choice into a relationship”. Relating to humans, adoption means “the act or process of adopting a child.” Adoption is often thought of as a “last ditch effort” when couples are unable to biologically have their own children. Children do not often know what “adoption” is and what that means for them. How can design through a children's book provide adopters and adoptees an easy and comfortable way to communicate about the topic of adoption?
Photograph of the whole book.
Photograph of the author's note and cover page.
Brett, the bird, the first character that, Charlee, the main character runs into.
Charlee thinking about dancing and listening to music with Charlee's parents.
Project Goals
I was adopted from China when I was 15 months old, and despite the look on my face in these pictures below, I grew up very comfortable with my identity and being adopted. My parents had always told me my adoption story and how I had come into their lives so I never had a problem with communicating to them about adoption.
On the other hand, I have a friend that had a hard time communicating about adoption when she was younger. Her parents were also very good at communicating to her about her adoption story and making sure she knew all the information she needed to know, but for some reason she just had a hard time talking about it and finding her identity growing up. I have written and illustrated a children's book that adopters and adoptees could use to easily communicate to one another about the topic of adoption for those like my friend, who have trouble communicating about it.
Research
I first started by researching different famous children’s books with unique illustration styles to get a good idea of how to present information to children. I then read them all so I had a better understanding of how to write a children’s book and to have children understand and remember what the book was about.
Then, I further researched children’s books that specifically talked about adoption. I looked at how the authors presented the information in a way that allowed children to understand. I also looked at the way the illustrators represented the characters in the stories and how they showed how the main character and their counterparts and how they were designed to be different from one another.
Design Process
My first step was to figure out what information I wanted to include and how to present it. I started researching common questions that adopted children have for their adopted parents and answers they would have given. This gave me insight on what often goes through a child’s mind when they reach the age of 3-5 and start to think for themselves and express an interest about their identity and adoption story. I then had to find a way to illustrate different topics about adoption through small sketches. I tried to represent the question and answer information with simple cartoon-like drawings of animals and humans in a way that would appeal to children.
For example, the sketch 2nd row down and 2nd column in with the two ducks and penguin would illustrate the question a child may ask of “why don’t I look like you?” and the answer a parent could give would be “you were born to look like your birth parents and I was born to look like mine, we inherit our looks from our birth parents and that’s why we look the way we do”.
Activity Book
From there I thought about how I could represent that information in another way, and decided to design an activity book that included the question, answer format as before. The activities and illustrations would correlate to different questions about adoption again and activities would coincide with what was being addressed.
For example, the first activity page shown would have a question like “do my birth parents look like me?” the next would be “am I different because I’m adopted?” and the last would be “are you going to keep me for forever?” The biggest problems I faced with making an activity book was making it different from every other activity book out there and I had to decide on whether this would be the best way to deliver the information I wanted to address.
Coloring Book
I then switched gears and decided to make a coloring book to keep the content more consistent and include one main character on an adventure to figure out what being adopted really means through the same question format except the answers would not be answered which would spark a conversation between child and parents. I also had to figure out how to make the coloring book different from every other coloring book out there. So, I investigated the idea of it involving stickers for the kids to color or have the main character the only thing not colored in or visa versa. That’s when I realized that the coloring book was turning into a story book. From there I wanted to develop the main character and give it some personality.
Development of Charlee
This led to Charlee. I named the sheep Charlee, a gender-neutral name to allow the main character to appeal to both boys and girls. I wanted to make the main character a sheep because it is an animal that is not often featured in many stories and they are very easy to identify for children. I then decided on the idea of having the main character without color to represent the adopted children having to figure out their identity. And I confirmed this decision after talking to other adopted children who also agreed on keeping Charlee blank. It also allows children to be able to identify that the story is about that main character and keep it ambiguous enough to relate to both boys and girls.
Textures
My reoccurring problem then came up again, “how am I going to make this children’s book different from other children’s books?”. I then added some handmade textures and scanned them into the computer and added them to some of the objects on each page. I decided to keep the same textures throughout the book for the same objects, such as the water. So, every time that object is shown the child is familiarized with that specific texture and can pair it with each object.
I wanted a variety of textures that represented the objects or gave them some character to make them seem not so flat, but also subtle enough so it does not distract from what is happening in the story.
Now I needed type again and decided to write it by hand, to make it more personal and unique. It also matched the illustrative style of my drawings and made the book more connected to children. I scanned in the hand lettering for each page into the computer and edited each individual letter to match the others. Every page was written out so every page had a unique letter that doesn’t not match any of the others. The hand lettering was then hand set and placed in with the illustrated image.
Conclusion
My final piece is 6.5 in x 6.5 in book with 16 total spreads. I titled the book Charlee’s Favorite Thing because Charlee goes on an adventure to find out what families like to do together, and eventually leads to Charlee doing Charlee’s favorite thing in the end. I believe my project is successful in my goal to allow an easy way to open a line of communication between adopter and adoptee.
What I found out about myself is that my weaknesses are planning out ideas and taking a long time to come to design and information conclusions. I also found out that my strengths are representing information through illustration and simple layouts.
The biggest thing that I learned from this project is that trying many different ideas can be the best way to come up with a unique way of dealing with a problem you want to solve and that it can manifest from one idea to another.
Sources
Visual Resources
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Hurdled the Language Barrier. Retrieved January 17, 2018, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-of-the-olympic-pictograms-how-designers-hurdled-the-
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Other Resources
19. “20 Questions About Adoption (and Answers) for Kids.” Adoptive Families, 15 July 2016, www.adoptivefamilies.com/talking-about-adoption/questions-about-adoption-kids/.
20. Ansfield, J. G. (1971). The Adopted Child. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
21. Brabender, V., & Fallon, A. (2013). Working With Adoptive Parents: Research, Theory, and Therapeutic Interventions. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
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Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press.
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Oxford: Blackwell.
Oxford: Blackwell.
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negotiation of family difference. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
negotiation of family difference. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Interviews
26. Bohn, J. (2018, January 29). Adoption Story [Online interview].
27. Cottingham, A. (2018, January 31). Adoption Story [Online interview].
28. Harvard, A. (2018, January 25). Adoption Story [Online interview].
29. Mei, C. (2018, January 24). Adoption Story [Online interview].
30. Russell, P. (2018, January 30). Adoption Story [Online interview].
31. Sarah, E. (2018, February 20). Adoption Story [Online interview].
32. Streiter, S. (2018, February 10). Adoption Story [Online interview].
33. Tomlinson, H. (2018, January 24). Adoption Story [Online interview].
