The mouse who dreamt of christmas

The Mouse who Dreamt of Christmas is a 60 paged illustrated picture book about a dormouse named Luna, who wishes to have a Christmas. However, each winter her family must hibernate. Amongst all the preparation, Christmas is forgotten about…
This story is about a dormouse who loves Christmas, yet has to hibernate every year. Even her family have long forgotten about the tradition.

target audinence 

As I am making a children's book it is very important to understand the age group of children I am making the book for. 
things to consider:
- how many pages 
- book size
- how many words in total
- how many words per page
- how many images per page

age ranges for children's books 

  1. Board books: Newborn to age 3
  2. Picture books: Ages 3–8
  3. Early, leveled readers: Ages 5–9
  4. First chapter books: Ages 6–9 or 7–10
  5. Middle-grade books: Ages 8–12
  6. Young adult (YA) novels: Ages 12 and up or 14 and up
The type of children's book that appeals to me the most would be, Picture books. As picture books have the widest audience between children. creating more flexibility as to how complex the story can be whilst visuals remain the focus of the book. 
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picture books

Picture books often have a common word limit of 250 to 1000, currently 600 words is the more preferred length for picture books. 
They can range between 32 to 40 pages for fictional picture books, but are preferably 32 pages due to children's attention spans and production costs.
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book measurements 

I plan on printing this book through mixam, and shall be following their measurements
initially the common portrait picture book size is around 8 x 10 inches, however mixam doesn't have this exact measurement
However I would prefer this book to have a square measurement, and one of the more preferable measurements for that is 8 x 8 inches which can be translated to 210mm x 210mm which mixam accepts. 
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audience

ks1

key stage 1 
primary school
aged 5 to 7 ( year 1 and 2)
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ks1 picture book examples

ks2

key stage 2
primary school
​ages 7 to 11 (year 3 to 6)
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ks2 picture book examples

I was initially planning to target early ks2 children as this gives me the option to be more complex with my writing and illustrations, however picture books typically have an audience of 5 - 8 year olds, ks1 cover most of these ages compared to ks2. Giving me a larger audience. 
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intial ideas 

I wanted to write a Christmas story that included animals, My initial idea was to write a about a character who explored these Christmas wonderlands when they slept. I then decided that this would work well with animals who hibernate and I eventually decided on a dormouse as the protagonist. 
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story drafts

very early ideas

first draft of story board

Here the story consists of, the protagonist and her mother returning from getting food supplies for their hibernation. then they are attacked by a cat. I added this just so there can be a full circle at the end when the protag has to face the cat on her own. Then they return home and the protag is upset about their family not celebrating Christmas. later that night when she falls asleep she wakes up in Christmas themed dream world where she meets a cat.
Cat here has a different appearance to match the protag. As they explore the world the cat proposes the idea about the protag staying here permanently since she could never have what she wanted in the real world. She decides to think about it and wakes up for food.
she meets her parents again but this time they give her a gift and tell her they're giving this to her now in case they wouldn't be awake for Christmas day. The gift was a scarf, something the protag wasn't too interested in but was surprised by how it was hand made and how much time it must've spent for them to make. A contrast to how she was living in the dream world.
She returns and tells the cat that she doesn't want to stay. The cat retaliates and turns to how it would look like in the real world. the protag narrowly escapes and manages to return to the real world. meets her parents again who were trying to prepare for Christmas day and learns that her family is more important.

second draft of story board

updated storyboard with text and some tweaks to the story. here the protag is given the gift before she goes into the dream world so it becomes less confusing as to how she can leave and go back. at the end she doesn't have to escape the cat, except now she reasons with it and it helps her find her way home.
I was unsure on how to end the conflict with the cat as I still find a final fight between them more interesting. 

concept art

concept page

evaluation 

I decided to change how I was going to illustrate the book. This wasn't pushing me to improve my skills, so I decided to illustrate my book in a way that would continue to push me.