Educational books
Showing front cover and sample pages
Illustrated Children's book - educational
Handling developmental delays
The author of this book - Melesia Lama - is an early child care educator. Her son is developmentally-delayed and she wrote this book to explain to younger children that although 4-year old Maile isn't quite like the other kids, he just expresses himself differently. The book is about his love for insects. Mel found an illustrator online and asked Briar's Books to put the book together. 24 pages of colour illustrations opposite simple text, with a glossary at the back for Maori words. Printed locally.
First book for author
Mel is a first time author. Initially she planned the book for her son, but as an educator she wanted to teach children about the difficulties some children have expressing themselves. The idea developed into a book for wider family and friends and for educational purposes. Now she plans more books. Mel is Tongan and is also using the book to teach Maori vocabulary.
Teaching and learning Science
Azra Moed
Academic
An academic observes and recounts her experience over several years of teaching science in an indigenous school in New Zealand, in which the curriculum deferred to Maori worldviews and perceptions in the teaching of the scientific method. The author was a retiring university professor. Cover design by Briar's Books. 102 pages: She made the time-consuming mistake - as many do who self-publish - of providing images taken from the web or on a camera at very small sizes. These are unusable in commercial print and always have to be replaced - a frustrating process both for the designer and the author. This author had also prepared tables but submitted them as small images - so that the text was illegible. She had no original backups and all the tables had to be redone. It's hard to know how to prepare authors for this before they bring their material to the process. This author also wanted a digital edition of the book for online viewing.
Wildlife Colouring Book
A school "young enterprise" project
On the sustainability theme
A colouring in book with a difference!! BriarsBook did this job for 3 senior secondary school students selected to take part in a national Young Enterprise Award scheme. The students had decided to create a children's colouring book on the sustainability theme, using recycled materials, crayons made from beeswax and natural dyes, and using local skills. They collaborated with Zealandia, Wellington Zoo and Staglands to source photos that could be converted to line art that could be coloured in by primary school children and be FUN and EDUCATIONAL. They found BriarsBooks online and asked her to design an attractive colouring book and create the line art.
Colouring Book (continued)
A student project
Educating children about NZ wildlife species
FOr the designer to trace every feature and feather fron a photo to create lines for children to colour inside is out of the question, so it was a case of ransacking Photoshop to find a combination of filters that would do the job for me, then removing excessive detail, and adding strong, simple lines manually. But a colouring book did not meet the criteria for the National Library ISBN number so more text was needed. In the end it all worked: the students made their crayons and sold their books. They deserve to be nationally awarded! So does the designer!! (The students have now moved on and the colouring book is no longer available.)