Storytelling

Challenge I work as a children's illustrator. The most important thing in my work is explaining something new to children in an understandable and accessible form. Recently, I had the task to make a book that teaches children to brush their teeth correctly. In my opinion, storytelling is great for this goal, because kids at an early age do not yet understand some things that are pretty obvious for adults. Explaining some abstract concepts to a child is much easier in a concrete story.

Selection Simple instructions about brushing teeth seemed like a bad solution to me. It is boring and children may not understand the complicated instructions. But design tools can help. Storytelling is the ability to convey a relevant message through stories and examples. The result of high-quality storytelling is to instantly attract and retain attention until the end. The main idea is conveyed to the reader or viewer through sympathy or desire to be like the main character. By applying the learning Storytelling tool, I offer my client to tell the children a funny and informative story in a comic book format. My decision is based on the fact that telling stories grabs attention easily, puts the human experience front and center and leads to a high level of empathy.

Application Firstly, I came up with a few funny characters that the kids would like, and also they would remind kids themselves. I asked my friends to show their children these heroes. The children prefered the cute cat named Fluff most of all. So I chose the main character of the comic.

Then I needed to create an educational story. It narrates about Fluff brushing his teeth incorrectly. This led him to a toothache and the cat went to the dentist. At the clinic, he understood how to properly care for his health, and after that he lived happily. Such a simple plot can explain the causal relationships in the field of health to children in the most accessible way. Moreover, reading a funny comic is more interesting than some instructions. Also, I did not make a too big book to make it easier for kids to perceive a small amount of information.

Finally, when the comic was ready, we handed out some of the books to test. The result was not long in coming. Mothers read comics with their little ones, and older children could read them on their own. We received a lot of positive feedback from parents: they could not force their children to brush their teeth before, but now the kids are happy to teach their parents, because they know how to do it. Also, the children loved the Fluffy cat and wanted to see more stories about this character.

Insight By using this tool, my publishers and I have recognized the success of this approach. Storytelling helped explain to children useful information in an accessible way. An interesting discovery was that the kids enjoyed teaching their parents. It made them feel more mature, independent and smarter. Also, reading together turned out to be an important process, because the children often asked questions during the story. Discussion of information helps to understand it as soon as possible. In addition, I found out that it is important for a person to associate himself with something familiar (for example, in this case children could associate themselves with a small cat that learns from his mistakes).

Approach Inspired by the success, we decided to create a series of educational comic books about the Fluffy cat in the future. But next time I will try to make the book more interactive for children and their parents. For instance, there would be some challenges, quizzes or amusing questions for common discussion. It will make the educational process more interesting and effective.

