Skip to content
  • Home
  • Review Policy
  • Linktree
  • Contact
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item
  • Menu Item

Westveil Publishing

Jenna Rideout | Illustrator, Book Reviewer, Author

  • Home
  • About
    • Meet Jenna
    • Review Policy
    • Linktree
    • Spam Concerns
  • Blog
    • Book Reviews
    • Author Interviews & Guest Posts
    • Book Promos
    • Book Talk, Tags & YouTube
  • Contact
  • Toggle search form
  • No Song, But Silence by Jonathan Nevair – 5 Star Review Book Reviews
  • From the Deep by Kateri Stanley – 4 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • Act Cool by Tobly McSmith – 5 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • The Lost Apothecary – 5 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • Thunder, Blood, and Goats by Lyra Wolf – 5 Star Review Book Reviews
  • Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings – 5 Star Review Book Reviews
  • Book Review: Astrid Falls by Andrew Cownden Book Reviews
  • The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August – 4* Review Book Reviews

Fonts: Why Kids Books Should Be a Little More Boring

Posted on April 10, 2022 By Jenna Rideout No Comments on Fonts: Why Kids Books Should Be a Little More Boring

I really, truly did not set out to be a children’s book reviewer when I launched this blog, but children’s books found me, and no less than 20% of the reviews on this blog are of picture books and early middle-grade readers and chapter books. I’m a mother and the daughter & sister of elementary school teachers, so familiarity with children’s literature comes naturally, and when I started building up my reputation with publishers on NetGalley the easiest thing to do to build my stats quickly was to knock out 3-5 children’s books in a single evening a couple of times a week. So when I started reviewing for blog tour companies and children’s books came up, accepting those opportunities was perfectly natural. At this point, there are some tour companies I host for where I almost exclusively review children’s titles and only spotlight or guest host the older audience titles. I say all of this to impress upon you, my readers, just how many children’s book interiors I have set my eyes on in the last couple of years.

I’ve noticed a trend in self-published and small/indie publisher children’s titles that just isn’t there in more traditionally published children’s titles, and that’s font choices that have clearly been made with aesthetics in mind. There’s one indie press that loves to use photoshop’s “outer glow” filter to add a white haze around lettering to make it pop on top of an otherwise fully illustrated page. It would be fine if the pages contained only a couple of lines of large-print text, but this is usually paragraphs of 10-12 point black text on top of multi-colourful or darkly saturated images, and it’s tiring on the eyes to read it. Books in my daughter’s collection from bigger publishers that have attempted a similar text overlayed on illustrations put the text in a box that is as opaque as it needs to be to make the text easily legible.

Designers: Consider that parents are frequently reading these books to their kids at bedtime, relying on bedside lamps in a darkened room because the kids need to settle and there’s no natural light left coming in through the windows. Consider that teachers are reading from awkward angles or even upside down as they attempt to show their students the illustrations while they read. Consider that slightly older children who are learning to read along, rather than just listen and enjoy the story, are learning to recognize letters and words for the first time. Design choices that make text easier to read at the expense of covering a little more of the illustration are worth it. I am both a parent and an illustrator and I would rather see 60% opacity white boxes over the corner of the illustration and be able to read the text.

A more important issue, though, is font choice.

I’ve seen many, many children’s books published with fonts that are meant to look like a child’s printing or like cursive handwriting or even like those magnetic bubble letters from the fridge complete with glossy spots where they catch the light. These are cute for the cover. For the actual book contents? Please seriously consider revisiting a more traditional font.

For the average child, the issue is that they’re learning to recognize letters, as mentioned above, and many creative fonts present unique letterforms or squish them until they’re really only four different shapes that vary ever so slightly so that an experienced reader sees 26 shapes but an inexperienced (or tired) reader struggles. For a minority of readers, both children and adults, learning disabilities will conflict with these fonts and make the text unreadable. I’ve met dyslexic readers whose brains refuse to acknowledge the existence of bold or italic variations in standard fonts and quite literally just skip over any portion of a line of text that is bold or italic. (Imagine how difficult this makes following printed instructions when vital words are in bold for emphasis.) Now imagine these readers trying to read a font that is designed to look like a cursive writing learner made an honest attempt. It might very well be impossible.

I make these comments in my reviews every time I see these issues come up and sometimes I get an author who responds to thank me for pointing out something they hadn’t considered, and in those cases I’m flustered on their behalf that the professionals they worked with to get their book published didn’t know or care about this issue. Children’s book authors, be aware of this. Push your designers and editors to make sure your book is accessible to new and struggling readers. Designers and editors, please do whatever research or take whatever classes you need to make sure you understand how aesthetics can hinder accessibility, and don’t be afraid to oppose authors or illustrators who come in with an unsuitable font wish because they don’t realize it’s a problem.

We’re all in this because we love to see children reading and learning to love literature. Let’s do what we can to make that an accessible experience.

If you want to go above and beyond, look into fonts that are specifically designed for dyslexic readers in mind. I promise, they won’t annoy or alienate your non-dyslexic readers, and they may help more than just your dyslexic audience. The example to the left is the font “Open Dyslexic” and this is incorporated into all Kindle reading platforms. I’m not dyslexic myself (as far as I know) but I find I can read this font faster, so this is my own personal default setting.


Thanks for coming to my TedTalk! Kidding, kidding. It’s rare that I have a whole weekend without any tour stops these days, but this weekend has featured original articles on both days rather than a book spotlight or a review for the first time in many months. It’s been fun! In case you missed it, yesterday I responded to a Book Riot article on deleting your Goodreads TBR shelf.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Email
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • WhatsApp
  • Mastodon

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Book Talk, Tags & YouTube, Featured Tags:accessibility, childrens fiction, childrens literature, dyslexia, dyslexic, font, fonts, learning disabilities, picture book, Storybook

Post navigation

Previous Post: Response to: Why I Deleted My Goodreads TBR
Next Post: Author Guest Post with Phoenix Blackwood [Tour with Excerpt]

Related Posts

  • 5 Star Review: Jigglyspot and the Zero Intellect by PD Alleva Book Reviews
  • A Cat’s Guide to Bonding with Dragons – 5 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • We Need to Talk About Rowling Book Talk, Tags & YouTube
  • The Darkness Outside Us – 5 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • 5 Star Review: The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker Book Reviews
  • From the Deep by Kateri Stanley – 4 Star Book Review Book Reviews

Comments (0) on “Fonts: Why Kids Books Should Be a Little More Boring”

  1. Gina says:
    April 10, 2022 at 10:09 AM

    Very well said, Jenna. I mentioned this in a recent review as well.
    I’ve enjoyed both of your posts this weekend!

    Loading...
    Reply
  2. Pingback: Author Guest Post with Phoenix Blackwood [Tour with Excerpt]

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

We migrated web hosts and we're still working on restoring images. Thank you for your patience!

Badges

Professional Reader
Reviews Published
80%
50 Book Reviews
NetGalley Beta Tester
Frequently Auto-Approved
Intellifluence Trusted Blogger
  • Author Interviews & Guest Posts
  • Blog
  • Book Promos
  • Book Reviews
  • Book Talk, Tags & YouTube
  • Featured
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
  • Family First [Book Tour Spotlight] Book Promos
  • Ambrosia [Book Tour with Excerpt] Book Promos
  • Tea & Sympathy by J. New [Tour with Excerpt] Book Promos
  • The Big Shakeup by Nancy Boyarsky Book Promos
  • The Salty Rose [Book Tour with Excerpt] Book Promos
  • Response to: Why I Deleted My Goodreads TBR Book Talk, Tags & YouTube
  • Enchantments and Escape Rooms – 5 Star Book Review Book Reviews
  • Becoming Brooklyn [Book Blitz] Book Promos

Original content © 2021-2024 Westveil Publishing | Submitted content rights remain with the rights holders.

%d