How a Book Is Made

by Aliki

Who made this book?
(We all did!)

Author-Artist (Illustrator)
Editor
Publisher
Designer
Copy Editor-Proofreader
Production Director
Color Separator
Printer
Publicity and Promotion Director
Salesperson

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Childrens, Books About Books, Art, Writing, School

32 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1986

About the author

Aliki has written and illustrated many books, both fiction and nonfiction, loved by readers throughout the world. The books were inspired by a word, an experience, or the desire to find out. Aliki lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I like books."

That is the first line of this magnificent journey through the life of a book from conception to publication and it, therefore, immediately has plenty of appeal.

The book is so much more appealing in that cats play the parts of author, editor and all the other necessary roles in making the original written/typed/computer produced words become a finished article.

I often wondered how a book was produced! Well, here is the definitive answer, written primarily for the younger reader but equally appealing to the older one. Certainly for me anyway.

And the last little verse endears the book to those of us who are bibliomaniacs as it reads "A book for me!/I can read it./I can smell it./I can keep it forever."

... and so say all of us!

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written in 1986, and since that time, the printing industry has undergone its own technological evolution. Many of the steps described here are now computerized. But, assuming I did want to know how a book was created in the '80s, I still have concerns.

1) The author, the editor, and the publisher are all females. That's fine if I'm reading to girls, but a male should have had one of these roles.

2) The writing process goes too smoothly. Only a few weeks from inspiration to completion!? And then the author gets a call saying, "Great, we'll publish it next year." I do wish there had been at least a few rounds of revision or gathering input from other people. (Maybe that's not as important for books that target the youngest readers, but I think it would have helped this book.)

3) The art preparation for printing was dwelt upon unduly long. It definitely could have been shortened.

The first page is worth making into a poster. A cat is pictured at a desk reading a book. The text reads,

I like books.
I like the way a book feels.
I like the way a book smells.
I like to turn each page,
read each word,
look at the pictures. ...
I can keep it forever.

The last line is from the last page of the book. I would add another line, "And every time I see the book on the shelf, I will remember the story."

Alternative: How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett

[Dolly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the cartoonish illustrations and very young character who receives the easy reader picture book produced, this book depicts complicated production steps and advanced vocabulary that will likely confuse and/or bore young students.

I appreciate that this is a labor of love for the author, showing appreciation for the innumerable people involved in publishing and printing a book, but the context of the narrative feels like it just doesn't match the illustrations.

The information about the technology is quite dated, although I am sure there are many similar steps today.

Meh.

[Rodopa · Rating 4 out of 5]

For older kids, good intro to book publishing.

[Aneesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three of us read this book together, silently. It took several days. It is eminently clear this book was published in 1986, and left us with many questions for Grammie, mostly about color separation. Really glossed over marketing, imo!

[Patrick Resse · Rating 4 out of 5]

How a Book Is Made written and illustrated by Aliki is a descriptive but also old look of how a book is made and the process it goes through to become a book. This book would be informative for kids in grades kindergarten and first grade. This book does not have any awards to its name and probably never will as it is pretty old at this point. This book uses cats to represent people, and has the main character making a book and going through the laborious, but fun steps in order to make a book become a reality. It shows people other than the author that the book has to pass through in order to be published, such as the editor and publisher all the way to publicity person and salesperson. It shows the the printing machines that produce the books and the many now archaic tools that are used as well. The book ends with the author getting their book published and falling asleep with it by their side.
This book is an interesting look at how books are made, but as I said before this book is older (1986), and therefore the publishing game is different in many ways. Despite this difference, the book still holds steady as an entertaining and still prominently informational book. The book shows how being creative can lead to a change reaction that by the end can make your creative output become a reality. Since many publications and books are done electronically now, this book shows a historical look at the printmaking business. The process is simple enough where a child could certainly replicate it, but to a lesser degree. Aliki conveys the positives to putting forth the effort on something you really love and getting a happy ending as a result. There is a plethora of activities that can be done with this book such as having kids make their own book in the order that the book tells, and have kids represent the publisher, editor, and salesperson. Since this book is older, you could have them look up how books are made now and even interview a local author bout how they wrote their book and was able to get it all the way to the bookshelves and have them share with the class what they found.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about this book in Nancy Pearl’s Book Crush, a recommendation for middle-grade readers.
Having worked in publishing for 20 years, I was curious to see how the process was presented. I think the author did a great job. The story follows the process from the author’s point of view, but does get into the technicalities at the publisher and printer. There are a lot of technical terms here, and though explained and given context, I imagine even adults might struggle with some of it, though all were familiar terms to me.
There are a few inaccuracies—books are sold to stores well before they’re printed, sometimes before the author has finished writing it. But I think explaining that would be a bit too complicated and confusing—beyond the scope of this book. And sales people are never overwhelmingly enthusiastic, they’re usually focused on any possible challenge they might encounter. But this is a children’s book, after all. And authors aren’t privy to those meetings.
There were also some parts of the process that were left out, like cover design, but that might not be as applicable for a picture book as the illustrator likely provides cover art. Internal and external marketing also takes up a lot of time, but is likely beyond the scope of this book.
The content is slightly dated—published in 1986, there’s a reference to using floppy disks. But it’s only dated in minor ways.
What I did find particularly interesting was the process for the illustrations in children’s picture books. I’ve worked on books with photos for adults, but never on children’s books or books like them. The illustrations add a whole other dimension to the process. This book touched on aspects of the process I didn’t experience firsthand, such as the printing process and how 4-color printing actually works.

[Courtney Dyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered how a book is made? Aliki does a phenomenal job of explaining the process in a simplistic yet comprehensive way from start to finish and even introduces all of the people involved with a thorough description of each of their jobs.

For the illustrations, she uses a combination of colored pencil and watercolor to bring to life the humanlike cats and to support the text. Each page is broken up into a series of frames with speech bubbles and is similar to that of a comic strip. The softly colored illustrations are absolutely charming.



This book is one-of-a-kind! It is a narrative non-fiction that is intended for a young audience. I would recommend it to children ages 6-10, however, it could also be used with adult readers within the book-making industry. As a teacher, I would use this book as a class read aloud to show examples of narrative non-fiction or as a mentor text when launching the writer’s workshop within the classroom at the beginning of the year to illustrate the writing process.

[Reepacheep · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my sons (age eight) brought this to me today and told me he thought I would enjoy it. I've been working on getting started in a proofreading/copy editing career and happen to be an avid reader. Additionally, I'm naturally interested in finding out how things work or how what goes on behind the scenes in various types of businesses. Considering my current occupational pursuits, this came at just the right time to catch my interest.

This book was a pleasure to read. The illustrations were quite well done and clearly represented what was being described. It was nice to see all the faces (even if they were cat faces) that participate in the book-making process. Someday, I hope to be a part of that.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A picture book may seem very simple, but a lot goes into making one. Aliki's book explores the step from creation, sale, marketing, and purchasing of a picture book, Writing, illustrating, publishing, printing, to selling to the reader -- a picture book has a long inception before it makes it into the hands of a child. Almost 30 years have passed since this book was written, so much of the info is outdated (mention of sending a book off via postal mail, floppy disk, and archaic color printing tech) -- but much remains unchanged, particularly the creative process. For curious children with a particular interest in how things are made and an above-average interest in books.

Read for my Materials for Children class, Autumn 2015.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but extremely dated and the section about the art separation was entirely too long.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sadly this book is outdated (you should see the one computer they depict OH BOY). I wonder if there is anything similar that is modern, because the idea is fabulous. This non-fiction text for younger readers tells of the complicated process for a picture book from idea to reader--even simplified, there's a lot of people and effort and time involved! Would be interesting to compare and contrast to a modern text, or use in a technology discussion and ask kids what they think is different now.

[Eva Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Is THIS ever complicated!! And you know what? You'd think the hard part of making a book would be WRITING it, but that seems like it's the EASY part. The rest of it is HARD. Like drawing it takes forever. And then everybody has to look at it and say if they like it before it's done.
Mama says it's like that with taking pictures sometimes. So if a picture is in a BOOK, just think how long THAT takes.
It's amazing that there's any books at all.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a such great book either for children or for adult. It teaches us how many process would it take for a book to be made. It is an information book that not only fun to read but also help the reader to learn a really good lesson about a book. This book uses an example of a mom trying to publish her story as a book and it shows exactly how it's done. With some extra information alongside with the story and her son's questions make this children book much more interesting.

[Laura Motush · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book includes all aspects involved in creating a book: the business, art, and writing. It is created in the style of a cartoon and goes through the entire process of creating a book. This book goes into enough detail that it could be used as a read aloud to an older class that introduces a project of creating their own book.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough look at the physical requirements of making a book. Makes it kind of long for a bedtime book. Many parts are illustrated like a comic strip with accompanying captions, which make it even longer. I was surprised my 4 yr old made it to the end pretty well without getting antsy, so that's saying something.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered how a book is made? This book goes into detail about how the ideas in an author's head get onto paper and into the book. The info is slightly out-dated with the advent of the internet and Google, but the info about the relationship between the author and the publisher and the illustrator.

[Bethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An oldie but goodie, explaining in detail, the process of making a book. Some processes are dated and are probably done in a more modern way today, especially with the advances in computers since 1986. I find the idea of using one piece of paper for a 32 page picture book magical, even after seeing the layout, it's fascinating.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

How interesting! While some of this book is outdated (it was written in 1986), I was surprised to learn that much of it is still relevant. I loved the comic style which allows the reader to follow the characters along a cheerful little narrative as the book is being made. Regular text outside of the illustrations explains the more technical parts of the process.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is such a fun read, and most readers (irrespective of their age) are likely to learn something new about books and how they come to be. Learn everything about the four-color printing process!

[Nisah Haron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simple book, but well illustrated, on publishing children's book. Not only it is suitable for kids, but those involve in the publishing business. Also suitable for publishing students, in Mass Comm.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although about three decades old, this glimpse of the publishing industry was fascinating. I appreciated the fact that it depicted it as a long process full of frustration, hard work, dedication, and worthy of celebration once completed.

[Sandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a teaching book for a former world. So much of the information is dated technology and even the comic book format feels dated. My son, who loves to learn about everything - asked if it was almost over. I was feeling the same way.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to the history of the written word.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of like a magic school bus book.
Many ways to read it.
So much information.
I do parts of a book with 1st grade - way too long for their attention spans, but covers everything.

[Megan Wagner · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. It's outdated today. Floppy discs!

[Samantha Ulsund]

This book does a great job of teaching children how books are made while also keeping it fun and engaging.

[MQR · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pictures are supposed to hold a child’s interest when the dialogue does not. Still giving it 4 stars for educational value, even though the pictures are gauche, and the book, technically is outdated.

[Gina House · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adorable and interesting children's book! I love learning how a book is made from the very beginning (in which the author/artist starts with an idea) to the very end (when the book reaches the hands of a child). I knew some of the process, but this simple book does an excellent job at explaining all of the stops and people who help along the way.

If you're a book lover, this is a fun and appealing book to have in your library. I found this one at my local thrift shop for only a dollar, so it was truly worth my money. Great for reading and exploring with a child, as well.

[Kace Phelps · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing