There has been a trend in the design of children’s nonfiction which is not merely heavy on graphics, but which mixes text in with graphics, adds snippets of text elsewhere on the page (sidebars, marginal notes, speech bubbles), and uses a lot of variation in the typeface, color, size, and even the angle of the text (e.g. diagonal). All of this makes the text increasingly difficult to read, especially out loud.

The first problem is the appearance of the text itself. It is visually distracting, though sometimes attractive. I especially hate it when words in a sentence vary in size, or when they use “bounce” lettering and the letters within words go up and down. (This is probably more common in fiction, actually.) I understand that sometimes there is a sufficiently good reason for this visual effect, especially in poetry, but it always makes it harder to read.

The second problem with all these bits of text is deciding where to start reading. Occasionally there is so much extra text that the main text is hard to find. Let’s assume you’ve found the main text and started reading. The problem with all the sidebars, marginal notes, and speech bubbles is that when you reach the end of the main text on a page spread, you are faced with a decision. Do you turn the page and continue reading the main text, or pause to read aloud the extras? This is especially awkward if the main text ends mid-sentence. But if you skip the extras and come back to them later, you find yourself going back through the book again and reading, in isolation, bits that were meant to go along with earlier parts of the text—an explanation of mummification, say, that was on a page that talked about tombs and the discovery of mummies.

Finally, I’ve noticed repetition of content among the different bits of text. This isn’t a problem with sidebars, which go into detail on some topic touched on in the main text, but often marginal notes and subheadings repeat information that is in the main text. In particular, I’ve noticed some children’s nonfiction (as well as some magazines for adults)  put summaries at the top of sections, just below the heading. Why? If I’m going to read the section, I’ll find out for myself what it’s about. I’d rather not to have the discovery spoiled by being told in advance. If the summary is meant to take the place of reading the text… why write the book at all? And if it’s meant to sum things up after you’ve read the section, why put it at the beginning?

Sidebar and summaries-well, sort of.

I will say that there is one style of book where all this extra text really isn’t a problem. Books divided into topics that each take up a single two-page spread don’t force a choice between turning the page and reading all the extra bits. DK has a lot of very pretty photo books like this. Of course, this also means the book can’t get into much depth on any particular topic or have much of a narrative, but for some purposes that’s just fine.

A pretty photo book.

So why has this design style caught on? Perhaps the increased use of sidebars imitates the use of hyperlinks in on-line articles. But are sidebars/hyperlinks even necessary? Part of a writer’s task is to decide what information to include and in what order to present it. Facts in the world exist in an interrelated mess. The writer has to present his or her selection of facts in a linear way, highlighting some of the relationships among them while leaving out others. It’s the only way to make the result readable. The writer always wants to include more information than can be coherently presented.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem. By putting some of the information in sidebars/hyperlinks, the writer can avoid some tough choices. The problem is that hyperlinks are fairly unobtrusive (underlined blue text, say) while sidebars are not.There doesn’t seem to be any cost to including hyperlinks since they can be easily ignored while reading—and there are no page turns in a blog post or internet article. Sidebars, on the other hand, do compete for attention with the main text. I don’t mean that they aren’t sometimes worthwhile, just that there is a trade-off that must be considered.

What about the other extra bits of text? I suppose they are meant to look energetic and exciting–as though books would be dry blocks of words without the color and dramatic angles they provide. It also suggests to my mind that publishers expect their young readers to have the attention spans of a gnat. I hope they are underestimating their readers. I also wonder if by designing books in this way, they might unwittingly be contributing to the problem.

For myself, I mostly find the busy-ness off-putting. What about you?

Till next post.

Note: The pages in the photos are from Killer Wallpaper: True Cases of Deadly Poisonings by Anna Prokos, and from Mesopotamia, a DK Eyewitness book. They’re both good books.