Picture books for the digital generation

Today is an incredibly exciting day. Today is the launch of the Puffin Digital Prize and a brave new world for Puffin picture books. I'm so excited I can hardly breathe. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me take a deep breath and I’ll explain things properly. I'll start at the very beginning . . .

As the Editorial Director of Puffin Picture Books, I am the lucky girl who has the privilege of working on beautifully illustrated, full colour books for young readers. Think Raymond Briggs and The Snowman, add Helen Oxenbury and Julia Donaldson and you get the picture. As I said, I am VERY lucky. But I wasn't feeling quite so lucky a little while ago, when the word digital was a real thorn in my side. How did picture  books fit into this amazing digital world everyone was talking about? Well, quite simply, they didn't. Being full colour with integrated text, the technology simply didn't exist to bring them to life on a digital device. I would enviously look at my fiction colleagues with their e-readers where a whole world of stories lived and breathed in one nifty little machine. Sigh. All I could do was be patient. One day, I said to my beautiful, fully illustrated books, one day, your time will come.

And come it did with a bang - the iPad. Woo-hoo! Like every other person at Penguin, I used all sorts of ruses, good and bad, to get my hands on one. And when I did it felt like Christmas. I've always been a 
book-sniffer (I use that term affectionately, someone who loves a book for being a book as well as a fabulous story) but my conversion was complete in that one moment. Just look at what this thing can do! We have glorious technicolour in fantastic resolution but that's just the beginning. There are interactive games, enhancements, zoom in/zoom out functions, not to mention the wonderful apps where information architects build amazing book experiences at the touch of a screen. (Yes, I know - information architects? I don't know what they do either, it's very technical apparently, but boy am I glad that they are part of my world now!) Now we can read a picture book by flipping through the pages with a swipe or a tap. Talk about a head spin.

There's no doubting that these new platforms will spell out a new world for picture books. They will no longer be bound by the contstraint of 32 pages, it can be what you like. The sky is the limit. But not everything has changed, we are still here to serve our audience of three to six year olds who still love a ripping good yarn, whatever the format.

So, if you think you might be the Eric Carle or Quentin Blake of the digital generation, then we would love to hear from you. The Puffin Digital Prize is open to every writer, illustrator, designer and digital creative, and we’re asking you to create a digital story and win the opportunity to see your book published. We know how much talent is out there and this is your opportunity to showcase it. Find out more at www.puffindigitalprize.co.uk. Good luck!

Louise Bolongaro
Editorial Director, Puffin Picture Books

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Comments

[Megan O'Brien]

So true, Louise. I have loved books since I was little. At first, the thought of reading on a little bland screen was as appealing as a dose of codfish oil. But today! Digital print is so exciting! And we get to welcome the dawn of it. New adventures, new experiences, new possibilities are just peaking out over the horizon. We need lorries full of imagination to explore and map out this new territory. Thank you for encouraging that!