My conducted questionnaire

In order to get a better idea as to what children might look for and like inside a book, I have created a four question questionnaire in which I will give to my nephew and his friends at nursery, in total, I have interviewed 3 children in total. Everything I have included inside the questionnaire is written simply and understandable at a basic level of english (3-5 years old), and in addition to this, the children will be accompanied by their parents to help out if needed. This will take place before the end of my nephews day at nursery and in my own free time.

The questions - 

1) What is your favourite children’s book?

2) Why do you like it?

3) Do the colours inside the book stand out to you?

4) Do you think other children should read this book?

Results - 

Kaiden: Nephew, age 3

1) Dinosaur Roar!
2) The dinosaurs are colourful and all different.
3) Yes. They aren’t all green.
4) Everytime!

Leaf: Nephew’s best friend, age 3

1) Yo Gabba Gabba! Being Different is Great!
2) The monsters are funny
3) Yup, they look like a rainbow
4) Yo Gabba Gabba! Is great, read it all.

Kenzie: Nephew, age 5

1) Power Rangers Samurai: Meet the rangers
2) The power rangers are cool and do stunts
3) Yes! I want to be the Red Ranger!
4) If you like the Power Rangers, if not you should give it a try still.

Collation of results-

Out of the small sample size of children i've decided to interview, the results of what books each children likes is to be expected. Each child enjoys a different books but that's not exactly is most important. What is important that I have picked up on is the fact that out of all three children, they all like the same sort of theme and moral behind the books. 

Dinosaur Roar! is a book about teaching children of the different types of dinosaurs as well as the personalities and appearance of different people. Yo Gabba Gabba's book is about being different and why it is good to different and your own unique person. And Power Rangers Samurai: Meet the rangers is a book about the different power rangers in the show and why they're different, what they're good at and how they fit into the group. This means that in total, every child I handed my questionnaire out to, everyone enjoyed the idea and theme behind being different or having something which defines you as a person.

My second question of the questionnaire explored why the children like each book a bit further. I wanted to know why they liked each book. Each response is different and each child likes the contents of the books for a different reason. In Dinosaur Roar! what appealed most towards my nephew is that the dinosaurs are colourful and different in the way they act and look. I would like to implement this into my own book. For the Yo Gabba Gabba! book, I was told that the monsters inside the book are funny, this follows a similar theme to the Dinosaur Roar! book where each dinosaur is liked for it's own reason. Lastly, In the Power Rangers books my nephew thought that the Power Rangers were cool and did stunts as a reason as to why that was his favourite book. So to recap, every child who answered the questionnaire enjoyed each book because they explored and showed off different characters and personalities within the book alongside reasons such as, the characters were cool or funny.

From looking at my results, I can also tell that the children who took part in the questionnaire like different colours of the spectrum and enjoy vibrant and colourful images. The best example of this would in the Power Rangers book, each ranger is a different colour and even on the front cover a lot of bright colours come out of it on the orange, yellow and red side of the colour wheel.

In my last question I wanted to ask the children whether or not they would recommend and if they thought that other children should read the book. Each children around the board gave the same results, they would recommend the book to other children. The only result that varied was that of my one of my nephews, Kenzie. Instead, he thought that if you're into Power Rangers and like it, you should, but if you're not into the Power Rangers you could at least try it.

What will I take from this?

From my questionnaire I have learnt that children wildly enjoy the thoughts and themes of how different characters are portrayed as different and showed as still being equal and just as great. I will choose to include this in my own children's book as I wish to please my target audience. On top of this, I also learnt that children also enjoy a range of different characters from dinosaurs to monsters and Power Rangers. I feel as if Power Rangers would be a bit too specific and also isn't full of unique characters which I can use. Instead of basing my book on monsters or dinosaurs, I have decided to base my book on a middle ground between both categories and so have decided to make a book on being different featuring a wide range of unique and different animals. For example, a horse and a snail, both are extremely different.

On top of this, I also learnt that children like books that are colourful and feature a range of different colours. This will work with the idea of having different animals in my book whether it be the background they feature in or the animal itself being colourful. With all this taken into account, my final conclusion and idea of my children's book is what I want to create a colourful book on animals and why they're and special in their own ways, but also the same and relatable, like people.