The HISTORY Channel:
This Day in History for Kids
ILLUSTRATION, PUBLICATION DESIGN
Released March 5, 2024
“This Day in History for Kids is an exciting, visual adventure through history with day-by-day accounts of extraordinary events, notable people, and incredible inventions, for kids ages 8-12. History comes alive in this beautifully illustrated book with bite-size facts (along with a touch of humor) that will engage and entertain young, curious minds.” — Publisher Description
I illustrated and designed this humorous and exciting 224-page journey through time. Hundreds of full-color, hand-drawn illustrations accompany each daily entry along with doodles and dashes of whimsy on top of and alongside historical photos and images. Written by Dan Bova, every entry is filled with interesting insights and fun (and funny!) facts, while also treating serious historical events and complicated themes with great respect, warmth, and truth. The entire Hearst publishing team and the teams at A&E and The HISTORY Channel were a joy to work with. This book is truly one of my favorite projects and I am so proud to be a part of it.
The book is available now!
Pick it up at your local bookstore, or purchase it from Amazon ↗, Barnes & Noble ↗, Books-A-Million ↗, Bookshop.org ↗, Hudson Booksellers ↗, Powell’s ↗, Target ↗ and Walmart ↗.
Cover
The cover design features an aerial-view illustration of the surface of the earth, jam-packed with characters and places featured inside the book, and a custom, hand-lettered title floating above in a star-strewn outer space scene.
Back Cover
The back cover illustration is a playful journey through time as one explorer digs down deep from their city sidewalk through layers of pyramids and artifacts to a prehistoric set of dinosaur fossils!
Half- and Full-Title Pages
The half-title page features a caveman and his pet dinosaur carving the title of the book into a giant boulder, followed by a rich, full-color spread filled with an imaginative cast of characters from the pages within — from astronauts and Greco-Roman soldiers to Amelia Earhart, Gandhi, Cleopatra and more.
Table of Contents
The table of contents might be one of my personal favorite designs in the entire book!
Since the book acts as a calendar of sorts, the table of contents displays the month and its corresponding page number as an annual orbit of the earth around the sun. Rockets, asteroids, and UFOs zoom around the edges of the spread.
The layout design emphasizes the month and date so that its easy for kids to flip through the book and locate dates that are important to them.
Under each one, a running timeline chronicles important events that happened on that date. Sidebars pay special attention to recognized holidays (and even some lesser-known silly ones!) as well as explain certain people or events in more detail.
Every day features a mix of hand-drawn, full-color illustrations that illuminate something in the text, as well as lots and lots of historical photography playfully adorned with doodles, diagrams, labels, and speech bubbles. The result is spread after art-packed, colorful spread as kids flip through the book to learn more about all of the events, places, and people.
At the end of every month, there is a special, write-able page, titled “This Day in My History,” where kids can fill in memorable events from their own life to add personal moments that are unique and special to the book itself.
