Peter Usborne
Upon
the birth of his first child in 1973, Peter Usborne decided that
educational, nonfiction books would need to change in order to compete
with TV and comics. He borrowed some ideas from these two media and
hired educational consultants to oversee the writing to make sure that
the books would not only satisfy the child's interest, but also arouse
it.
Explanatory books which merely explain are doing only half
the job; if a book fails to make its subject attractive and interesting
to the reader, chances are that the explanation will fail. Usborne
Books are designed to draw the students in, to make them want to learn
the material and to help them retain that knowledge. The magic of
Usborne Books is that they make both reading and learning fun and not a
boring or intimidating experience. Peter Usborne set out to break down
a child's resistance to reading and learning at home. These books are
so well organized that children absorb and recall much of the
information presented.
Children are clever -- they are our equals. We shouldn't talk down to them, but look across at them.
Books should be friendly, and as much like magnets as possible.
They should be reliable and accurate, stylish and artistic.
They should be accessible, and also surprising and provocative.
Books should help you get off your couch so you're not just sitting there watching TV and chewing gum.
They should promote wondering.
They should be better than good.
~ Peter Usborne, Founder of Usborne Books
More from Peter:
"The
remarkable success of Usborne Books derives from the simple idea that
it is possible, without any sacrifice of quality, to produce
non-fiction books as interesting and entertaining as television,
magazines and comics -- media that most children instinctively prefer.
We compete with those "friendly" media in a number of ways, many of
them unique to Usborne Publishing.
"First, and most important,
we spend an enormous amount of time and money producing every one of
our books. These huge investments are essential for researching,
visualizing and illustrating often very difficult subjects, such as
computers, biology or typography, in a really simple, stylish and
appealing way without losing detail or accuracy. We can only afford to
do books in this laborious way because we persuade dozens of publishers
overseas to share cost with us in return for the right to publish our
books in their own languages.
"The sale of our books overseas is
now so widespread that it is probably quite difficult to go on holiday
anywhere in the world without bumping into an Usborne book. Apart from
time and money, we use a number of other ingredients to make our books
appealing to children: humor whenever possible; a remarkably wide
variety of illustration styles, increasingly including photography, a
very high ration of pictures to text; short magazine-like paperback
formats; tremendous detail; and a totally clear, simple but
unpatronising text. We never, never talk down to children.
"The
growth in the sales of Usborne books in the last few years has been
quite remarkable, helped, we believe, by a rapidly increasing concern
among parents to support the education of their children by providing
stimulating and interesting books at home. It is becoming more and more
widely accepted that the presence-and ownership-of books at home is one
of the key factors linked to success at school. Many more teachers now
accept that parents can, and should, play an important role in helping
with children's education.
"Meanwhile, we continually experiment
with new directions and media. There are a whole range of learning
games for younger children, a video, language-learning tapes, and an
activity pack in the pipeline. Whatever we do, we always try to stick
to our first principle: finding out can and should be fun."
Read an interview with Peter Usborne, published in Bookseller Magazine. |
