100 First Children's Books: Guidance on Creating Collections in Underserved Languages

Read@Home’s new 100 First Children’s Books Framework offers guidance to projects developing book collections in underserved languages. To aid book development and selection projects, the 100 First Children’s Books Framework shares recommended types and numbers of books in an “ideal” first children’s book collection.

To support book developers in bringing higher quality design to all children, the Early Learning Resource Network is making available a series of InDesign templates for children’s books. The templates are based on Read@Home’s 100 First Children’s Books Framework and support four different kinds of books:

  • First Books
  • Picturebooks
  • Readers
  • Comic Book/Graphic Novels

The sizes of the book templates supports common sizes across worldwide printers, and other design details were determined by children’s book experts and designers working in developing contexts.

Each template type also includes a simple user’s guide in English.

For more information or to inquire about support for using these templates in your project, please contact info [at] earlylearningresourcenetwork [dot] org (info[at]earlylearningresourcenetwork[dot]org)

100 First Children's Books Framework

This note outlines the World Bank’s Read@Home initiative’s recommendations for a “first collection” of children’s
literature. It is intended for Read@Home and other early reading programs involved in the development and/or
selection of books to support children’s pre-reading and early reading skills.

Author
World Bank
Publisher
World Bank Group

Templates and User Guides

These First Books templates are square books. The square size mimics the format of most board books for this age group. This resource contains InDesign Master Templates in the proper trim size, with pre-created parent pages for ease of use and a PDF Users’ Guide to aid designers working with the templates.

Author
World Bank
Publisher
World Bank Group

This template is fairly large, in order to give space for interesting images and engaging design. This template can be used for fiction or nonfiction. It is available in both portrait and landscape trims. This resource contains InDesign Master Templates in the proper trim size, with pre-created parent pages for ease of use and a PDF Users’ Guide to aid designers working with the templates.

Author
World Bank

This template is available only in portrait trim, and at a smaller size than a picturebook. The size is standard for leveled readers in the children’s book industry. This resource contains InDesign Master Templates in the proper trim size, with pre-created parent pages for ease of use and a PDF Users’ Guide to aid designers working with the templates.

Author
World Bank
Publisher
World Bank Group

This template includes panel layouts for sequential storytelling. Its user guide also includes more detailed information about developing comic books, as their process is more complex than standard narrative books. This resource contains InDesign Master Templates in the proper trim size, with pre-created parent pages for ease of use and a PDF Users’ Guide to aid designers working with the templates.

Author
World Bank
Publisher
World Bank Group