The Thing That You Call It In Not Many Words That Kind of Says What it is and All That... by Jonathan Allen

In the online and other public discussions about what makes a successful picture book, that authors and other denizens of the publishing world have from time to time, the subject of titles doesn’t come up perhaps as often as it should.

 
The title is the first piece if information you get about a book and as such, what it conveys in the few words it has at its disposal is as important as it is disproportionate. In the case of a picture book especially, it can sum up the entire concept, the tone of voice, the feel and the probable purpose or intention of the publication in less than ten words. That’s powerful stuff! 

It needs to grab the attention and be memorable, like a newspaper headline, or a pop song title. It has to make you want to find out more, and most importantly and difficult-to-define-ably of all, it has to be 'right'. Sometimes the process of getting a title 'right' can involve much too-ing and fro-ing between an author and a publisher (incorporating much input from the marketing dept) before everyone is happy, and at other times the title can be the thing that triggers the idea for the book in the first place.

To be boringly self referential for a minute, my picture book ’I’m Not Cute!’ is a good example of what a title can 'tell' you. The whole concept of the book is encapsulated in the title. A character claiming not to be cute. That should grab the attention because picture book characters are pretty much universally cute, so what bizarre heresy is being conducted here? Picture book characters are not usually given room or opportunity to give their opinion of their perceived cuteness, so for one to speak out and refute this perception is unusual and worthy of investigation. So with 'I'm Not Cute!', in three words we get a concept, a tone of voice and a slightly anarchic feel, not to mention an insight into a character's, and by association, an author's personality. And that's before you get to see the pictures.

Think of your favourite picture book titles (or children’s fiction titles) and see whether they conform to my thesis. Here are some off the top of my head.

Farmer Duck

The Wind in The Willows

Where The Wild Things Are

Tom All Alone

The Magic Pudding

Five Children and It

The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate

Etc. 

Well, that kind of bears me out. You would want to seek them out based on the titles.

The interesting thing is that some successful books have pretty prosaic,
bland names which largely disregard ’the rules’. . 

The Jungle Book

Nonsense Songs

Fireman Sam

Thomas The Tank Engine 

But I guess they indicate what you are going to get.

Some are just deliberately and brilliantly wordy, like 'How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen.' 

A fun thing to do in a spare moment, if you have such a thing, is to take an interesting, snappy title and make it as prosaic as possible, to see if you would have given it the time of day under this boring guise. 

How about - 

Max has a Dream About Monsters.

The Ring That Everybody Wants.

Would You Like to Try Sam’s Unusual Meal?

Potty Training an Unwilling Princess is Difficult.

Craig Thompson and The Philosopher’s Stone

The Little Girl Who Went Through The Mirror

Etc etc

Instant classics?

Now you have a go.