How to Select a Font for Your Children’s Book

A common mistake among aspiring children’s book authors is to go with a font that remind them of childhood. That’s usually not the best approach.

Think of it from the perspective of your reader – the child. When children read, they generally do so letter by letter, as they learn to blend sounds and form words. Given this, you want to select a font that is easiest for children to recognize letters.

The best fonts for doing that are those that are simple. Rounded and open counters – the enclosed shape within a character, such as the “D” on a “b” or the backward “D” on “a”. Other children reading experts recommend “warm” and “inviting” fonts, though exactly what is warm and inviting is subjective.

An excellent example of a simple font with rounded and open counters is Sassoon Primary. It was designed with children in mind and is often used in books.

Other great fonts for children’s books include:
• Garamond
• Bembo Infant (my favorite)
• Jenson
• Minion
• Caslon
• Plantin Infant
• Baskerville

Once a font is selected, pay close attention to the font/point size and the spacing between lines. These two factors also affect readability.

A good font/point size for children is 14-24. Younger kids and less capable readers generally do better with text at the high end of that range, while older and more accomplished readers can handle the lower end.

For leading – the space between the baselines of two adjacent lines of type – go for 4-6 points larger than the text’s size. If the text is 20 points, the leading would be 24-26 points in a children’s book. Usually adults can adequately handle 1 or 2 points leading, but to children letters that close together can look like alphabet soup.

Remember, if your readers find the book difficult to get through, not because of what you’ve written but because of the way you present it, they’ll quit reading it. There are plenty of other books to read after all – or even that video game to play.