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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 ↗.

A book titled "This Day in History for Kids" by Dan Bova is centered on a table surrounded by stamps, a passport, a magnifying glass, postcards, a compass, a globe, a red pen, and eyeglasses.

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.

Cover of a book sub-titled '1001 Remarkable Moments & Fascinating Facts', featuring illustrations of notable landmarks, people, and cultural icons from around the world.
The back cover of a children's educational book about history, featuring an illustration of an underground excavation site with a person digging, dinosaur fossils, and a treasure chest, along with text describing a travel through time activity.

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!

Cross-section illustration of a house with a foundation underground. Inside, there are two statues of lions on pedestals, some plants, and a door. The underground part shows pipes, a soil layer, and pyramids, with the text "Find out how scientists spoke to a mummy!" pointing to the pyramids.
Illustration of a person exploring underground cave with dinosaur fossils and marine life. Text reads 'Discover Prehistoric 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.

Book cover titled 'This Day in History for Kids', featuring a woman in a yellow dress with black spots holding a tool, and a green dinosaur with a red collar standing on snow, with a dark textured background.
Colorful illustrated children's book titled 'This Day in History for Kids' featuring diverse characters in fantasy costumes, mountains, and a starry night sky.

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.

An illustrated diagram of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, showing months and corresponding page numbers, as a Table of Contents for the children's book, with drawings of planets, stars, a rocket, and space elements on a dark space background.

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.

Open book with a calendar page for February 1st and a page titled "This Day in History" with numbered lines for filling in events, a black-and-white photo of Frederick Douglass, and a colorful illustration of zodiac animals along with a brief fact about the lunar zodiac.

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.

Open textbook showing a timeline for the months of July 5 and July 6, with illustrations of a sheep taking a selfie in front of a mirror and a lecture scene with people and fireworks adding a humorous touch.
Open magazine showing September 20 and September 21 pages with text and historical photos, and an illustrated section on the right titled 'How to Spot a Witch' with drawings of a bubbling cauldron, a broom, a frog, a feather quill, and a camera.
Illustration of four cyclists riding bikes in a race, with a backdrop of cityscape and the Eiffel Tower, and a sleeping cyclist in blue.
Page from a magazine or book featuring a timeline of world wonders with a picture of the Taj Mahal and a cartoon elephant in front of it.
Illustration of the Statue of Liberty with a speech bubble saying 'NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON'T!' and the caption below reading, 'Magician David Copperfield wows the world by making the Statue of Liberty appear to disappear. Fortunately, he put it back.'
Illustration of a medical or scientific room with an MRI machine on the left, a doctor in scrubs and a face mask holding a clipboard on the right, and a computer monitor displaying data with pyramid-shaped objects on the MRI table.
A historical painting of the American Revolutionary War scene with soldiers crossing the river, featuring a man holding a flag and a speech bubble that says "Who wants to see me do a cannonball?"
A colorful illustrated map showing the route of U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, with regional labels like Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and landmarks such as mountains, cities, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Open children's book showing illustrations of animals drawn in a cave art style, on a rocky background, with a bright yellow page on the right side featuring a rocket ship illustration.

Credits


ILLUSTRATOR, COVER + BOOK DESIGNER
Russell Shaw

WRITER
Dan Bova

CLIENT
Hearst, The HISTORY Channel, A&E Television Networks

IMPRINT
Hearst Home Kids

HEARST TEAM
Jacqueline Deval, Gillian Macleod, Zach Mattheus, Nicole Fisher, Cinzia Reale-Castro, Maria Ramroop, Roni Martin-Chance, Ruth Vazquez, Nicole Plonski