‘Books that cross the line’ is a response to the 2024 ISTD student assessment brief ‘The Line’. It explores the ‘line of censorship’ in children’s books, with a particular focus on words and sentences in classic stories that have been revised by publishers because they are considered offensive by modern people. The line of censorship represents not only the deletion marks on words that have been removed, but also discusses what kind of storytelling is crossing the line of acceptability.

The outcomes of the project consist of a book and a poster. They are aiming at adults who care about children’s education and are interested in the kids’ book publishing industry, which may include teachers, editors, or new writers and artists who want to create their own public work for children to understand what kind of societal changes are taking place right now.

I’ve adopted a grown-up style, with a nod to children’s books, while breaking up the dullness with a dynamic looking typography solution. Purple was used to keep a bit of fun in childhood without being too serious and stressful. I took the spine element from the stacked books and summarised it as a striped representation throughout the book, giving the content a very graphic look. Taking as a starting point of this project, the heavily debated Roald Dahl books that were massively revised by the publisher in 2023. The project discusses the reasons why censorship in kids’ books occurs and how times have changed. By presenting examples of old and new editions, I show how people use words to build the society they want.