Storytelling with data for kids




Vizkidz





Overview

Vizkidz is a book series that I illustrated, designed, and co-wrote, successfully funded through Kickstarter, that teaches kids the fundamentals of data visualization. In a time where big data and its application is considered fundamental to most industries, we wanted to give kids a head start by teaching them how to interpret and analyze that data early on.

This is the story of Penelope Pie and her friends, Laney Line, Barnaby Bar, and Bertie Boxplot. All of our characters have a singular spirit and set of skills, and we follow their adventures as they each solve a problem. For instance, when Penelope Pie throws a party for her birthday, someone needs to figure out how to divvy up the pizza so each guest can have their favorite topping. Fortunately, Penelope is just the girl for the job! 

Through solving these problems, the stories of Penelope and her friends illustrate the basic concepts of data visualization. A pie chart best portrays parts of a whole in context, line graphs – a trend over time, bar charts (often underestimated) allow for easy comparison, and box plots give us a great sense of how data is distributed.