Children's book- Story development

Brainstorming

Main Character 

The main character will be a young orangutan, he lives with his mother and has a special toy that he with him everywhere. He made his toy out of leaves and sticks and is comfited by it. The orangutan and his mother live in their nest in the tallest tree on the comfiest branch, they love their home but the jungle is shrinking and they need to move quick. 

Side Characters

Rhinoceros without a horn. He's friendly 

Story

He and his mother need to leave their home as the jungle is getting smaller (due to deforestation). The child orangutan is reluctant at first  but as he trusts his mother, he follows her. Halfway to their new place he realises he forgot his toy and turns back. On his way back to his mother he loses his way. He is lost and alone. 

He stumbles across a rhino with no horn as he's looking for his mother. The rhino notices the toy and compliments the orangutan on his constructive skills. The orangutan realises that rhino doesn't have a hon and kindly offers to build him a new one out of sticks and leaves. When he finishes the Orangutan asks the rhino if he knows which way his mother went. The rhino is grateful for the horn but tells the orangutan he hasn't seen anything but will take him to the hornbill who sees all (because he can fly). 

When rhino and the Orangutan arrive, the hornbill hasn't got time to guide the orangutan on his journey as he needs to catch insects for his dinner. So orangutan suggests he will build a trap for the hornbill to catch them faster. The hornbill is grateful and guides them down the river. 

When they all get to the river, they realise the trees they were following have all disappeared. So they see an elephant next the river and ask him for help. The elephant is wise and explains they trees have been going missing in the jungle for a while so he decided to leave a trail of twigs in the ground to the safest side of the jungle. As he was heading that way anyway, he decides to join the orangutan, hornbill and rhino. 

The orangutan finally finds his mother and realises his home is with his mother is and it doesn't matter which tree he lives in as long as he is with her. 

Thumbnails

Here are some very quick thumbnails I mocked up of the scenes I have written so far. I wanted to start drawing the characters in the environment so I could visualise the story better, so that I could see how many words I can fit in per page and the style of writing I would like to develop. I like how I have drawn these characters so far and I am excited to carry on developing more thumbnails and sketches of the environment and the characters I have created.