Polar Dog Book Mock Up - No Text

- Mock up of the book to test the flow of the illustrations and layout
things that need to be addresses:
- Some of the single pager illustrations seem to work better on the left of the double page spread, I'm not sure if this is often done in publishing and ideally I would prefer them to consistently be aligned as text on the left and illustrated page on the right. I need to look at examples from existing children's books to see if this is often done. Most of the pages work perfectly well on the left hand side but on the page where the dog meets the polar bear the dog would be closer to the gutter in the centre of the page than I would like and reversing the image does not work as well.
- I feel like the tone of the illustrations changes for some of the pages, the section where the dog goes off by himself to find the polar bear, I think this works as he is out in the wide world by himself and dealing with the emotions of questioning his identity. I want to get some feedback about this, it may be that the change is too apparent or that the tone is wrong for a children's book
- The pacing of the book is always something I struggle with once I have been working on it for a long time. Flicking through the books I have made I always feel like the books jump from one scene to another or that the transitions are clunky but I think this may be because I'm not taking in the story the same way as someone new to it, or just someone whose not looking at it trying to spot mistakes. I think I will need to add the text before I can tell if the pacing is right. I want to spend more time than I have in the past working on the text. For this book I think the text needs to tell more of the story than I have before. I want the text to be playful and fun. It seems very easy to fall into the trap of making the text really concise and academic. I need to make sure the writing is appropriate for the age range, fun and engaging. The text needs to guide the reader through the story but not spell out every aspect explicitly, it needs to direct the reader to the message behind the illustrations. I need to research more childrens authors, specifically books where the strength is the language, NO RHYMING!