Working in a school has given me ample opportunity to read lots of children's picture books, and I have to say it can be the best part of my day. A good children's book with great pictures can give children such happiness and in that way they can be more important than other books. They can spark the love of reading. (Or at least I always hope so) But I began to ask myself is it easier to write a children's book? Well for a start they are definitely shorter than normal books. In my research (not very extensive research) I found out that the average word count expected of a children's book is under 1000. Great I thought, I can write that in a day. So I did. Using my dog as inspiration I wrote a Christmas story. And I did finish it in one day. However, I was yanked back to the days of writing essays for school and having ridiculously small word counts, trying to shave words from paragraphs, hoping that it all still makes sense. Writing a story in under 1000 word is blooming difficult! How do you make the story meaningful? How do you make the characters likable and memorable. Slowly it dawned on me...the length has nothing to do with it. But surely children don't expect as much from their books? A few nice pictures, a cute character. But as I wrote and then really began to think about the books that I had read to children, I realised that children are the harshest critics. If a book doesn't meet their expectations they will let you know! If it is not entertaining all the way through they will not give the book a chance and carry on reading to the end just to make sure, they will throw the book down and move one. They also want to learn from a book. Children love it when they can ask questions and find out something new. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson is a great example. The mouse is playing a clever trick on the other animals in the book and then on the Gruffalo itself. It is in fact quite a complex plot. But the children love the mouse and love to work out how and why the animals fell for the trick. So as the author of a children's book, you have to be entertaining, educational and brief. I'm not sure my book is any of those things!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMy name is Sally. I like writing. I also like reading. In fact without books I would be kind of lost. Oh and I also think the internet's not too bad either. Archives
September 2016
Categories |
Rookie Writer