When choosing a topic to write about with a children’s book, it is wise to know what matters to your audience. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? Hopefully, you have a great childhood memory or firsthand experience with children. When I was in 2nd grade, I had a wonderful teacher. She must have loved creative writing because we spent one or two days a week writing stories. Sometimes I go back to those stories, to my 7-year-old self, to remind me what I was thinking or dreaming about.
Spend Time With Your Audience
Before publishing my book, I read it to several groups of children to see their responses. Because folktales can also be fun for adults, I read my book out loud to my high school students to see their reactions. Lastly, I spent time sending a pdf to beta readers to receive their feedback.
Age Appropriate
Even though folktales are fun for adults, my book needed to be age appropriate. Deciding on the age group early on is a must. Because some of the folktales had some scary situations, I decided on 8-12-year-olds for my folktales. Choose the age before you begin and stay true to that age group.
Children Live in the Present
If you have spent time with children, then you know they want instant gratification. For a young children’s book, the story should not take place over several weeks, but over a few hours or days. The conflict should happen very quickly and be solved in 32 pages or less.
The Cover Should Pop!
The cover of the book is what draws children first to your book. The cover should be attractive as well as the font. How will a child be drawn to your book over thousands of others?
Children Have Strong Emotions and They Can Infer More Than We Think They Can
Remember how devastated you were in grade school when you didn’t get the same teacher as your best friend? Or when your pet died? Try to tap into those emotions with your story. Children can also figure out pretty quickly the problem of the character and their wheels are already spinning on how the problem will be solved. Therefore, don’t bore them, but engage them. Using a repeating line is fun as well as humor, and make books that are fun to read out loud.
Jenny Bowman points out that there’s a golden rule for every children’s book character: “Children always want to read stories about other children who are a little bit older than themselves, who are participating in life experiences that mirror their own.”
So, here’s some homework if you are just starting your children’s book-writing journey. Grab one of your favorite children’s books and either write in long hand or type it word for word on a computer. Where does the conflict begin? What is the setting? Where is the humor? How do the illustrations help the action? This exercise will help you immensely.
Try it with more than one book! Happy writing!
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