Knowing my place
Which of these represents your view about children's books?
Childhood is a sweet and innocent time, and children's books should be about fluffy bunnies and other comforting subjects.
Childhood is a mean and dangerous time, and children's books should represent reality with all its obstacles and troubles.
Childhood is a mean and dangerous time, and therefore kids need comforting fluffy-bunny stories because that's the way life ought to be.
Children's literature should be prescriptive, describing the world kids should aspire to.
Children's literature should be descriptive, describing the world as it is and kids as they really are, for better or worse.
There are several schools of thought on writing for young people. I don't happen to think any single school has *the* one true answer. I'm not much of an either/or thinker. (You may have gathered that if you've been reading this blog for a while.) IMHO, we need all of these things. We need the soft gentle stories and we need the hard-edged material. We need humor and adventure, realism and fantasy, poetry and prose. We need books for kids who have been abused and kids who have terminal illnesses; we need books for kids with best-friend troubles and growing pains. We need books about the beauty of flowers and books about what happens to sewage when it leaves your house. We need books for boys and books for girls, books for five-year-olds and books for fifteen-year-olds. We need books that challenge kids and books that reassure them.
That doesn't mean I write all of the above. My strength and my preference is with older YA, realistic, darker material. I think it's important to know which stories are in my wheelhouse. When I was a teen myself, I liked reading books that acknowledged the world I saw around me, books that acknowledged that life is horrible sometimes and yet we manage to go on. Some people read to escape from the world; I read to help me cope with the world. And it turns out that my development as a writer has been shaped by my preferences as a reader.
I like seeing the larger world of literature, and identifying my niche in it. Have you found your niche(s)?
Childhood is a sweet and innocent time, and children's books should be about fluffy bunnies and other comforting subjects.
Childhood is a mean and dangerous time, and children's books should represent reality with all its obstacles and troubles.
Childhood is a mean and dangerous time, and therefore kids need comforting fluffy-bunny stories because that's the way life ought to be.
Children's literature should be prescriptive, describing the world kids should aspire to.
Children's literature should be descriptive, describing the world as it is and kids as they really are, for better or worse.
There are several schools of thought on writing for young people. I don't happen to think any single school has *the* one true answer. I'm not much of an either/or thinker. (You may have gathered that if you've been reading this blog for a while.) IMHO, we need all of these things. We need the soft gentle stories and we need the hard-edged material. We need humor and adventure, realism and fantasy, poetry and prose. We need books for kids who have been abused and kids who have terminal illnesses; we need books for kids with best-friend troubles and growing pains. We need books about the beauty of flowers and books about what happens to sewage when it leaves your house. We need books for boys and books for girls, books for five-year-olds and books for fifteen-year-olds. We need books that challenge kids and books that reassure them.
That doesn't mean I write all of the above. My strength and my preference is with older YA, realistic, darker material. I think it's important to know which stories are in my wheelhouse. When I was a teen myself, I liked reading books that acknowledged the world I saw around me, books that acknowledged that life is horrible sometimes and yet we manage to go on. Some people read to escape from the world; I read to help me cope with the world. And it turns out that my development as a writer has been shaped by my preferences as a reader.
I like seeing the larger world of literature, and identifying my niche in it. Have you found your niche(s)?
(Anonymous)
Wow,what a line!
I think I should quote you from now on!
Re: Wow,what a line!