WRITING CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Writing Children’s Books

Magic Days

I become nostalgic when I think of my childhood because I grew up with all the Famous Five, Secret Seven and Adventurous Four books. All written by Enid Blyton and though some have debunked these books as trivial and pure nonsense I was always excited to receive the latest book in any of the series. I also read the Biggles books and as I grew a little older the Hornblower series, Swiss Family Robinson and several of the Charles Dickens novels. These books honed my reading skills. My friends and I even set up our own secret group and Dad helped build our clubhouse. Alas no crimes to solve or real adventures came our way. We lived in a small country town and the only activities were playing Cowboys and Indians, after school sports, listening to the serials on the radio or going to the double feature Saturday afternoon matinee. So an adventure book was a treat, it was pure escapism, imagining oneself being able to solve crimes, being a war-time pilot in aerial dog fights or a swashbuckling seaman hunting down pirates and saving young damsels in distress. Getting lost in the pages of heroes and heroines. The girls in our club dreamed of adventures abroad, fighting villains, solving crimes and upstaging the boys.

The Present

Today our children are bombarded by wall to wall television or computer games. Its only because I read to my children and now to my grand children that I have been able to foster a love of written stories. Despite television and the need for good scripts there seems to be a dearth of good novels for youngsters and early teenagers. Surely the inspiration and ideas for children’s television came from books.

You would have thought with the insatiable appetite for stories and good scripts good novels for young people are in demand. Sadly no, many of the scripts are written by the studio writers and even the pilot episode of a series is not related to an idea from an original book. It seems to be left to the movies to turn good novels into on screen epics. So we have the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Ring series.

A Good Book

So what constitutes a good book for children? It must whet their appetite to read on. The intro or prologue must attract them immediately otherwise its back to the tube or the latest mind numbing computer game. The story must not slow down, the adventure needs to roll on relentlessly. It must be hugely entertaining to enthrall them, excite the imagination, be peppered with many plot twists, keep them guessing where its going and make them want to find out what happens. Anticipation and a desperate need to have the readers questions answered are the crux of an excellent “pot boiler”. At the same time we should be able to instill values of right and wrong, of fairness to others and a love for creativity. Get the picture? It is probably harder to write for this audience than for adults. We are in an age of instant gratification and if its not present in the very first few pages – forget it. You have to snare them from the opening paragraphs.

The Purpose of The Site

So how many good books for children can you think of that have been recently published apart from the Harry Potter books? Not too many would be my guess, at least not many that stand out. The purpose of the site then is to explore children’s books for that elusive group from pre-pubescent to early teens, whats available, what is in demand and is it a market that many writers should aim at?

Arnold Vee

admin | August 21, 2011 4:03 am

3 Comments

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