Writing a Children's Book: Critical Reflection on Process

Introduction: The Challenge of Writing for Children

Writing a children's book is more difficult than it may appear, because there are so many different things to consider before it can be accomplished. The style has to be interesting enough to hold the audience's attention — whether that audience is adults or children — but if a book does not flow correctly, a child will sense it and become bored. There is also the matter of age level: the selected subject matter must be appropriate for the targeted audience and presented in a way that does not lose the young reader. Young children also need engaging illustrations that can sustain their interest.

The best advice may be to research authors who have been successful with a certain age group or genre and examine what they did. Pat Mora, a successful children's book author, advises getting involved with others who write in the same genre, and also reading widely within it. For young readers, probably the most successful author of all time is Theodore Seuss Geisel. Dr. Seuss told stories that were amazingly simple, yet carried an underlying meaning that is not lost on children. Seuss also used illustrations that followed the story — ludicrous and fanciful for the most part, but always seeming to speak directly to children. Many times the characters and gadgets Seuss invented did not hold up to the reality adults live in, but to a childish imagination, they were perfect. The story on daydreaming developed for this project is patterned after the Dr. Seuss model: it is simple and rhyming, and it does not use words that are too difficult for young minds to understand.

Inspirations and Style: Dr. Seuss and Calvin and Hobbes

This book had two distinct inspirations. The language is as close to Dr. Seuss as possible, but the character of the boy is drawn somewhat from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Calvin was always daydreaming, and he often became his alter ego "Spaceman Spiff" while he was supposed to be listening to his teacher. He was also frequently sent to the principal's office. These two inspirations shaped the story, but maintaining a consistently simple style and simple vocabulary throughout proved genuinely difficult.

Story Overview: A Boy, a Daydream, and a Moral

The project tells the story of a common problem that school-age children have and tries to make it feel real to them. First, a young boy grows bored with his teacher and wishes he were somewhere else. He looks out the window and sees snow, which disappoints him — he wants it to be spring. He has already been told that he should pay attention and that school is not supposed to be fun. He reaches into his desk to take out the math book the class will be studying, and he gets lost in a daydream. He sees his stapler and imagines it is a gun that shoots purple fish. It also has the amazing power to make large, imposing things small. He becomes a hero who rides an imaginary flying dinosaur and vividly feels the experience. Eventually he is defeated by a dinosaur villain he is fighting and, jolted back to reality, falls out of his school chair with a yell. The other children laugh at him, and the teacher sends him to the principal's office. The last page of the book presents a moral about the importance of paying attention.

The Tradition of Moral Storytelling in Children's Literature

It seems that many children's books are of the moral type — the author is trying to teach children an important lesson while giving parents a valuable resource for communicating a message. Since children are often inattentive when they should be focusing on something important, a story built around that experience seemed like a worthwhile moral to explore. The value of such a book lies in the resource it provides parents, but also in the pleasure a child can take from reading it. Parents often find it difficult to convey messages in a way a young mind will accept. That is why there are so many children's books — going back to Aesop and Hans Christian Andersen — that teach a lesson through witty, engaging dialogue. Children in first and second grade are also learning to read, and they need material that is both appropriate and interesting. This kind of book allows a child to follow simple words while enjoying the fun of the story.

Telling a story with a moral is not a new concept, but it is one that has been universally accepted as an appropriate way for children to learn (Barancik). It can be seen in the oldest writing and tales passed down through many cultures. Most of the Grimm-type fairy stories were told because they offered both a good story and a lesson for children. Modern authors such as Dr. Seuss embraced that same tradition and wrote stories that provided children with both entertainment and a valuable lesson.

Many of these stories took complex issues — such as the creation of the world — and made them simple enough for a child to understand. Simplifying a story for children does not diminish the importance of the subject matter; in fact, it may enhance it. When something seems complex, it is often more straightforward than it appears. Adults may perceive an issue as complex because it unfolds between adults, but it could be as simple as greed, lying, cheating, or any number of subjects that a child already understands. The telling of a story does not diminish the importance of the subject matter unless the storyteller allows it to.

Conclusion: Simplicity as Strength

One of the reasons Dr. Seuss was regarded as a genius is that he could take a subject that might have seemed complex and relate it to children in such a way that they grasped it easily. That was the intent of this story. The goal was to make it simple enough for children while still giving it real value for them — and the hope is that it succeeded.

Works Cited

Barancik, Steve. "Harness the Power of Storytelling to Improve Behavior." Best Children's Books. 2011. Web.

Mora, Pat. "20 Tips for Writing Children's Books." Bookjoy. 2011. Web.