#childrens lit

[fishfingersandscarves]

today is Moonlight Magic Club: The Runaway Cauldron's book birthday! it's the sixth book in the series by Melody Lockhart - once again the cover is by Luna Valentine and interior illustrations by yours truly! out now wherever books are sold!

[spacenoirdetective]

Tim Jacobus, cover art for "Goosebumps: Attack of the Jack-O-Lanterns", 1996

[thesweetnessofspring]

‘It’s quite galling’: children’s authors frustrated by rise in celebrity-penned titles

Keira Knightley is latest star to publish a children’s book, but some say trend pushes aside genuine writers and makes it harder to find gre

For those who don't know, I work with kids, and a good chunk of them are what in my field we call "littles" (5 and under). I'm working on building up a little library of books for them, and yesterday I had an extra long lunch that I took part of in Target and decided to browse their book section. Now Target isn't a book store, but I was dismayed to see how many of the picture books were by celebrities.

Writing for young children is hard. I've done it before, as an agency I was interning for in grad school had a concept that they wanted published. I spent months developing the idea with them, executing it, writing, and editing. What I wrote is just a little agency's need to fill their particular niche for children, not anything worthy of a big publishing deal, but it really humbled me about how much work and skill it takes to write for young kids. You have fewer words to tell a whole story. You need to put on the perspective of a child while having an adult brain. You need to be entertaining, but also be aware of their developmental needs and fit that into the writing.

Celebrities have skills for their particular niche, and maybe some are doing more than giving a concept to a ghostwriter (I could see BJ Novak having actually written his children's book, but then again he's a bona-fide writer himself). But it really is a shame that people think so little of children's books because they're short and just for kids that they think a celebrity could have the skill to write it. We hardly see celebrities doing the same for other age groups and when they have, most people automatically assume they got a ghost writer. When I was in Target looking at the adult and YA sections, I don't remember seeing any celebrity authors other than some memoirs. But the children's section? There were so many! I really sympathize with people who have a talent for writing for children, have honed on that talent with practice, only to see their work being pushed aside for the easier celebrity sell.

And if any of you have suggestions for good picture books (especially around emotions and family relationships) then let me know!

[fandomscraziness22]

children's book series: go

Magic Tree House

American Girl

Animorphs

Boxcar Children

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Rainbow Fairies

I Survived

Ivy+Bean

Junie B Jones

Cam Jansen

Voting ended onFeb 8, 2023

[wilde-shit-posting]

Dorian Gray should actually get adopted by the family in Tuck Everlasting

[heywriters]

{description: stitched Tiktok

" '...would you consider the 1980s to be historical fiction?' "

"You're gonna hate this, but the 1980s is absolutely historical fiction. So I was a kid in the '80s, and back then I thought that World War II was like the oldest thing in the world, but guess what? When I was a kid, WWII was 40 years earlier. For kids today, the 1980s is 40 years earlier.

Here, I'll do another one! When I was a kid I thought that like hippies, 1960s people, Woodstock were like totally ancient history, right? For kids today, that's Y2K. That's how long ago that was; 9/11.

I work in children's books, so I mean I deal with this a lot, and I recently sold a book set in 2005...that is historical fiction.

If your target audience wasn't born, it's historical fiction. Sorry?"

via Tiktok @ literaticat)

[hogwashandbalderdash]

was anyone else obsessed with the series ugenia lavender by spice girl geri halliwell as a child because i can barely find anyone who remembers it but this was peak culture to me as a child. i even went as the title character for world book day.

[selkies-world]

Buy "Stars: Defied"

Buy "What's your name, little dragon?"