How do we think about our “All-Ages” audience?
Our approach to making Cartozia Tales an “all-ages” book is both simpler and more ambitious than the approach you might expect. I don’t think any of us starts a story thinking what do kids like? or what will appeal to kids? — that would be working backwards. Instead, we try to think of satisfying stories about interesting characters, and we just avoid any adult realities that would be hard to explain to a kid.
We think about our characters and the things that would make their stories more exciting, more hilarious, more perilous, more fun. We think about the kids we know, or the kids they will grow up into, or the kids we once were, and we imagine stories we’d like to tell them.
We really love the fact that there are kids out there whom we haven’t met, speculating about what’s going to happen to Taco and Wick, or whether Gavin Ashbroke is really Minnaig’s father, or what’s happening on the island of Little Bipper or at the bottom of the Avi Ravine. And we love this because we can remember the way the fictional places we read about as kids quickened into life when we read them.
But, really, we don’t think of these stories as written “for kids” — maybe just “with kids in mind.” A good kid-accessible story should be a good story for anyone who likes stories.
Don’t take only our word for it. Listen to our editor, Isaac Cates, talking with Jeff Smith (yes, the Jeff Smith, of Rasl and Tuki and Bone) about writing for “all ages.”
It’s the first question Isaac asks, but Jeff is so engaging and smart about telling stories that you may just want to listen to this whole conversation today.
You may also want to pick up some Cartozia Tales, if you haven't yet, for a kid you know or for anyone who likes stories.
