Writing for Children 4 The early fluent reader

Who the child is:

The reader is aged roughly 7-9 and is often in the first two classes of junior school. They read with some confidence and want to choose their own books but may be daunted by a full length novel. Often teachers will keep a selection of suitable books in the classroom. The child still feels as if s/he is choosing.

 

What the books look like:

The covers will have stylised pictures though some may be more three dimensional.  The colours will be bold. The pictures will include cartoon characters but may be busier than in emergent reader texts. There will also now be more experiments with fonts and layout of text. There may be some branding e.g. as with Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The blurb will be more complex.

However, the books will look more like "real" books to the new reader. They will have a fatter spine, be up to 30,000 words and 150 pages long. There will be more information on the cover than there was for younger readers. There will be fewer pictures and these will amuse and illustrate rather than adding more to the story.  Some elements of the emergent reader book remain. In most texts some are present. There may be a similar number of pictures. The pictures may be stylised. The text may be formatted ragged right. The font may large and the text may be double-spaced. Multiple text formats are still used to break up the texts.  Chapters and sections tend to be short. The texts, though, rarely contain all of these elements.  

Sometimes an individual text will contain mixed elements, for example:

•         Blocked text and stylised pictures

•         Ragged right but three dimensional pictures

•         Short chapters and denser text

•         Blocked text but high number of illustrations

•         Huge amount of text and many illustrations.   

 

What to think about when producing a text for this early fluent reader:

Think about the characters – maybe keep the main ones to four: the hero (Cinderella), friend (Buttons), enemy (stepsisters and stepmother) and mentor (fairy godmother).  What are the tensions between them?

Then outline a simple plot:

Inciting incident: Cinders is sweeping the floor

Growing complexities:

·         Receives invitation to the ball but sisters / stepmother destroy her invitation

·          Fairy godmother gets her to the ball

·         She meets the prince and they fall in love

Crisis point: she leaves almost too late and loses her shoe

Climax: Will the shoe ever find the right foot? Point of no return for both Cinders and the prince.     

For more ideas on plot, see my blog post Story Theory   Later on in this series I'll be issuing exercises on various aspects of this.  

Each of the above plot points should have a chapter of its own in this type of text and each should end on a cliff-hanger.   

Now, plot out your story so that it has a similar shape. Choose one plot point and write it up as a chapter. Decide which elements, if any, of the emergent reader text you would include.   

   

Some books to study:

Roald Dahl, Roald.  Dirty Beasts.  

Nicola Davies and Laura Carlin. The Promise.

Laird, Elizabeth: Crackers. 

Michael Morpurgo Tom’s Sausage Lion .

Mark Thiessen, with Glen Phelan.  Extreme Wild Fire.

   

Writing for Children 3 The emergent reader text

Who the child is:

This reader is aged roughly 7 -10. In the UK we call this Key Stage 1 and the child goes to Infant School.

This child becomes aware that make believe is a representational activity, becomes aware of concepts, begins to replace belief in magic with explanations for how things are and can distinguish reality from pretence but will still suspend disbelief.   

Imaginative play

Piaget’s view: often used as a rehearsal – the child plays the part of the adult. However, Piaget’s view now considered rather narrow. More recent studies suggest that make believe helps develop:

–     Sustained attention

–     Memory

–     Logical reasoning

–     Language

–     Literacy

–     Imagination

–     Creativity

–     Empathy

The preoperational stage

Piaget defines this as:

•         They can’t yet quite work out how things work.

•         Children at this stage are still quite egocentric.

•         They often think inanimate objects behave like humans and animals.

•         They cannot conserve shapes and quantities e.g. the tall thin glass seems bigger even though the short fat glass contains exactly the same amount of liquid.  

•         They can only process one aspect of a situation at a time.

•         They often cannot reverse a situation – e.g. if something is built with Lego, they can’t take it down again and put the pieces in the right part of the box.

•         At the end of this period this is reverses.

•         With some Vygotskyian scaffolding they CAN do all of this.   

Andrew Melrose's view of this group:

Melrose describes this age as “running”.  For this reader there are longer, more language-rich picture books. There is slightly more sophisticated text. Books will be about 6,000 words. The story must start promptly. The book may well be read aloud – but the child is generally off the reading scheme and beginning to select their own books to red for pleasure. The book moves forward quickly. There are lots of cliff-hangers “and suddenlies” (though often avoiding the word "suddenly". There may be short chapters – hence sometimes called “Chapter books”. They are often filmic. These books use dialogue engagingly.  Very occasionally a first person narrative is used but more often a close third person.  The story has a clear structure – beginning, middle, end. It may have some sub-plots but not as many as an adult book or one for older children. There won’t be too many characters. The story will be “shown” more than it is “told”. The pages turn quickly.  

What the books are actually like:

Children are off the reading scheme but books still go through stages – e.g. Oxford Reading Tree Green, Blue, Red Bananas

•          Pictures illustrate the text and sometimes also tell a separate story.

•         The text is simple.  

•         The font is clear.

•         The formatting is ragged right – this helps the child to keep their place on the page.

•         There are frequent line breaks.

•         The print is larger than in books for older readers.  

 

Some books to study:

Stan and Jan Berenstain The Search for Naughty Ned

Jeff  Brown. Flat Stanley Plays Ball

Kevin Crossley-Holland’s Storm

Dick King-Smith All Pigs Are Beautiful  

James Marshall’s Miss Nelson is Missing

Andrew Melrose Write for Children

Joanna Nadin’s The Stepmonster

Richard Scarry's The Early Bird   

Alvin Schwartz’s In a Dark, Dark Room

Jacqueline Wilson’s My Brother Bernadette

 

What to think about when producing a text for emergent readers

Choose a theme.

Plan your story.

It needs:

• A beginning, middle and end
• To start promptly
• To move quickly
• To show, not tell
• Use dialogue convincingly

Consider whether you want to include a sub-plot.

Consider the point of view (third person close is common in this type of book)

Keep your language simple. Use simple sentences and not too many with clauses except those joined with “and” and “but”. Take care that there are not too many difficult words.  

Think about line breaks.

Writing with restrictions

Each level of these various schemes has certain restrictions. This is often to do with the type of language used, word count, number of pages, number of chapters and amount and type of illustration.  Study one in detail and use this to give yourself some restrictions for what you will produce.

Often our creativity is really challenged when we write with restrictions.      

However, this is possibly the hardest type of children's book to write. It involves writing that is almost technical. Often well-known writers are asked to produce the story and the editors then deal with the more technical issues. It is nevertheless useful for us to try and write to this brief – especially if we also teach young children.        

 

Writing for Children 2 Pre-school / Picture Books

Picture books for pre-schoolers are usually read by adults to the child. They are often landscape so that the child and parent can share the book. Even households that have few books will often have some picture books.    

Even today picture books are expensive to produce so they must be easily translatable into other languages. Therefore, rhyming texts are not usually accepted. There are of course exceptions, including Julia Donaldson's work. 

For practical reasons to do with printing, picture books are usually 32 or 28 pages long, including endpapers. That is, 24 or 28 pages - or 12 or 14 double spreads.

The story must be contained in this quite rigid format.   

There will be a lot of repetition.

There is a change in pace / rhythm about 2/3 to 4/5 of the way through the story – rarely exactly ¾ of the way through. 

There is sometimes a joke for adults – but not at the expense of the child. 

The pictures contain more of the story.

The font is adult-friendly e.g. Times new Roman which is actually nightmare for new readers; the serifs are confusing and the 'a' and 'g' are difficult.

The language may be surprisingly sophisticated. 

Take a look at some picture books.  You might also like to study some well-known ones:

Julia Donaldson's Room on the Broom

Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar

Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are

Look at:

Repetition

Change of pace

How the pictures work. Look as well at the balance of pictures. Do some have no text? Which are on single spreads and which on double?  Why? Are there multiple pictures on some pages? Why? How effective is this?   

Look at how white space is used? What leads the eye from one page to the next?

Is there a joke for the adults?

What about the language and the font?

 Now your turn

Have a go at producing a picture book text. First write it as a continuous story. Then spread it across the 24 or 28 pages. Think about how the pictures will work.            

Writing for Children 1 Which age group do I feel most comfortable with?

This first session will help you to decide who you want to write for. 

Think of a time in your childhood when you were very happy. Now tell the story of why you were so happy that day to a child.  Imagine the specific child to whom you are speaking. It is not you the adult speaking, but rather the child you were then or perhaps even a good friend of the child to whom you tell the story. 

Write for about twenty minutes or until you have finished the story, whichever you prefer.

Now read it back. 

Who is narrating the story? How old is s/he? 

Who is listening? How old is s/he?

If the two children are different ages, which one appeals to you most? That may well be the child for whom you should write.

However, it may be a good idea to try out all of the exercises in the following posts. You may yet be surprised by another idea. 

Now start reading a lot of children's books. Join your local library. Follow the hash tag #introtochildrenslit on Twitter for lots more ideas.  

Think of a book that was a favourite when you were a child. What can you tell us about the characters? The setting? The plot? What made you like it? What can you learn as a writer from that?