On Writing For Kids!

I’ve had some good news, I’m writing a phonics reader for kids in their first year at school. It’s a lot harder than it sounds! There are quite a lot of words you can’t use because they haven’t learned them yet, and several words you have to use because it’s part of the new stuff they’re learning. (Interestingly, one of the brighter kids in the prep class I’m volunteering with can write “yard”, a word on the “not yet learned” list!). One of the high frequency required words is “was”, but you can’t write the story in past tense because they don’t yet know words ending in “ed”. And you can’t even work it into dialogue, because they haven’t yet learned “ay”, so no “says”.  A fascinating challenge! It’s a(deliberately)silly story of 160 words about a family and their goat attending the Goat Cup. (You can use the word “contest” if you absolutely must, but don’t use it more than once, if you can avoid it, they prefer single syllable words) - the sound-of-the-week is “oa.” And with all that, you still have to do a story kids will enjoy - micro flash fiction! 

You won’t see this book on any awards lists. Nobody will review it on Goodreads. You won’t even find it in your local bookshop, only order it from booksellers or the publishers. But I’m learning from doing it. Who knows? I might even end up learning how to do a picture book! And it’s paid writing work. 

So, what does this lead into? 

I’m a children’s writer, with one YA novel under my belt, as well as a (retired) teacher librarian. I sort of fell into children’s writing, a while after winning the Mary Grant Bruce Award for a YA short story, but I wouldn’t write anything else now, apart from the occasional SF/F short story. It requires skills not needed in writing for adults. Both require you to be able to grab the reader’s attention. Both require imagination, though I do have to wonder about all those adult books winning awards for “beautiful writing” rather than telling a wonderful story with characters you can care about. But kids are stronger critics. If you can’t grab them right away, they won’t read your work, sorry! Not even if you are a “beautiful writer”!  And they do have to care about the characters. All those YA dystopian novels end with a brave girl(usually a girl) saving the world. Some adult books do that, but they are not required to - they tend to be more respected if they finish with “He loved Big Brother” and such. 

So, I was a bit bemused - and disappointed - to read a tweet from an author whose first book I recently read and enjoyed, complaining bitterly that just because she was a woman she was being labelled as a YA writer! How unfair was that! Men didn’t have to put up with this labelling! 

Huh? What evidence did she have for that, apart from someone maybe listing her books as  YA on a website? (They’re not, I agree. Not one of her skills, I’m afraid, and I can see her writing only for adults). Was it an assumption? And why the offence anyway? Does she really think that writing for the world’s most difficult audience makes you inferior, somehow? Yes, probably... Sigh! So many people just don’t get it. 

A friend of mine, many years ago, was offended when I told her that some short stories she had written were perfect for kids, which they were. She had characters in over the top situations who took them totally for granted. This is something you see in the short fiction of Joan Aiken. She did get it when I gave her some Aiken to read, and Joy Chant’s wonderful Red Moon, Black Mountain. She even entered the Mary Grant Bruce Award for children’s fiction, with a story she later developed into a YA novel, and sold some short children’s fiction. When she heard “children’s fiction” she thought “Enid Blyton” - though I do have to say, I’d love to have the success of that lady, whose work, racist, sexist and classist as it is, has nevertheless entertained generations of kids.

But Enid Blyton doesn’t represent the whole of children’s writing. 

Yes, most YA and children’s fiction is written by women. Not all. And not all men’s YA books are  boys’ thrillers either. Michael Pryor’s entertaining novels vary from steampunk to humorous ghost stories - and they feature strong, intelligent girls. Likewise Garth Nix, whose Old Kingdom stories are all about girls with amazing  abilities. One of his books was a hilarious Regency fantasy, Newt’s Emerald. My lovely publisher Paul Collins started as a straight SF writer and moved into writing for children and teens and publishing for them.  Same with Sean McMullen, who has written several YA books over the last few years, after a career in adult SF/F. Philip Pullman could have written SF/F for adults with a little tweaking, but instead wrote an amazing YA series, His Dark Materials. Even Jack Heath, who does write teen thrillers, wrote at least one novel in which the girl was the adventurer and the boy was her tech support. Sean Williams does both, and his brilliant YA trilogy about what might really happen if we had teleport had a girl as the main character. Plenty more where those names come from. Those are only the SF/F writers. Anh Do(who also paints and entertains) and Oliver Phommavanh(primary school teacher and comedian)and Felice Arena(formerly a soapie actor, of all things) all write wonderful stuff for younger readers. Andy Griffiths, anyone? 

They certainly aren’t complaining about being labelled for writing women’s stuff! As a matter of fact, there are, I believe, men writing Mills and Boon under female pseudonyms, and a guy I used to know for his fantasy novels was writing historical romance last time we spoke.

Of course, this lady would argue that these men had a choice, one she doesn’t have, because of being a woman. Yet there are plenty of female writers who are writing for adults without this labelling. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it. 

I am not sure I will be reading any more of this author’s books, though I did enjoy the first one - here’s the thing, I enjoyed it, but probably won’t be rereading it, though I do reread YA and children’s books. 

I dropped out of the discussion after saying that, no, she wasn’t a YA novelist, because I will be hearing her speak at a con next year and don’t want to spoil it, especially if we end up on a panel together.

I can only hope she doesn’t do any panels on YA.