How to respond to people who think writing books for kids is a warmup act

I stole this from my friend Kerry's blog (visit her at Windmill Watching). Thanks, Kerry! This says it as well as anything I've encountered.

“Many people believe that authors of children’s books eventually ‘graduate’ and go on to write books for adults. That’s like saying your pediatrician may get good enough to, one day, be a doctor for grown-ups.”

from Joy Feldman, author of The Gollywhopper Games

humor and kids' books

i was invited by our local chapter of the SCBWI to talk about writing humor for children. I eagerly accepted the invitation because I've had both editors and librarians tell me lately they'd like to see more funny books for kids. But once I began preparing for the talk, I ran into a little trouble. Can you really teach people how to write humor? I was reminded of E. B. White's famous observation that you can certainly analyze humor but it's sort of like dissecting a frog--you kill the thing in the process.

In retrospect, I realize I could have talked a little about joke-writing for kids--a skill I learned from the inimitable Rick Walton. Start with the answer and work backwards. So in other words if you want to write zoo jokes, you pick an animal (hippopotamus), play around with the word (hippopottymouth) and then come up with an appropriate question: what's big and gray and swears a lot?

But I didn't do that. Instead, the best I could come up with was the idea of modeling--pay attention to WHO makes you laugh (Sceizka? Park? Cabot?) and then ask yourself why. And then try to write in the style of . . .

it seemed like a really lame presentation, actually. I was halfway through and I thought to myself "I'm wasting everyone's time." I hate it when I waste people's time this way.

How do they do it?

I met up with Gene Nelson (Provo Librarian and Children's Lit Guy Extraordinaire) on Friday at the ULA meetings, and I was struck again by his PASSION for kids books. Like, he was going to dress up as "Cool Motorcycle Dude" man to perform a reading that afternoon of a picture book he loves and wow. Can I just say I was impressed? And jealous? He's been in this world for a long time, but he's still feeling the love.

My own enthusiasm is flagging right now, so I find myself intrigued by people who can find ways to keep connecting and caring. How do they do it?

Other people's children

Am working a shift at TKE in the kids' room all day today. I always semi-dread Saturday shifts because some parents just turn their kids loose to do whatever. All that rough handling of the merchandise starts to make me r-e-e-e-a-a-a-a-l-l-l-y nervous. We can't sell something that's been profoundly mauled. Shouldn't that be obvious? And yet it's not my place to ask parents to help their children treat the books respectfully.

So. I'm just bracing myself.