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READ IT AGAIN! Arrive at my house unannounced and you might see something strange through the bay window. What's a grown woman doing crawling around the house on her hands and knees? Research! Everything looks different when you're 30 inches tall. Bookshelves loom like skyscrapers. Dogs stand big as horses. Imagine flipping pancakes using a shovel. Think about never getting to see all the interesting stuff that happens up on the countertop. That's what life feels like to toddlers who inhabit a grown-up sized world. Recognize those sensations and experiences with your writing, and your story will be halfway home. So you are thinking like a baby, or toddler. What next? Do you have fun when you write? You should. Otherwise, how fun could it be to read your stories? Play to toddlers' great sense of humor. Surprise them! Change your patterns, play with words and sounds. Create the opposite of what kids might expect, or concoct things that are clearly absurd to adults. "Getting the joke" makes children feel powerful and keeps them involved, especially for future readings. Which brings me to a critical point: Toddlers like to do the same things, over and over, and over again. They are passionate about revisiting the characters, pictures, and sounds in their favorite books. Whet their appetites by writing stories that demand a second look. It's hard to overstate the importance of rhythm in toddler
books. Toddlers are the world's toughest audience, and they won't
sit still for a less than captivating story, even if the pictures
are beautiful or the topic is close to their hearts. Think about
pacing and suspense. Page-turning points should be irresistible.
Toddlers love to anticipate, so give them clues along the way
about what they can look forward to. All good tools when used appropriately. But many stories seem to incorporate these elements primarily for the sake of having the "right" ingredients, rather than because they are essential to the story. Summarize your story in one sentence. Then read it and ask yourself, "Why should this particular story rhyme? Does my alliteration have anything at all to do with the plot? Do the sound words (CRASH!) enhance the story, or are they just fillers?" Peel away every word and device that isn't 100% useful. Let your story sparkle on its own merits, not because it's got all the "right" stuff. Last, let's talk about vocabulary. Babies don't know a lot
of words, so you should keep language simple, right? Not exactly.
Babies and toddlers have surprisingly large receptive vocabularies.
Don't dumb down your story to include only words that you know
they can say or those they hear frequently. Use context clues
to support the use of more interesting words. If your stories
challenge young children's finely tuned ears with beautiful sounds
and cadences, you will encourage young children to fall in love
with language. When she's not crawling around on all fours, Hope can be found reading, biking, or dancing to The Beatles with her two young sons. A former teacher, Hope is active in the Ann Arbor area where she works as a consultant for childcare centers, freelances curriculum materials, and conducts workshops for teachers and parents. Hope's first two picture books, MAMA MOUNTAIN, and DRIVING DADDY, will be published by Dutton; dates pending. |
