The ABCs of Writing for Children

Kelly L. Green is editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual’s
Children’s Literature edition.

Undertaking to introduce the novice to the pleasures, problems, and
pitfalls of writing for children, Edwards takes the reader on a
systematic trip, starting with the basic age-based divisions of
children’s literature. She then devotes chapters to a variety of
issues surrounding the process of writing for children, inclusion of
themes, how to get ideas, characterization, plots, taboos, and
discussion of the various genres. She even includes a blueprint for
writing picture books.

The book will be useful to those who have always enjoyed sharing
stories with children and who would like to explore the possibility of
turning this experience into published books. Although it is a good,
basic primer, I would disagree with some of Edwards’s hard-and-fast
rules on such topics as themes and taboos. Edwards asserts that “[n]o
story will get past an editor without a theme. The editor insists that
children absorb a basic human truth while they read for pleasure”; but
this is less than accurate. Truly good writers can provide material that
does not spell out for children that “all that glitters is not
gold.” They can also handle topics that may be considered “taboo.”
Some of the best children’s writers, from Roald Dahl to Mordecai
Richler, have flouted this rule and produced classics.