Naima B. Robert – Na’ima B. Robert Answers Questions for Muslimah Writers How to write for young children
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Bismillah, assalamu alaikum, warahmatullahi wa barakketo.
Welcome to another session of Muslim Writers Q
and A. I am your host, Naima b
Robert, award winning author, publisher, and editor in
chief at Muslimarwriters.com.
Yay.
Today's question is from sister Fatima,
and she asks, how do you go about
writing for very young children?
How much is enough content? My question is,
how do you go about writing for very
young children? How much is enough content? Well,
if you know anything about me, you'll know
that I love children's books. I love writing
for children. I love reading children's books. I
love collecting children's books. I love everything about
children's books because I believe they are so
important
for
inspiring
and nurturing the next generation. So to your
question, Fatima.
Very young children's books will typically start at
board book level.
Okay? And at board book level,
we're talking
minimal words.
Okay? If you think of an example of
a bird a board book, a baby book,
you're talking about maybe 1 word per page,
maybe about 8 pages in the book. Okay?
So really not very much content at all.
A step up from the one word per
page is a book like 'Dear Zoo', for
example,
which, tells the story of a boy who,
asks the zoo for for for a for
a pet, I think, and they send him
a pet every time. That is actually a
novelty book. So the it there's a lift
the flap element. There's sort of opening of
flaps and lifting of flaps and that kind
of thing. And, you know, I think the
whole thing is not more than a 100
words or so. So, you've got, again, depending
on the story, depending on the type of
book,
minimal content,
just enough to get the story across.
Once you move up from baby books and
and board books and, sort of, the the
younger novelty books, you're in now in picture
book territory.
But again, even in picture book territory,
there can be minimal content there as well.
Typically, in picture books, the maximum word limit
is 1,000 words.
Typically,
it's not a hard and fast rule, but,
typically, publishers expect
to find a 1,000 words or less in
a manuscript that they're going to publish as
a picture book. Obviously, a picture book is,
a book, a story,
nonfiction fiction,
which relies very heavily on the pictures to
tell the story and to supplement the story.
So,
there you have it in terms of content.
You stretch from literally a few words
to a 1,000 words. And it very much
depends on the age range that you are
aiming for
and the type of book that you are
wanting to write. Okay? So just as an
example, if it's an ABC book, then you
know what that looks like. It's It's one
word per page, and you're gonna need however
many pages there on the alphabet.
24, 26. I don't know.
But the point is, you're going to only
need that many words.
Really, what you want to do,
when you're writing for very young children,
more than focusing on, sort of, you know,
how much is just enough content or, you
know, is this too little content?
Does
the amount of content
fit with the age group that you are
targeting
and the type of book that you are
looking to create
and the story that you are looking to
tell.
You should know this from when you're writing
and you're sharing it with children and beta
readers.
You know, if you've included too many words
and too much content,
you will see that you start to lose
your audience, because maybe the story you're writing
or the book that you're creating is for
very young children, but you've used too many
words. And so the actual whole process is
too long. When you share it with beta
readers, you will be able to see that.
Similarly,
with a picture book,
story,
if you're aiming it at the upper end
of picture books, which is 6, 7, 8
years old,
even 8 is quite
old, you know, 6, 7, the the higher
range of of picture books, then you need
to make sure that the story and the
vocabulary,
etcetera, is at the level of that higher
range for picture books. And if it's for
the lower range, then make sure that it's
for the lower range. But can I just
say, the answer to this question is actually
a really easy answer?
It's it's
all about
reading the types of books that you want
to write. So if you want to write
for very young children,
you must explore books for very young children.
Read books that are out there available for
very young children. Either buy them from the,
from Amazon, from online, from bookshops, from secondhand
bookshops, from charity shops. You can also, if
you have a library available,
go to the library and spend time in
the young children's section
or whichever section it is that you're hoping
to write for. Spend time with those books.
Notice how long it takes you to read
them. Notice the level of vocabulary.
Notice the topics. Notice the tone. Notice
the
typical aspects of that genre, notice the unspoken
rules. And then once you've immersed yourself in
that, once you've exposed yourself to those types
of books that you're looking to write,
you now have
some sort of benchmark.
You have something to draw on, You have
something to compare what you're writing to. And
that's really, really important. It's important across the
board for all writers, but, particularly, I always
say this about children's books because there are
times when people say to me, I want
to write for children. And I say to
them, what's your favorite children's book? And they
say, I don't have time to read children's
books. And I say, girl, please,
if you're gonna write for kids, you need
to read like a kid. That's the bottom
line. So if you want to write for
young children, read like a young child. If
you want to read for write for older
children, read like an older child. And if
you want to write anything at all,
you need to read the books
that are in the area and in the
genre that you want to write in. So
I hope that's useful to you.
If it is, give us a thumbs up.
Give us a like, a comment, and subscribe
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And, look out for more great content every
week where we answer your questions.
If you do want to write for children,
then may I invite you to my free
5 day training video training sent to you
via email, And you can sign up for
that in the link below this video.
And I hope that you enjoyed that training
and that it helps to answer even more
of your questions if you dream of one
day writing children's books,
I would love to help you on your
journey, inshallah. But in the meantime,
keep writing,
keep on trucking, and we'll see you next
week, inshallah.