PICTURE BOOKS

MIDDLE GRADE

YOUNG ADULT

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JOIN US IN EXPLORING OTHERS' CRAFT AND BUILDING OUR OWN

Through a combination of humor, culture, warmth and language, Hernandez uses voice to make his characters unforgettable and his novel hard to put down.

Meera Sriram’s picture books take kids to a not so often visited “space”—people, place, experience—to evoke wonder and spark conversations. Sriram feels empowered and hopeful when she thinks about how her stories have the power to influence a child’s worldview.

Our focus today is on co-authorship, and specifically on how two authors can write interfaith or intercultural stories together–a great way to make sure that the books our children read are based on a rich variety of authentic, lived experience.

Follow your curiosity. Write and draw what you like. Know there are no set rules but it is important to understand the current book market. Picture book writing is all about how strong the concept is and then how well it is executed.

Through a combination of humor, culture, warmth and language, Hernandez uses voice to make his characters unforgettable and his novel hard to put down.

Unremarkable jobs used in interesting ways can also enhance your character, drive some of the plot of your story, and perhaps provide the skills characters need to succeed at their biggest challenges.

interview by Kristi Wright In A GOOD KIND OF TROUBLE, Lisa Moore Ramée has built a wonderful cast of characters that contribute significantly to the overall world building through their complex relationships. (See our post on the main character, Shayla.) In the interview below we asked her how she went about crafting her characters and […]

craft review by Kristi Wright A GOOD KIND OF TROUBLE by Lisa Moore Ramée follows “allergic to trouble” Shayla as she navigates seventh grade, including her evolving friendships, her first crush, track and field, and her burgeoning awareness of what it means to be Black in America. After she experiences her first Black Lives Matter […]

craft review by Anne-Marie Strohman As middle grade writers, we don’t have a lot of time to hook the reader. We can rarely start with three pages of setting, or with a lot of backstory. We need to start in the middle of things, but too much in the middle of things and readers get […]

craft review by LA Biscay In his craft book Plot and Structure, author James Scott Bell challenges writers to find the strongest hook for scene openers: “The hook is what grabs the reader’s attention from the start and gets him pulled into the narrative. And here is where many a writer stumbles. “Feeling there needs […]