How to Write a Children’s Book: Who Are You Writing For?

Advice blogs on writing fiction for kids!

Who am I writing for?

The question can seem like an obvious one at first glance.

Children, of course.

And you might even have a more specific target than that in mind. It could be for the age range of three to five, for kids that are learning to read. Even more specifically, it’s for kids that like dinosaurs.

Great. Why not? That is already enough information for you to get started. And enough, indeed, for you to finish.

What I’m going to suggest, however, is that there is someone else you are writing for.

Namely… yourself.

But let’s leave that for now and focus on your reader. The demographic you are aiming at.

Though it is very well established that children’s book are distinguished from each other by ‘age group’, rather than genre or even alphabetically by author’s name, I have always found there to be some disadvantages to this. Even some reasons why it might not be the most helpful way of thinking when you are writing your story.

The reasons for the ‘age group’ distinction is obvious, however. Typically, children follow a pretty set pattern of reading comprehension, and the level of understanding they have for certain words or sentence structures can be estimated relatively well depending on what age they are. With the fact that they will do a lot of their reading comprehension at school, too, it makes sense to divide books into categories that can have them easily given to classfuls of students with a high success-rate of them being read (and indeed enjoyed).

However, I’m going to put a spanner in the works here.

As helpful as the age ranges in a bookshop can be, from my time working in a bookshop, I’ve always found that these delineations based on age are not entirely worth the few times that they do not work.

The children who struggle, for whatever reason, to read within their age group feel demoralised.

Parents find it embarrassing to stray from the shelf that says the right age, at the cost of not finding the book that will benefit their child best.

And, what’s more, there are books meant for ten-year-olds that I have found life-changing, and books for five-year-olds that are inspiring and beautiful, not in spite of their age category, but because of it. (The best example of this I’ve read in recent times is Bren MacDibble’s Across the Risen Sea which moved me more than any ‘adult’ literary fiction book had for a long time.)

Loosening the reins on these age labels, I’m convinced, can only be a good thing and can help you to focus on writing well, instead of writing within the boundaries of what an age group will understand.

So with that in mind, here are some categories that I have made that might help you in your journey to begin your children’s book.

Those Learning to Read.

This can be anything like an ABC book or a book of animal noises. These books are to facilitate the very early learning of words. They are usually board books and are a couple of hundred words long. This could be for young children, toddlers, those learning English or someone who is learning to write.

Calmly Easing In.

This is one step on from learning to read. The child can follow along as an adult reads it to them. This would usually be a large picture book. They will usually be bright and happy in tone and easy to perform. They’d be somewhere around 500 to 1000 words.

Getting There.

Now the child can read along with an adult, even if they don’t understand every word. This could be a large picture book or a smaller book that has a lot of pictures. There will be one storyline that teaches some neat moral lesson. They might be anywhere under 5000 words long.

Come Along With Me.

These books have longer storylines that are easy to follow. They could be comic-style books or early readers that have no pictures at all. They should be easy to read, but slightly challenging to follow. They have longer words and multiple obstacles for the character to overcome.

A Few-Sessions Book.

These books are now in traditional chapter format, have more complex words, ideas and themes. This is a book that won’t just be read all at once, but will engage the child for a few hours of reading, with a break in between. Now there are what could be called Acts, complex storylines and lots of characters. It might be 10 000 words or more.

A Chapter Adventure.

The stakes of the adventure will be higher and perhaps even some new, more mature concepts will want to be introduced. For all intents and purposes, this is a book that could blend the lines between a children’s book and adult fiction. It reads like literary fiction, but kids lead the action!

So now you have had some insight into how to think about your book and even categorise it, we can take it one step further. This step is, in my opinion, the most helpful and important one when thinking about who you are writing for.

Think about a child in your life, and imagine yourself writing for them.

I, for example, write for my nephew.

When I say this, I don’t mean that I write about subjects that I know he would like or include jokes that I think would make him laugh. I don’t even write for his age or reading level specifically. What I mean is that you should write with the enthusiasm that you would have if you were writing it for them. Write as if the dinosaur-enthusiasts who are learning to read are your nephew, or your daughter, or your next-door-neighbour’s new child. This is the best way to make sure that whatever it is you’re writing — whether it’s about a grumpy frog or a basketball tournament — it has a little bit of a soul in it.

But let’s go right back to the start of this post now and let me remind you that it is not just children that you are writing for, whether it’s some category of them or one in particular.

You are also writing for you.

Whoever the story is intended for, you are the one writing it. You have to enjoy this process, or the story will be lacking something. If you are not invested in your character overcoming whatever obstacle is in their way, then you are missing out on one of the great joys of writing for children.

If there is anything to take away from this chapter, however, it is simply the reminder that, though categories and different age groups will generally hold true for commercial children’s books, this market sits on a huge spectrum. An ever-changing spectrum. Some children will be far beyond and above their reading age. Equally, some children might be late bloomers or have talents other than reading. So whatever you are writing, make sure that it is, even if only in some small way, for everyone.

Write with love, write with enthusiasm and write as if your story will be loved one day by a child you’ve never even met.