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Writing very young audience books (self.writing)

submitted 2 years ago by socialjusticewizard to c/writing

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My daughter has asked me to write a book targeting her age range, 7-10 years old. I've read a few chapter books with her and have an idea of the language level, but I'm finding it very challenging to keep an engaging story going with the constraints. Anyone know of any tips or guides out there worth looking at for helping set language goals in an early readers setting?

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[–] Cwack 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

One major problem with books at our school for kids that age is that the language is too simple. Keep it simple enough, but with some variety. One of the main reasons they read is to develop a functional language and that involves some complex sentence and "new" words.

As for the constraints of the story I have no clue how to keep it enganging within a presumably short book. But I wish you the best of luck 👍

[–] socialjusticewizard 3 points 2 years ago

What I'm thinking after mulling on it since writing this is that I can probably design a simple arc in five short books for the very young, and then step into a more advanced YA arc that stands independent of those books for when the audience ages. Since I'm writing it for my kid, it should work for her. I don't feel any particular need to publish, though if they're good I'll see what happens, so i've got a lot of freedom to play with the format.

I agree about language. I'm trying to avoid going too simple on sentence structure and word choices, but I am working on using words that are more phonics-friendly. My daughter can read and understand complex sentence structures but has troubles reading words that don't sound out well. I'll see how she goes with it.