Hi,

I'm so glad you're working so hard to get kids to enjoy reading. I don't know why they don't. Perhaps too much distraction. Reading for me has always been the best kind of treat. I wrote about that on my Red Room blog a few weeks ago. The only children I've ever had are of the four-legged variety but thank you for building a new generation of readers.

I must add that I was enormously impressed by your incredibly long line last year at BEA. I was so excited to be there signing for the first time and walked around the Javits Center like a kid in a candy shop. LOL Books! All of those books! And authors! I saw a seemingly endless line snaking through the building and asked why. The answer came in two words: James Patterson. Bravo!

Best,

Darlene

www.darlenearden.com

Long before I even deigned to write a novel, I was a technical writer. Nothing gives me more gratification than when someone tells me I'm a "Great Explainer." It's what I'm supposed to do. And as seriously as I take my job, little of what I explain is really going to make a life or death difference, other than, perhaps, to their intellectual curiosity. For the most part, my audience is "grown boys" who can think for themselves. It is with fear and trembling, however, that I would venture to write a children's book. Kids are pliable creatures, and like it or not, they take our words as gospel, even in harmless, whimsical literature.

Any one of us who remotely works with kids (or has kids...I have four kids and three grandkids) realize there's a vestige of Krusty the Clown lurking in our dark souls. Fortunately, as pliable as kids are, they can also spot a fake from a mile away. Writing kids books is brutally difficult....and a lot of what I see from some of the current breed of "children's authors" is that they obviously never had a childhood of their own. (Belle Yang is one shining exception in this regard, of course, as are others. I have sleepless nights wondering what's going to happen to Foo the Flying Frog.)

Every kid who reads a story or has one read to him, comes away with a world view of some kind. He will either see the world as a scary place, or one full of adventure and hope. (And in the best literature, perhaps a bit of both). But in either case, he needs to know that he has some control...some SAY in the matter. He/she needs to know that if there's a problem out there, he/she can fix it. Kids still need heroes.

Eric

A kid's author has the responsibility of being an 'explainer' too. It is his/her job to show the order that exists in an increasingly chaotic universe.