Picturebook

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Moralizing in Books

February 24, 2010 in Advice, Publishing | 20 comments

Here’s a question from reader, Melissa:

I have heard rumblings that the professional field is tired of picture books with moralizing storylines. Is this accurate? Does this signify a move towards content that is more realistic or edgy? Can you also expound on the much maligned, yet common use of anthropomorphic characters?

As for your first question, you are definitely correct. Publishers do not want a moralizing storyline or an explicit message. The best way to deliver a message is to create a vibrant character who goes through something in the plot and emerges on the other side a little bit (or a lot bit) changed, but their realizations should never be blatantly expressed. It must be the reader’s interpretation and understanding that does this work, not the author.

Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to do something? Or they sat you down for a lecture? Remember how that made you feel? Yeah, today’s agents, editors, and kids don’t like that feeling either, so those books don’t get picked up. It’s your job to tell a story, not to teach or moralize.

As for the anthropomorphic thing, some editors are still looking for these types of stories, definitely. And there are people who can make an animal as realistic and engrossing as a kid character in a picture book. In fact, I love the picture book LITTLE BLUE TRUCK, which features animals and… a little blue truck as the protagonist of the story. But they have human attributes, they go through a big struggle or on a journey, and they come out all the better for it at the end. However, I think a lot of animal stories are written by people who are thinking back to their childhoods and the picture books that were available back then. This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but it does usually result in books that feel old-fashioned and out of touch with today’s market. Of course, there are reasons that animal books are classics. Look at THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, for instance, which still makes me cry, all these years later.

While this isn’t true for every editor, some of the editors and agents I know do groan when an animal hero comes across their desks. They have to have a very good reason for being an animal, I say, and it has to be crucial to the story. Otherwise you just might be undercutting yourself by today’s sensibilities and standards. If you want to write an animal story, try the animal as a child as well, just to experiment, and make sure you stay in either the first person or the close third so that the reader gets their inner experience as well as their outer conflict.

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What to Query With

January 29, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 42 comments

This answers a question that both Haylee and Siski asked a while ago, about what to send out or query with when you’ve got several projects kicking around your desk. Lots and lots of writers have multiple projects that they’ve completed. This is even more true for picture book writers, who may have 20 or more manuscripts.

The problem is, if they are beginning writers, those 20 manuscripts likely have some of the same issues. If I look at a manuscript that someone has queried me with and it lacks a strong character, for example, or a strong plot, or the voice is wrong, or there’s a lack of active language, or there’s no scene setting, seeing that the author has 19 more, hot off the press and ready to go, isn’t going to be a draw for me. If they were all written around the same time, or even before the one I’m looking at currently, they’re likely suffering from the same issues as the first manuscript.

Every time you sit down to write, you are getting better. You’re learning. Sometimes it takes writing an entire novel-length manuscript to teach you a valuable lesson about your own craft. And sometimes, that lesson won’t get published. Sometimes, in fact, it takes five manuscripts, ten manuscripts, twenty, for you to feel your way around the novel form. The same is true for picture books. In fact, it’s even more true. Picture books are deceptively simple and it is awfully hard to make a great one. Lots of people think otherwise, and happily churn out an entire slew of drafts. I think it’s more reasonable to see your early work and your early, prolific output as more of an exercise rather than a finished product. As such, I don’t want to see all of your exercises in my inbox. Some practice is better left for your eyes only.

If you get the itch to query and you’ve got multiple projects, query  with your absolutely strongest one. I read thousands and thousands and thousands of queries and manuscripts. I can tell where an author is from looking at their work. Not every project — especially not the ones you wrote when you were still beginning and figuring things out — will sell. Show me only your strongest work. If I’m considering taking you on, I’ll be asking about your future projects and what else you have in mind, since those will more likely be even better. I will very rarely say, “Hey, do you have any problematic drawer novels I can sell?” unless you are a 12 out of 10 genius.

Agents really dislike it, actually, when people send a stable of their work on first contact. Pick the best one. If I want to see more, I’ll ask. This is especially pertinent to picture book authors. If I like the project they query with, I always want to make sure they have at least two more that I love before I take them on.

Bonus Tip: If you query an agent and get rejected, wait at least 6 months before querying them — of anyone — with a different project. Per my thinking above, the new thing you send me is most likely going to have the same issues that I noticed when I just rejected your first project. If you send out a project and it garners lots of rejections and little personalized or positive feedback, the cure isn’t jumping back into querying with a different project. The smarter thing to do would be to go back to the drawing board for a while and work on craft.

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WooHoo!

January 13, 2010 in Site Stuff | 31 comments

I’m a little late posting this but that doesn’t mean I’m any less excited. I’m so thrilled for my author/illustrator client, Lindsay Ward, and her first author/illustrator project, PELLY AND MR. HARRISON VISIT THE MOON. It’s going to be a really fun story… and gorgeous art, of course! You can visit her website here: Lindsay’s Bake Shop. I can’t wait until 2011. My first projects will be coming out then and it’ll be so fantastic to finally hold a client’s book in my hands and see them in stores!

pelly

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When You Get an Offer

January 13, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 30 comments

This is the situation every querying writer is looking forward to: getting an offer of representation from an agent. Awesome. Now what? Well, I want to write several posts on this issue, but here’s the first thing you need to do… let other agents know.

Don’t let every agent you queried know — let only the agents who have responded with a partial request, a full request, or any other kind of encouraging sign, and have not given you their decision yet. The only exception is with a picture book submission, where you’ve queried with a full manuscript. Since you sent the full manuscript, contact all the agents you queried. Write them the following email and put “OFFER RECEIVED” in the subject line:

Dear Mary,

I know you’re still reading BOOK TITLE but I wanted to let you know that I’ve received an offer of representation. I’d like to see if you’re also interested in the project. Please get back to me by X day and let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!

Author

Give the agent a week to respond. Within the day, you should hear back from agents. They’ll either say, “Yes, I’m still reading and will get back to you within the week” or, “You know, I should probably step aside at this point.” Then you wait for the agents who still want to consider to either bow out or toss their hats into the ring. But yes, let them know immediately. It’s not being pushy. Someone already sees the value in your work, so you can call attention to yourself in this situation.

I hope all of you get to experience this and have one of the most exciting weeks of your career so far!

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We Interrupt Our Programming to… Squee!

December 2, 2009 in Editors, Etc. | 14 comments

Ch-ch-ch-check it out. Below is a screenshot of a Publishers Marketplace listing, where agents post deals they’ve made (all writers should get an account and subscribe, it’s only $20 a month… PM is a gold mine for research, learning people’s tastes, seeing what they’re buying and selling, etc.).

I’m very excited about BUGLETTE, a project from a debut author/illustrator.

marydeal2

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Manuscript Length

November 13, 2009 in Advice, Agent | 30 comments

ChristaCarol asked this question a bit ago and I thought I’d answer it for everyone, since it really is on people’s minds. I almost hesitate to get into this discussion publicly but, well, that’s never stopped me before. :)

I have a question about your opinion on word count in YA fantasy. And this may be one of those subjective things that drive us all nuts, but my manuscript is at 90K, which I’d thought (for a Fantasy) was high, but okay. A wonderful agent who offered to critique the query through a contest mentioned she would pass on the project just because of the high word count. Is this done often? Should I be scared? Should I go back and find a way to chop out 10K? Another writer mentioned just querying it at 80K even if it’s 90K, but I’m not sure, wouldn’t this dirty up my integrity or something?

This is a great question. I love getting publishing myth/rumors that I can confirm or deny. Now, ChristaCarol is astute when she mentions that this might be one of those subjective things that drives us all nuts, because… this is one of those subjective things that drives us all nuts. I can give you two answers. First, the cute and fuzzy one: As long as the manuscript and the story has earned every single one of those vital and carefully-chosen words, the word count doesn’t matter. There are those very rare exceptions where I see a word count in a query, have a mini heart attack, but then the author convinces me that each word is necessary and I agree whole-heartedly. If given enough reason, people (and that includes editors and agents) will read long books.

Now for the more practical, everday truth. Personally — and this sounds extremely crass and judgmental of me, I know — the lower your word count, the more I like you, right off the bat. For example, right now, I’ve got about 150 queries and 8 manuscripts in my queue. And that’s from, like, the last couple of days. That’s a lot of words for me to read. When I get a query for anything over 80k words that sounds really cool, I groan a little bit inside. It’s not the word count, per se, because, if something sounds cool, I really do get excited to read it. It’s that I have so many other submissions on my plate, so I half-dread loving it a lot and having to read all those 80k words. And if I take it on, I’ll have to read those 80k words over and over again as we revise. It represents a big time commitment. I realize this is arbitrary and perhaps lazy of me but… welcome to the world of a very busy agent. Sometimes, we have these thoughts.

There are times, though, (and these are the rule, not the exception, I find) when an inflated word count isn’t earned, isn’t awesome, isn’t because every word deserves to be there. I usually find that first-time fantasy, paranormal or sci-fi authors are the worst offenders. They craft a redundant manuscript full of lavish description that moves at a snail’s pace. Then they send it to me and proudly say that there are 155k words and that it’s the first in a trilogy. I read the writing sample and see paragraph after paragraph of dense text with no breaks for dialogue or scene. These are the high word count manuscripts that are problematic. Because, clearly, the author hasn’t revised enough. And if I tell them what really needs to happen — that they need to lose about 50% of their words — they’ll have an aneurysm.

But, truthfully, if your word count is anything over 100k in children’s, it better be higher-than-high YA fantasy. And all those words better be good. Cutting words and scenes and “killing your babies,” as I like to put it, is one of the most hard-won revision skills any writer can have. And it usually comes after you’ve done lots and lots and lots of revision in your life. Many debut authors haven’t yet learned how to make — and enjoy — this type of word sacrifice. It shows.

Now, there’s also a real reason I usually balk at manuscripts with a high word count, besides my own busy inbox and the fact that most really wordy manuscripts reflect a lack of polish and revision. So, as we’ve already established, a lot of my highest word count submissions come from debut authors. For editors, debut authors are an exciting but fundamental risk. They’re untested in the marketplace, they could potentially lose the publisher a lot of money.

Words equal pages and pages equal money in terms of production costs. Longer books are also heavier and bigger, so the publisher will have to invest more in shipping costs and warehouse space, which all figures into their bottom line before they even acquire the book. (All editors have to guess how much money their house will have to spend to publish this book and how much earning potential the book has. They have to put it together and present it to their team before they can make an offer. It’s called a Profit and Loss Statement or, in my mind, The Spreadsheet of Terror.)

The more words a manuscript has, the more expensive it’ll be to turn into a book. So editors will frown if I try to send them a really long book from a debut author. Their investment in this book will have to be much higher and, these days especially, there’s less chance they’ll take that kind of risk on a debut. So I have to think about that when I think about representing a longer manuscript, too. I’m here to sell your many words, not just enjoy them by myself. :)

As ChristaCarol says, there are different accepted word count limits for different genres and age groups. This is the part I hesitate to do, but I will throw my hat in the ring and suggest some maximum word counts for different types of projects.

  • Board Book — 100 words max
  • Early Picturebook — 500 words max
  • Picturebook — 1,000 words max (Seriously. Max.)
  • Nonfiction Picturebook — 2,000 words max
  • Early Reader — This varies widely, depending on grade level. I’d say 3,500 words is an absolute max.
  • Chapterbook — 10,000 words max
  • Middle Grade — 35,000 words max for contemporary, mystery, humor, 45,000 max for fantasy/sci-fi, adventure and historical
  • YA — 70,000 words max for contemporary, humor, mystery, historical, romance, etc. 90,000 words max for fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, etc.

Now, again, these are just estimates I’ve gathered from my experience. (Disclosure: Early Readers and Chapterbooks are not my personal forte.) If a manuscript goes over the maximum that editors usually deal with, there has to be a damn good reason.

Let me also address right now that I’ve been seeing some queries for “Early Middle Grade” in the 7,000 word range. No, no, no. That’s too tiny. Middle Grade, even Early Middle Grade, beings at around 15,000 words minimum. But this does bring to light that there are all sorts of gray areas. Upper Middle Grade. Lower YA. The sometimes-mocked label of “Tween.” So word count is a tricky wicket. How about this? If you’re worried that your book is too long and you sometimes dread doing yet another revision because there’s so much of it to read… cut! And know that some agents do automatically reject manuscripts because of their length. I’m not quite there yet but, if I do see something over 80k, it has to work pretty darn hard to convince me that all those words are necessary.

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Query Contest: Honorable Mentions!

November 4, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 20 comments

Okay, you guys. In a very real sense, I was blown away by these queries. And I almost wish I hadn’t run the contest, because now I have to choose winners and that’s been very hard. My personal challenge was choosing submissions based on the strength of the query more than the strength of the hook or the idea, which isn’t really the point of a query contest. Let me tell you, it was very, very difficult! So, without further ado, here are the Honorable Mentions. I chose these queries because they were great, but they also had some opportunity for me to illustrate a few query points.

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The first one is Laurie Edwards, with her query for Red Beads:

Dear Ms. Mary Kole:

Water beetles, worms, and crickets—delicious, right? When you’re starving, pregnant, and on the run from the emperor, they are.

Laurie definitely takes a risk here! This is a question query, sure, but the question is interesting. It’s risky because a) it might gross the agent out right off the bat and b) because it doesn’t exactly tell me about what kind of book I’m looking at here… this could easily be the first line of a creepy crawly picturebook about the eating habits of indigenous people or something. But I kept reading.

Those are only some of the many hardships Mei faces in Red Beads, my edgy YA novel set in China during the Ming dynasty. This tale of palace intrigue, forbidden love between a concubine and a eunuch, and the triumph of the human spirit is complete at 57,000 words.

Great summary in one line tells me everything I need to know, including the central conflict and the main characters.

When sixteen-year-old Mei is taken as a concubine against her will, her feisty personality arrests the attention of head eunuch, Li. He concocts a plan to not only protect her, but to give her heart’s desire—the opportunity to read and write her beloved poetry. But Mei’s jealous cousin Daiyu reports their secret meetings to the emperor, who condemns Li to death and punishes Mei with a sentence worse than death. After Mei realizes she is carrying a deadly secret (the emperor’s child), she flees the Forbidden City, and her life becomes a fight for survival as she matches wits with those who hope to imprison or destroy her.

I love that we find out more about Mei and her passion, poetry. However, “… a sentence worse than death” is a little vague. I think she’s being forced into sexual service of some kind but I had to read it a few times to make sure that’s what we were talking about. Might want to be more specific for the purposes of a query.

When I stood in the Forbidden City several years ago, this story gripped my heart and has since been a labor of love. As for those water beetles and worms? I’m not sure how they’d taste raw (the way Mei eats them), but they’re delicious cooked. I believe in immersing myself in the culture I’m writing about, so during my trip to China, I enjoyed deep-fried water beetles, but must admit I wasn’t as enamored with boiled sand worms. A former librarian, I have been using my research skills to flesh out the historical details. In addition to reading extensively on the Ming dynasty, I have enlisted the aid of a scholar to insure the historical accuracy.

Be careful about giving too much information about yourself. This is a great story — risky again because of the ick factor — but might be too much info for the query. I love that she’s so knowledgeable about the culture and setting that she’s desribing but I would save something like this story for the phone when the agent calls to talk more about the project. It’s an extra little bit of zest but it takes the attention off the book which, for the purpose of the query, is most important.

My writing credits include Rihanna (People in the News) for Lucent (2009) and “Summer Storms” in Summer Lovin’, an anthology from Wild Rose Press (2009). I also have more than 850 magazine and educational articles in national publications including Highlights for Children, Woman Alive!, Junior Trails, First Teacher, On the Line, Light and Life, and Clubhouse as well as in encyclopedias, reading books, and educational databases.

I would be happy to send Red Beads for your review. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Impressive list of publication credits and a breezy sign-off. Nice!

Sincerely,
Laurie Edwards

Now we move on to a picturebook Honorable Mention from Michelle Munger!

Dear Ms. Kole,

Reading your biography, I have found we share a common interest in the works of Neil Gaiman. I hope you will find my story “I Want to be a Cowboy”, a 680 word picture book for ages 4-8 years old, intriguing as well.

I appreciate the author reading my bio and reaching out to make a connection. However, I’m not quite sure how Neil Gaiman fits into a picturebook called “I Want to be a Cowboy.” If you’re going to include personalization in the query, it’s a good idea to have it be pertinent to the work you’re submitting.

Popper is a prairie dog who desperately wants to be a cowboy, like the ones he watches on the ranch just above his home. He decides to find a way to become a cowboy and asks every animal he finds if they know how to be a cowboy. Each animal gives him different advice, but even after he finds boots for his feet and a hat for his head, he still doesn’t feel like a cowboy. It isn’t until he learns to use the things he finds that make him truly a cowboy. The story uses repetition and spunky animals to help him realize it’s not what he has, but how he uses them that make the difference in the end.

The story sounds cute and I like it. The conflict, action and resolution are described well. However, this is a picturebook. Even if you’re only writing the text, give me at least one concrete image to walk away from the query with. Like, for example, I want to know more about “It isn’t until he learns to use the things he finds that make him truly a cowboy.” Give me an example. What does he learn to use? How does it make him feel? Describe a scene for me in a sentence that’ll give me a mental picture.

I am an author/illustrator and member of SCBWI. I attend local weekly critique groups and am active in on-line groups to perfect my craft. I started Manic Network on Ning, a network to bring author/illustrators together so we can all learn from one another. I am a member of VSS, the Visual Storytellers Studio. I would like to illustrate this book, but I would be alright if you see a different vision from another illustrator. The manuscript and sample pictures can be sent at your request.

Great. Normally, of course, if you’re sending a picturebook query, you’ll include the text of the full manuscript, depending on an agency’s guidelines. If you’ve got a link online to illustrations from the project, even better. Include the link in your query so you don’t have to send an attachment to the agent.

Thanks so much for your time,
Michelle Munger

As you can see, these are really strong queries already. Finally, we’ve got another YA query from Marie Devers:

Dear Ms. Kole,

Moxie McCormick’s dad is ditching her in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Grabs my attention but watch out. This opening line isn’t so much about Moxie as it is about her dad, he’s the primary subject of the sentence and it raises more questions about him than about her.

Sounds harsh, but Moxie gets it. He’s given up everything to raise her. Now he’s pursuing his dreams, and 16-year-old Moxie must fend for herself. Her dad sets her up in the college dorms and asks the RA to look out for her. He tells Moxie to use this chance to live.

This sounds intriguing but slightly implausible, so I wanted the writer to combat that feeling of “No dad would ever, ever do this in real life” with some more facts. My brain is asking a lot of questions. Why did he give everything up? What dreams is he pursuing? It feels like he’s leaving her for a long time, even though we learn later that it’s only four weeks. He seems really callous to me from this short description. Also, notice how all the attention is on the dad so far, not the main character.

Moxie joins her new school’s award-winning choral group. She yearns to perform, so what’s stopping her from taking the solo she’s offered and performing at the local open mic night?

Take your pick:

Now we’re getting more Moxie! Good. I also like the “Take your pick,” because it has voice. The query is starting to come into its own.

  • Moxie’s new Alaskan friends are hell-bent on changing her.
  • She’s caught the eyes (and ears) of not one, but two cute guys.
  • All the attention is intensifying her stage fright (if that’s possible).

I like the bullet format. It’s not something I see very often, and it boils down Moxie’s world in a quick and easily digestible way. This does raise more questions, though. Why are her friends bent on changing her? Into who or what?

Moxie’s got four weeks of Alaskan freedom before her dad returns. Will she take his advice and live? Or will the pressure of being a strange new girl in a strange new land keep her from finding her voice?

Really like the last line but the first sentence is problematic. The opening of the query made it sound like the Dad was ditching her and she felt bad about it (though I really couldn’t tell what she was feeling because we didn’t hear about her that much…). Now this makes it sound like she couldn’t wait to get rid of Dad and have fun and it’s this wild adventure, instead of abandonment. The two don’t reconcile for me.

Complete at 50,000 words, MILES ABOVE EVERYTHING is a young adult rock-and-roll love story. I’m querying you because I read your blog and I know you’re wishing for YA fiction with a rock-and-roll slant.

Yay! Someone looked at my Wish List (in the sidebar of my blog) and sent me something cool. I do wonder how choral music equals a rock-and-roll love story, but I might just have to request some sample pages and find out. :)

I’ve been a professional educational writer since 2005. MILES ABOVE EVERYTHING is my first novel. For three years, I taught English classes at the University of Alaska Fairbanks–the setting of MILES ABOVE EVERYTHING. While there I earned an MFA in fiction.

It’s nice to know that the writer has an MFA degree. That’s no requirement, by any means, but it lets me know that she’s serious and driven about fiction. It’s also great that she’s so familiar with the setting of her story, and I love the title. This sort of brief blip about her experience with her setting is something I wanted to see in Laurie’s query, above. It’s just enough where I know she’s an expert in what she’s writing about.

I’ve included the first ten pages below. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to see more.

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Marie Devers

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So there you are, the three Query Contest Honorable Mentions. Stay tuned these next few days, I’ll be choosing more and more winners and dissecting their queries. I hope this proved a useful exercise for you. The fun is just beginning!

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Getting an Offer and THEN an Agent

October 15, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Editors | 12 comments

Elizabeth asked this great question yesterday and I wanted to tackle it for everyone:

I am unpublished and unagented, but I have a picture book manuscript under serious consideration at a great publishing house. If I am offered a contract, can I (without annoying the publisher) try to find an agent before accepting the contract? Would this take too much time from the publisher’s point of view? Would agents be likely to take me on at this stage? I have heard that many agents are not interested in picture book authors. Is it better to try to find a literary contract lawyer and pursue an agent after I have a published book under my belt? Such a raft of questions! I am obviously in a stew.

Most of the advice I can give Elizabeth will apply to all creators who have received an offer for their work and want to find an agent, so read on. First of all, congratulations! Even though there’s no firm offer yet, you’re in a good place. I’d advise you to take the time — once you receive a firm offer — to find an agent. When you query, put something like this in your subject line: “Picturebook Query — OFFER RECIEVED.” Believe me, you’ll catch a few eyes because it’s good news for both you and the prospective agent.

Since you have an offer on the table, the agent search won’t take too long. Agents tend to read things that have offers quickly, and picturebooks are easy to evaluate fast. The publisher should also be understanding. It’s happened to them before. I’d say that, if getting an agent is your eventual goal and you’re sure you’ll have one sooner or later, do it now while you can seem more attractive to them. There’s really not much reason not to.

Now, the agents I know are still taking picturebooks on but it’s tougher to attract an agent with a picturebook than with a fiction manuscript, that’s true. Make sure you query people who deal in picturebooks or have in the past. When I’m evaluating a picturebook author, I always ask them what else they have. Before I take one on, I like to know that this author has other manuscripts. I’d be less interested to take an author on who only has one or two picturebook ideas in them. I want someone who has potential for a long and lucrative career, of course.

As for the deal itself, I do want to tell you that a) if you get an agent before you sign your contract, they will take 15% of the money you’ll earn and b) there will be a very limited number of things they’ll actually be able to do for you with this contract. They might not be able to get you a better offer, but they probably will be able to negotiate better terms for you, like rights, options, royalties, etc than you would’ve gotten on your own. So you will lose some money in the short term but will most likely fare better in the long run with this particular book when you bring an agent aboard.

All that said, an offer in hand isn’t a magic bullet. The agent will still have to love you and your work enough to be your long-term advocate, for this deal and for those in the future. I wouldn’t take someone on automatically just because they have a contract. Overall, a good situation to be in. I’m obvious in favor of writers getting agents, but I’m also very much in favor of this particular scenario, since this is exactly how I got my first picturebook author/illustrator client, who I love!

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Rhyming Picturebooks: A Rhyme With Reason

September 5, 2009 in Writing | No comments

There’s a farily strong consensus out there that some editors are moving away from rhyming picturebooks right now. One reason for this, as I see it, is that picturebooks in general are evolving. They’re being acquired by younger editors, they’re being purchased by cooler parents, they’re becoming modern and… if I dare say… maybe even hip. Not all picturebooks, of course, because almost every list has room for the traditional, beautiful picturebook reminiscent of the good old days of yore. But there’s definitely been innovation, and that’s crucial to remember when you sit down to write yours.

Rhyming picturebooks — especially those written in rhyming couplets — harken back to more traditional picturebook legacy. That’s not bad, per se, but with all the new styles and ideas hitting the shelves, the more traditional is becoming a more difficult sell. Here are some other reasons rhyming picturebooks are becoming less attractive to some agents and editors:

  1. They’re old hat. See above.
  2. Not everyone can write brilliant rhyme. And, in this market, it has to be brilliant, fresh, unique, imaginative, unexpected… No lazy or conventional rhyme will cut it.
  3. There also has to be a reason for the rhyme. Too many times, I feel like a manuscript’s rhyme is forced or dictates the story… that the author is making decisions based on which words would fit into their scheme, not based on which words would make the best possible storytelling sense.

If you’re considering writing a rhyming picturebook, ask yourself this question: Why does it need to rhyme? If you answer: “Because that’s how a picturebook goes” or “Because that reminds me of the books I read as a kid/to my children/to my grandchildren,” then that might not be reason enough.

One of the most compelling reasons to rhyme, in my opinion, is if you are an author who relishes playing with the language. It’s also a good thing if the rhyme is an integral part of the story. I read a book a little while ago that blew my mind with its dizzying, sprawling, complicated rhyme. If there was no rhyme in this book, there’d be no book! If you’re up to the challenge of writing truly astounding rhyming picturebooks in the current climate, definitely add BUBBLE TROUBLE (Clarion, 2009, by Margaret Mahy and illustrated by Polly Dunbar) to your bookshelf.

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Blog Tour: Toni Buzzeo Visits Kidlit!

June 25, 2009 in Etc. | No comments

We’ve got a special blog tour post today from author Toni Buzzeo, whose latest book, ADVENTURE ANNIE GOES TO WORK came out in February from Dial.

This is the fourth stop on her blog tour and she wants to tell readers a little bit about how this book was inspired by her own life as a working mom. Toni, take it away…

Do I know the challenges of working motherhood? You’d better believe I do!

I was a working mom from the day my son Topher was born. As a faculty member in a college external degree program, I had welcome flexibility with my work hours and it just made sense to work through his birth and infancy. However, when he was four years old, I returned to my early roots in libraries and landed the perfect job as a children’s librarian in a neighboring town. So I made the decision to jump back into the full-time work force. Little did I know then that the path would lead to a subsequent full time school librarian job and pursuit of a second master’s degree—this time in library and information science. By the time my child was five, I was working a full time job and taking two graduate courses every semester for the next two years. Whew!

On the other hand, my mother never worked outside the home when I was growing up. None of the mothers in my 1950’s and 60’s working class neighborhood did. I grew up with a mother always just inside the door who didn’t shoulder the added responsibilities of a job and its demands. When my editor, Lauri Hornik, asked if I had any ideas for a book about a mom who has to take her child to work one day, I turned, as I always do first, to my own childhood experience. I came up lacking. But as I stewed the idea on the back burner of my mind, I turned to my adult experience as a mom with two sets of responsibilities.

As a result, when I came up with the perfect scenario, I was fully equipped to run with it. My new book, Adventure Annie Goes to Work, is based on a personal understanding of the challenges working moms face. And Annie’s mom has an enormous problem on her hands. The challenge isn’t her high energy daughter (though every parent will understand the subtext there). Instead, the big report is missing at the office, and she’s got to find it immediately. Unfortunately, it’s Saturday—the one day of the week completely devoted to mother-daughter adventures in this family.

Think about it. What could she do? She could quickly find a babysitter, perhaps tapping her mom, her sister, or her best friend, and give up the precious day with her daughter. Or, she could think creatively and make the day a treasure for them both. Of course, you can guess which she chose. In fact, since Annie is pretty focused on adventures (her moniker, Adventure Annie says it all), Annie’s mom decides to take her daughter along on a Big Report Treasure Hunt at the office.

Keep in mind that Annie is a high energy girl. She doesn’t buy into Mom’s plan to seat her at a desk to draw and color quietly. There are hallways, closets, and offices to be explored! There are maps to be made! There are treasures to be found!

To Annie’s mom’s credit, she manages it all with her good spirits generally in tact despite her own mounting tension as one location after another proves fruitless in the search for the report. Annie’s not worried, though. She’s confident in her skills—and in the end, it’s a worthy confidence. As you may have guessed, it’s Annie who finds that missing report, ending the book in a moment of complete triumph.

What’s the message here? There are several. One is a reassuring pat on the back for working moms. Yes, someone knows your path and understands how difficult some days can be. One is a thumbs-up for working moms who manage to balance family and work responsibilities successfully despite disastrous days. And, of course, there’s a full ladle of support for the high-spirited Annie—and for her long-suffering but amazingly supportive mom. No, it’s not easy to raise a child who possess a strong spirit and a will of her own. But in the end, the rewards are worth the effort.

To find out more about Toni Buzzeo and her books, check out her website: www.tonibuzzeo.com. Thanks for stopping by!

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