Tag: Bette Boa Lord

There are two kinds of children’s books: the kind that grownups want children to read and the kind that children want to read. As adults, we may be tempted to write the first type of book. The kind that gets Newberry and Caldecott medals. The kind that ends up on librarian and teacher’s lists. They catch the attention of editors, receive critical acclaim, and give us the validation we so desperately crave as writers. But today, I want to encourage you to try writing the latter.

Speaking from Experience

I remember it like it was yesterday. My mother would pull a book off the shelf at our local library.

“How about this one?” she would say, foolish optimism in her eyes.

I would shake my head. “It’s not about baseball.”

My poor mother would try every trick in the book to broaden my horizons. But my horizons wouldn’t budge. Occasionally, I would be forced to read some textbooks with boring stories meant to expand my vocabulary. But these stories felt like having a tooth pulled. Soon, my mother relented and checked out exclusively baseball books for me. I can’t remember some of the titles, and sometimes I didn’t finish them before the deadline, but a spark had been lit. One book I do remember was In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Boa Lord.

There are Exceptions

“Now wait a minute Kyle,” you say. “In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson is a classic. You’ve already destroyed your argument.”

Well, not so fast. I listened to the book for Jackie Robinson. Notice I said listened. If it hadn’t been an audiobook, I may not have finished it. But that’s a different blog post. I would have read Charlotte’s Web or The Story of Doctor Dolittle if the animals could turn a double play.

If you play your cards right, you as a writer, parent, teacher, etc. can get a child interested in a great book if it’s about something they are obsessed with. Do they like dogs? Go Dog, Go! is great. They love their teddy bear and all things British? A Bear Called Paddington is pretty good. But writing a great book in hopes that you’ll trick children into reading something great is…well…tricky. And you know why?

Children Can Tell When It Feels Like Homework

Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels, and The Adventures of Pinocchio all felt like homework. And you know what? I never finished them. Children can tell when a book feels like homework. That’s what I loved about being homeschooled. My mother allowed us to read whatever we wanted, which meant we consumed more books and were more invested in what we were reading. I know sometimes it feels like children are reading garbage like Dog Man or a Minecraft book, but that’s because these writers are not thinking about what children should read, but what they want to read. They are giving them recess while other authors are giving them more homework. But you don’t have to sacrifice your integrity as an author.

You Don’t Have to Talk Down to a Child

While some books talk to children like they are adults who read The New Yorker, others try to “dumb down” a story. Both are bad. A book should never feel like an adult is talking to them, but a peer. That’s why I enjoy first-person narrative so much. It allows me to talk to the reader like I am a 12-year-old boy. It also helps that I have not matured past this age. Bob Smiley does this so well with his Average Boy books. It feels like being in the mind of a 12-year-old boy. Literacy rates are declining, so we don’t want to write like the 1800s. But we also don’t want to write a middle-grade book using only the words Dr. Seuss used for The Cat in the Hat. S.D. Smith fills The Green Ember series with heavy paragraphs that only works for readers who like Tolkien and an older style of writing. They are great books to get your kids used to a more classical type of novel. But for those who struggle to read, it might be difficult.

It’s Not Just About the Words

Sometimes it is not about the word choice, or how fat the paragraphs are. It’s about the story. If you write a chapter book about an accountant filing taxes, your chances of a child reading it are slim. You may like stories of hitmen and lawyers today, but what about when you were a kid? What were the types of stories you loved? Today, I will read books that don’t even mention baseball. But there was a time when I held onto my principles. As writers, we need to remember what mattered to us when we were a child. What struggles we had. What were our obsessions? If we do this, we might just write a children’s book that children will want to read!

Author Bio

Just like his two older brothers, Kyle Morgan was homeschooled from Kindergarten through High School. He graduated from Grand Canyon University in 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing for New Media. When he is not busy writing the next classic children’s book, Kyle loves spending time with his family, all things baseball, and watching black and white movies. He is a monthly contributor to Write2Ignite where he blogs about writing for children. His work has appeared in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, The Caldwell Perspective and StarLight Magazine. You can check out his Facebook page or follow him on Instagram.