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“Do you write for adults?”

Kylie, of Orange CA writes, “Do you write for adults?”

girl readingDear Kylie: In my long career as a writer, I began as a play­wright, try­ing to write plays for the stage. I was not very suc­cess­ful but, with­out ques­tion, at that time I was writ­ing for adults.

At a cer­tain time, being dis­cour­aged, an old­er writer friend of mine urged me to stop writ­ing plays, and turn to writ­ing nov­els, nov­els for adults. That I did, and in fact, I wrote a cou­ple of them. They were not good at all.

It was about this time that I began to have kids of my own, and that is when I start­ed to write for young peo­ple. I enjoyed it immense­ly, and my writ­ing was much bet­ter. Moreover—no small point—I was able to sell a cou­ple of books. I have nev­er stopped writ­ing for young people.

(It must be acknowl­edged that from time to time I have writ­ten talks, speech­es, which are meant for adults. They have been impor­tant to do, but not near­ly as inter­est­ing or as fun as my writ­ing fic­tion for young people.)

What I like most about the read­ing expe­ri­ence of nov­els is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of engag­ing ful­ly with the real­i­ty of the sto­ry. Just recent­ly, I was reread­ing Trea­sure Island. When Jim Hawkins goes upon the pirate ship and fights with the pirates—all on his own—I was right there with him. That is the sen­sa­tion I want my read­ers to have with my books. Research has shown that what one expe­ri­ences in a book becomes part of a reader’s own expe­ri­ence. I think young peo­ple do that much bet­ter than adults do. I some­times think adults try to teach young read­ers far too much about mean­ing, sym­bol­ism, themes, when in fact to sim­ply enjoy a book is—in my opinion—the best lev­el, and the most impor­tant expe­ri­ence one can have.

Now, if adults want to read my books, they are more than wel­come. How­ev­er, it is peo­ple like you, Kylie, for whom I write.

3 thoughts on ““Do you write for adults?””

  1. C.S. Lewis said, “A book only worth read­ing in child­hood is sel­dom worth read­ing even then.” My expe­ri­ence has borne him out on that. In oth­er words, when you write for chil­dren, you’re real­ly writ­ing for everyone.

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  2. I was well into my 20’s before I fig­ured out that I could read books pure­ly for enjoy­ment. I’m 45 now, and chil­dren’s books are my favorite, and I think always will be.

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  3. I read all 25 books on the sum­mer read­ing list for my incom­ing sixth graders. I want to be able to chat with them about what we read. I’m curi­ous as to which books were their favorites and why. Kid lit is awesome!

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