Avi

word craft

blog

Why do I write for young people?

readingWhen kids ask, as they often do,  “Why do you write for young peo­ple?” they are just being curi­ous: Why does an adult choose to be engaged with kids? Fair enough. But adults ask that ques­tion, too, and often embed­ded in their ques­tions is the notion, “How come you don’t write for grown-ups, like real writ­ers do?” In fact, an adult once asked me that ques­tion in just those words.

Today, when I was Skyp­ing with a class from North Car­oli­na, a girl said to me, ”I real­ly like read­ing your books.”

“What is it you like about them?” I returned.

She said, “So, what I like about your books, and oth­er kids’ books, is that I think of the authors as my friends. I mean, they know about me, the way you do, and you give me all these adven­tures, and I learn all these things. And I just, you know, like being with my friends that way.”

No adult would say such words to me. This girl, how­ev­er, remind­ed me why I love writ­ing for young people.

2 thoughts on “Why do I write for young people?”

  1. Read­ing this put a smile on my face and remind­ed me why many of us work so hard to get good books into the hands of young readers.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.