Children's Books - What Makes Them Good? - Part 1

There are fewer events that will change your entire life than having a child. One would assume that whether these changes are 'good' or 'bad' depend on the parents, but that's over simplistic. Some changes are inherently and always good—and those are obvious. Other changes are pretty much of the 'bad' variety in every case—again, pretty obvious. I have about a dozen unfinished projects (both creatively and of the 'home improvement' variety) that will no doubt continue to remain unfinished for yet another year. Still, I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression, here. I love being a parent and have perhaps the best 15-month old in the history of good babies.

As mentioned above, being a parent has robbed me of my time used in creative purposes. Again, not complaining, as I'd rather spend time with my little one. However, something has regularly presented itself to my attention over the last year or so—Children's Books require a certain talent to write. This surprised me. Prior to having a child, and thus subjected to reading dozens of them, I was always under the impression that any college drop-out with a vocabulary of two hundred words could spawn a book, then find an art school drop-out to draw a few abstract fuzzy drawings of a biped brown bear to accompany it. Instant cash flow. I had considered it myself a few times in the past—except I don't know any art school drop-outs.

However, I have come to the conclusion that more than just free time and a rhyming dictionary are necessary to write a children's book. This may be hard to grasp for someone who has read less than 100 children's books in the last year, so I will have to provide some sort of evidence. Keep in mind that I could provide more examples or even talking points than what I have below, however, I really don't think I could handle the mental drain of perusing all of my daughter's books just to find examples for my little essay here.

Actually, there are a number of points I could talk on, but found that I really went overboard with the first topic, so I'll mainly dwell on one point in this article, then perhaps come back for the others another time.

A Good Children's Book is Not Automatic.

As mentioned above, I would almost assume that once a person has learned to read at a third-grade level, they should be able to write at a preschooler's level. I mean, it should seem fairly obvious, right? If you go to architecture school and learn how to read complete blueprints for a two-story house, you should be qualified enough at that point to draw up plans for a tree house for your 10-year-old son. It's a simple 'applied science'. However, I'm slowly picking up on the fact that 'applied sciences' do not work when it comes to 'arts' such as book writing.

One could make the argument, “Nothing important is ever said in a children's book. You're not really providing advanced information. Just write about what sounds farm animals make.” (My daughter has more than 10 books just on this one subject—apparently this is the children's book writer's entryway feat.) It's not even like children's books are long—especially the ones for two-year-olds or younger which I have an abundance of right now. You can even just make up stuff. They won't really know the difference.

Still, even with all of these seemingly obvious points, there seems to be a certain skill needed to write an effective children's book. I'll start by comparing two: One is a classic book that my wife specifically bought because she remembers reading it when she was a little girl; The other is a pocket-sized Disney book featuring Minnie Mouse.

For the sake of space, I did not scan in the entirety of the classic book, Goodnight Moon, because it is quite lengthy. That, however, makes the comparison even more egregious. It is, perhaps, three to four times in length from the latter subject, yet is clearly written by someone who knows what they are doing. I will, however, type out a good portion of the text from Goodnight Moon.

 

In the great green room,

there was a telephone

and a red balloon

and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon

And there were three little bears sitting on chairs

and two little kittens

and a pair of mittens

and a little toyhouse

and a young mouse

and a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush

and a quiet old lady who was whispering “hush”.

This was about half of the book. The second half revisits all of the characters, saying good night to them.

Now, why does this work? To an average adult reader, it seems rather boring and doesn't present anything informative. However, there are a few things that are present here that otherwise stand out when missing from a children's book. First, the objects presented in the book are simple things that children would want to learn about because of their common existence—things around the house, common pets, etc. Second, when read out loud, the text flows smoothly and almost has a song-like quality about it, this being a very important quality in children's books. Third, though I didn't include any pictures, the illustrations were colorful, but simple and not overbearing. Finally, the entire book stays on a simple and common topic which matched the title of the book, teaching children how to organize their thoughts properly.

Let's compare this to a shorter Disney-sanctioned children's book that I just can't stand:

First of all - and I'm sure this is just me - but entitling a children's book geared for ages three-and-under with a phrase that teenagers of the 90's used is just sad. It also doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The book, as we will soon discover, is completely random; yet, nothing presented in the book gives the impression that Minnie is a saucy valley blonde that would use 20-year-old conjecture such as is suggested by the title. Even her hand is gesturing with that irreverent, devil-may-care attitude which would accompany the phrase. Evidently, the writer was a person of this mentality and tried to imprint it on the main character of the book. The problem being that the character is an established 70+ year old icon of children's books who would never do this! I mean, if Disney allowed me to write a story of their rendition of Peter Pan and I decided to write him like he was Justin Beiber, I'm sure a few people would have a problem with this. (P.S.-- if you work for Disney and my last sentence 'gave you an idea', please call me so that I can talk you down from said idea immediately.)

OK, perhaps I was wrong about the 'Oh, Please' not being central to the plot. The very first thing that the book mentions Minnie doing is dressing up with a spoiled rich brat. She even changed the bow she's wearing on the front cover. Does she a different bow for every outfit? She's teaching my daughter bad habits before she can even dress herself! And why on earth is Minnie Mouse trying to seduce my daughter (who, of course is the target audience for this book)?! I mean, that little grin she's doing there—slightly inappropriate. Although, not necessarily as inappropriate as that dress. Somehow, seeing a legendary female cartoon character wearing a backless dress seems a little 'advanced' for my young daughter, even if it is just a mouse.

Also, Mickey is apparently drunk and seeing stars. Great standards you're setting for guys my daughter should hang out with.

Here, we can see that Minnie is less valley girl and more... WHERE ARE HER CLOTHES?! Above, I was taken aback that a prim and proper lady like Minnie would wear a backless dress. Here, she is apparently wearing a grass skirt - total. She's also apparently totally fine with it, as she's giving a cheeky grin, and is totally getting into the whole hula thing, as her hips indicate that her hula gyrations are in full swing. Again, what is this book teaching my daughter?!

Immodesty aside, this is still a weird page. Daisy is wearing the oddest flamenco ensemble I think I've ever seen, especially given her bundt cake pan hat. Meanwhile, I can't take my eyes off of Minnie's feet. Those are some huge feet, man. Like, does she need to go to the doctor and get those things checked for gout?

Minnie the Cheerleader hmm?.....Perhaps I need to go back to my earlier statements and revise my thesis. Minnie has once again fit into the mold of a typical 'valley girl'. So, the writer is attempting to follow suit with her title theme. It's just... Minnie is so poorly cast for this theme. Minnie just doesn't strike me as that kind of person. I mean, can you picture her counterpart, Mickey, wearing a Letterman jacket, football in hand, leaning on a locker, pushing some nerdy kid down the stairs for his lunch money?

.....Ok, moving on. We've also ascertained that Minnie likes to dress up, but here we really get the impression that she goes the whole nine yards (no pun intended) with props and whatnot. I guess if you're going to be nonsensical, at least have fun with it. By the way, why is there a gigantic hole right in the middle of Cowgirl Minnie's hat that allows her ear to fit through?

This is the last page, and the last straw. So far, this admittedly short book has been poorly written. This page just doesn't even seem like it was written by the same person. First, what—is Minnie trying to make me fat? If she is, she isn't doing a good job. I mean, that cake isn't even finished. There's icing missing on more than half of it.

The biggest problem is the break of symmetry. The one thing this book had going for it was a half-hearted attempt of a theme (even if it didn't match the title). Look over the last few pages. Each left/right page has a reflective commonality. Dressing nice. Dancing. Costumes. These two pages have nothing to do with each other. Is the writer implying that Minnie will only like me if I eat her cake? If so, Minnie is a very shallow friend.

Also, Minnie all of a sudden has a tail. When did Minnie get a tail?! I just did a quick image search on Yahoo for 'Minnie Mouse' and every single picture that came up had her with a tail. So, my question really should be, “Where has her tail been in this book?” Did the artist just suddenly remember at the very end that this iconic character has a tail? And that whole 'She's been wearing costumes' thing doesn't work either, because in over half of them, she's wearing a skirt. There's no way not to have a tail in those pictures. (Which brings up the eternal question—how do characters with tails wear pants?)

The point should be fairly clear, though. Children may be simple because of their inexperience, but that is no excuse for writers to be lazy. Parents have to read these books, too, and they pick up on these little things. Not to mention, writing inferior material only teaches our children that they can get away with doing things in an inferior way.

I actually had other points to make as well, but got a little carried away with my over-analysis of this book. Perhaps I'll save the rest of my rant for part two. At least I have another topic to talk about sometime in the near future.

- Zerom