This is a Writing It Real
Special Edition article for non-subscribers. Writing It Real is a premium content
website for those who write from their personal experience. We publish a new
article weekly on topics of interest to writers, all of them written or chosen
by Sheila Bender, author of several highly praised books on writing and an
acclaimed writing teacher and coach. A subscription is just $30 per year. Click here to start your
subscription now.
Caroline Arnold has been a contributor to Writing It Real,
and recently, she sent me an essay about how one of her early children's books
began as gardening observations with her children. We will be posting an
excerpt from that book, Wiggle and Waggle,
after our current exchange and refresher on the issues involved in writing for
children.
Growing A Book
By Caroline Arnold
Wiggle and
Waggle gets the prize for the longest gestation
period of any of my published books. I began writing stories about Wiggle and
Waggle more than thirty years ago when my children were in preschool. Our
family had recently moved from our tiny apartment in New York City to an old
farmhouse in the country. One of the attractions of rural life was the chance
to grow our own food. We picked apples in the orchard, tapped the maple trees
for sap to make syrup, built a chicken coop, which we filled with fifty baby
chicks we ordered from Sears, and behind the barn, in what had once been the
barnyard, we dug a garden in the deep, rich earth. As we turned over the ground
to prepare it for planting, we watched the worms wiggle back into the soil,
after being so rudely exposed to the sunlight. Without the worms to aerate the
soil and recycle the plant residue, our garden would not have been nearly so
successful.
That first summer we put in tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and zucchini. The
plants sprang up practically overnight and I soon learned how to make pickles
to use up the glut of cucumbers and zucchini. Our tomatoes hung heavy on the
vines in huge clusters, but because we started the garden late, they had not
yet ripened by the first frost in September. So, following instructions from
our gardening book, we wrapped them in newspaper and brought them inside -- all
five hundred of them! They slowly turned red and we enjoyed the ripe fruit
until Thanksgiving.
Our gardening knowledge came from reading books and trial and error. Each
summer the plot grew larger, requiring more fence to keep the woodchucks at
bay. One of the joys of winter was poring over seed catalogues with their
colorful photos and hundreds of varieties of seeds. Should we plant blue lake
or runner beans? White or red Swiss chard? Cherry, salad, or beefsteak
tomatoes? Summer or winter squash? We chose the Little Sweetie pumpkin, good
for both pies and jack-o-lanterns. The pumpkin vines always had minds of their
own, climbing over the fence and trailing off into the field. Luckily woodchucks
didn't seem to like them.
We learned to follow the cycle of the seasons, planting cool weather crops as
soon as we could work the ground. The first hot spell always provoked the
lettuce to bolt, turning it bitter and telling us it was time to pull it out
and plant summer vegetables. In the fall, we left our brussels sprouts in the
ground to be picked after the first frost, which turned them sweet and mild. Almost
everything we planted grew with little help from us, aside from occasional weeding.
Our luck was the fertile garden soil, inhabited by industrious worms.
About the same time that I was learning to garden, I was immersing myself in
the world of children's books. Every two weeks, my son and daughter and I went
to the library and checked out piles of books, which I read aloud before naps
and at bedtime. We all loved the stories and pictures and I began to think that
perhaps I could write stories too. Using our garden as inspiration, I created
the characters of Wiggle and Waggle (then called Wilbur and Ronald.). I
discovered that writing for children was harder than it looked. The original
stories of Wiggle and Waggle were too long, not well connected, and the
characters didn't always motivate the action. I put the stories away and turned
to other projects, but every now and then I would get them out and work on them
again.
Like the seasons, my writing career has also come full cycle. I started writing
when my own children were small and mainly focused on books for young readers. As
my children grew up, I shifted to writing more for older readers. My son and
daughter are now grown and have their own children, who have inspired me to go
back to writing for younger readers. As I got out Wiggle and Waggle once again, I reshaped the manuscript into five
stories for beginning readers. One part that never changed was having the worms
"write" words with the shape of their tunnels.
I always envisioned Wiggle and Waggle as
a collection of short stories, although the original five stories were longer
and had different themes. Over the years, I gradually changed the stories. At
one point, I took one episode, in which the worms go exploring outside the
garden, and turned it into a rebus. At another point, I tried the story as a
picture book, turning the final scene into a birthday celebration. It was not
until I started to work on the stories in an early reader format and to focus
on the themes of friendship and the value of hard work that the stories finally
came together as a book.
Finally, after thirty-one years, those stories have become published. I hope
that children will think that the stories of Wiggle and Waggle are fun, but
that they will also learn about the value of friendship and a job well done. Perhaps,
after reading these stories, children will also gain a new appreciation of
worms and be motivated to learn more about them. The writing of Wiggle and Waggle may illustrate the
value of perseverance -- or perhaps it was just one of those garden plants that
didn't mature in the first year, but required more time to reach its peak.
****
Sheila
What is the definition of
the young reader?
Caroline
The children's book market ranges from board books for babies to young
adult novels, and sometimes this whole group is referred to as books for young
readers. Generally, though, a young reader is a child in the early stages of
learning to read. Usually, this is between kindergarten and third grade. Books
for this age group are often called early readers or easy-read books and have
limited text and short chapters.
Sheila
What are the guidelines and restrictions when an author writes for writing
for that audience?
Caroline
When writing an early reader such as Wiggle and Waggle, it is important to use
short, direct sentences -- the shorter the better -- and easily decoded words
of one or two syllables. More difficult words can be included but only if they
are defined or understood in context. Contractions are generally not allowed.
In a chapter book, each chapter should function as a separate story as well as
contributing the overall story line and theme of the book. All the chapters
should be about the same length.
Sheila
What do you find the most challenging?
Caroline
The hardest part of writing an early reader is keeping the text lively and
moving forward while staying within the confines of short sentences and short
words. One solution is to use as much dialogue as possible. I try to create
engaging characters that children will identify with. Giving Wiggle and Waggle
distinct and separate personalities was a challenge. Because there is little
room for description (that is taken care of in the illustrations) character
development has to be through actions. Wiggle is the impetuous one while Waggle
is the calm, problem solver.
Sheila
What is the most fun?
Caroline
Children in the early grades are full of curiosity and eager to learn about
everything. The fun part of writing for this age group is that the whole world
is new to them so almost every subject can be exciting.
Sheila
Can you give us an anecdote from your experience shaping manuscripts for
this group?
Caroline
My first published book, Five Nests, was an easy-read book about bird families. I have
always been a bird watcher. My husband, a biologist at UCLA, studies birds in
his research, and in a class he was teaching on animal behavior, he was
discussing parental strategies in birds and their link to differences in
plumage in males and females. This is an interesting theoretical question for
college students, but in a more simplified form, I thought it would be a
perfect subject for younger children. My point was to show that in nature there
are many kinds of families, just as with humans. So, with the help of my
husband I picked five examples: robins (both parents care for the babies);
red-wing blackbirds (only the mother cares for the babies); rheas (a South
American relative of the ostrich in which only the father takes care of the
babies); Mexican jays (a species in which the young birds help their parents
with the next nest of babies); and, finally, a cowbird (which lays its eggs in
other birds nests and lets them care for the babies.) At the end of the book I
wrote, "There are many different ways that birds care for their babies.
Each way is a good way." My main challenge in writing this book was
reducing the massive amount of information I collected about each bird to a few
essential words and keeping those words within the vocabulary of a second grade
child.
Sheila
Do you have any experience using your know how concerning writing for young
readers for writing adult literacy materials?
Caroline
My books for younger children are sometimes used in ESL classes in high
school, but I don't specifically write them for that use.
Sheila
Can you share the names of resources and organizations those interested in
this market might explore?
Caroline
The Society of Book Writers and Illustrators is the best resource for
anyone who wants to write for the children's market. Through its national
conferences, regional events and workshops, bi-monthly newsletter and website, you can find out almost anything you
want to know.
If you write nonfiction, I recommend a blog, Interesting Nonfiction for Kids
with daily contributions from a variety of children's nonfiction writers.
Another website with industry information is Harold Underdown's Purple Crayon, which
also has an email
list notifying you of updates.
Sheila
What else would you like to tell us?
Caroline
I am currently working on a new book about Wiggle and Waggle. In this set of
stories, they leave the garden and go off on an exciting adventure! In the
meanwhile, if you have kids or are a teacher, you can go to the Wiggle and Waggle
page at www.charlesbridge.com
for a downloadable activity kit of wormy fun and music for Wiggle and Waggle's
gardening song.
****
Here is an excerpt from Caroline's book, Wiggle and Waggle (Charlesbridge,
2007):
A Digging Song
Wiggle and Waggle
were worms.
They lived in the
garden.
All day long they
dug in the dirt.
They slid between
the beets.
They looped around
the carrots.
They pushed under
the peas.
Their tunnels gave
the plants room to grow.
"This is hard
work," moaned Wiggle.
"We will never
be done."
"Let's sing as
we dig," said Waggle.
Wiggle sang the high
notes.
Waggle sang the low
notes.
We wiggle and waggle, squiggle
and squirm.
Digging in dirt is the life of
a worm.
We dig and we sing all day
long,
Our wiggly, waggly, gardening
song.
They dug long
tunnels,
short tunnels,
fat tunnels,
and thin tunnels.
Soon all the garden
rows were done.
"What a good
song," said Wiggle.
"It made our
work go faster."
****
Click here to comment on
this article on the Writing It Real blog. . . .
Would you like to read more? CLICK HERE TO LOG IN if you're already a subscriber -- OR -- CLICK HERE TO BECOME A SUBSCRIBER.
Return to Most Recent Articles List
