We love children. That's why we want to write for them. Unfortunately, that's also part of the reason so many of us start off by cranking out preachy stories--we want to help our young readers. We want to share our wisdom with them.
But if the story is nothing but a poorly disguised lesson, the reader will discard it as easily as he shucks his wool hat on a warm spring day. And rightly so. Spring days and children's books must be enjoyed—never endured.
Does this mean we need to stick with silly stories and leave the lessons to the school teachers? Not at all. Children learn from the characters they encounter in books. They learn to laugh, and to love, and to suffer loss. They learn what it means to be noble, and what it means to be stingy.
Readers Grow With the Characters They Love
Children's books should educate, they just shouldn't preach. The reader needs to discover the answers himself instead of sitting through a lecture given by the author.
The best way to allow a child to discover truth in a novel is for the author to throw a character into conflict and let him try to work his way out of trouble.
In Katherine Paterson's, Bridge to Terabithia, Jess learns to love his sister, he learns that people die, and he learns that it's OK to be different. Jess learns those things.
He learns them as he walks through life, and the readers are invited to come alongside and wrestle with these issues for themselves. None of the adults in the story say, "Jess, it's OK to dream wild dreams and to be happy with who you are."
And yet, Katherine Paterson gets that point across clearly.
You take a character and put him in conflict. Then you let your readers observe as the character tries different ways of reconciling things. You let the readers watch your character grow.
That's all.
You don't ever have to sum up the moral of the story. Trust your readers. Give them conflict and they'll figure out who to root for. No one ever thinks The Joker is the good guy.
Children want to learn. They love to slow up and stoop down to inspect minute details. They constantly poke and prod life, trying to understand what it all means. So feel free to give them books full of meaning and message. Give them more than sunshiny stories. Give them shadows and showers and winds.
And they will learn and grow and live happily ever after.
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