Writing for Teens

You might imagine that writing for teenagers is much like writing for adults. In the fiction genre, you’d be right. Teens can handle almost as much as adults, but remember these kids are between about 16 and 21. They have the appropriate vocabulary in most...

Young Adults Love Graphic Novels

Most kids love comic books. I remember when I was a little girl, my dad used bring one home to me every day after he was finished working. I’m talking Richie Rich, Archie, Dennis the Menace… pretty much benign fare, and as humor is a MAJOR emphasis in our...

Writing for Young Adults: Who Are They?

When you think young adult, you’re probably imagining a person over twenty.  Yet, when it comes to writing, it means their “reading” age, not their chronological one. A young adult reader is probably in the 6th to 8th grades, or loosely 10 –...

Preschoolers Have Natural ADD

I love little kids, especially between four and about six years old. They’re just discovering everything and because everything is so new to them, they are easily excitable. The only problem is… they haven’t learned how to pay attention for long...

Writing to Your Audience: Preschoolers

I really got into the mechanics and styles of writing when I started teaching for the Institute of Children’s Literature. Each week, I’d get about 30 lessons from students and I would have to go through them and edit for grammar, punctuation, and style,...