Children's Writing Quotes

I was taking my first uncertain steps towards writing for children when my own were young. Reading aloud to them taught me a great deal when I had a great deal to learn. It taught me elementary things about rhythm and pace, the necessary musicality of text.

Children's literature is as valid an art form as any other.

I believe that if a child has a feel for writing and wants to write, there is an audience. Children should just dive in and go at it. I would encourage children to write about themselves and things that are happening to them. It is a lot easier and they know the subject better if they use something out of their everyday lives as an inspiration. Read stories, listen to stories, to develop an understanding of what stories are all about.

I've learned to accept that I'm a children's writer, even if it's not what I set out to become. It's what I should have been all along, and I'll stay in this role as long as I'm a writer.

At the age of 10, I had my first piece published in what was known as the 'Junior Post,' which was part of the 'Yorkshire Post,' and it was just for kids. I read it every week. And I got paid for it. So I thought... 'I can actually do this. I can get paid to write, and this is going to be fine.' I wrote several pieces for them.

Writing for children isn't easy. Kids will abandon a story that doesn't interest, enchant, delight, thrill, or terrify them. But when you can find a way into a young reader's imagination through something as simple as words on paper, well, there's nothing more satisfying.

Encourage children to write their own stories, and then don't rain on their parade. Don't say, 'That's not true.' Applaud flights of fantasy. Help with spelling and grammar, but stand up and cheer the use of imagination.

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

Children's books are often seen as the poor relation of literature. But children are just as demanding as adult readers, if not more so. I should know. I'm a children's writer myself.

I wrote 'Snowy' as a result of spending a week on a narrow boat with daily classes of children, helping them to write about canal life, the work of barges, the simple pleasure of watching the water creatures. There was no doubt that the star of their week was Snowy, the working barge horse who pulled us daily along the towpath.

It's really fun to write something for kids. You can make it a little bit more extreme and crazy than you would for adults.

In some sense, there is no such thing as writing for children.

I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.

In India, not enough importance is given to writing for children. And what could be more important than the enrichment of young minds with great literature?

Writing for children is the toughest thing.

You must write for children in the same way as you do for adults, only better.

All I care about really is writing something worthwhile for children, something that will engage them in some way and stimulates in them a sense of wonder.

I know some children's writers write for specific children, or for the children they once were, but I never have. I just thought children might like my sort of visual humour.

Writing for children is bloody difficult; books for children are as complex as their adult counterparts, and they should therefore be accorded the same respect.

I think probably you can either write for kids, or you can't. That ability to imaginatively be a child and see the world as a child and feel and think like a child - you either have that ability or you don't.

It is extremely important to me to write for children.