Stuck for starters? Viral story starters from 3 kids’ best-sellers.

How should you start your story?  Every children’s book editor and agent will tell you:  the action needs to begin on Page One.

But hey, isn’t that a little unfair?  What if you have a great idea, but you need to take a few pages to get to it?  Shouldn’t the reader be patient and bear with you? 

The cold hard truth is that today’s readers won’t, and neither will today’s book-buying parents and grandparents.  Your story has to hook us on Page One if you want anyone to invest their time and read any further.

What does that mean for today’s writer (that means you)?  It means starting your story in the middle of the action.  (In Latin, if you want to get fancy, that’s called in media res.)

Let’s see how some of today’s hottest-selling kids’ books do it.  Take a peek at what’s flying off the virtual shelves at Amazon:

Viral Bestseller #1:  The Day the Crayons Quit

Take a look at the current bestseller The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.  How does it start?

“One day in class, Duncan went to take out his crayons and found a stack of letters with his name on them.”

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Ebook non-fiction: 3 rules to hook readers (and keep them coming back).

Ever felt like you couldn’t compete?

Want to know how your books can rise to the top?

Head over to Amazon and you’ll find a virtual deluge of nonfiction kids’ ebooks, and they’re not going away anytime soon.  Most are awful, a relic of the Kindle “gold rush.”  They repurpose free information, slap on free pictures, and charge anywhere between $.99 and $3.99 to call it a “book.”

I’ve recently converted a couple of the projects I created as a homeschooler into nonfiction ebooks, and discovered along the way that I really love writing kids’ nonfiction.  It’s even a little addictive once you get started.  I love creating books that teach kids about the world – in a fun way, so that ideally, they won’t realize they’re learning a thing.

So how do you do that in a way that doesn’t turn them off?  Or even do it in a way that keeps them coming back for more?  Don’t worry, it’s not as tough as it sounds (unlike getting them to line up for a second helping of green beans).

Staying afloat

Sure, it’s tough to stay above the tide.  It’s easy to despair when you see the numbers:  There is just so much out there, and more every day.

But I do believe that quality will rise to the top… or at least, some elusive mix of quality plus quantity.  If you publish a single Kindle ebook, it may not succeed, no matter how great it is.  But if you publish a whole series of them, and you acquire a loyal audience who enjoys reading them… then, I believe you will.

So how do you pick up that loyal following?

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TOBY Book Launch Blog Tour: mini-interview with author Stacy Nyikos

If you’re here for the book tour, come on in, make yourself at home… and come meet Stacy Nyikos, a writer who says she’s “hooked” on writing kids’ stories.

As a children's writer, I get to create worlds as spongy and delicious as marshmallows, soar through green oceans with talking sharks, and float on misty air currents riding the backs of ancient dragons. It's an amazing place to live in. And it changes on a daily basis.

You can see why she’s had such success so far.

Stacy’s new book, Toby, illustrated by Shawn Sisneros (Stonehorse: 2014), is about the journey of a turtle hatchling, who emerges from his egg to find himself all alone.  Where are the other turtles?  Toby’s journey gently explores the often-perilous reality facing a solitary baby sea creature, but with fun verse that really works well with Shawn’s appealing illustrations.

As you’ll see, sea creatures are a bit of an obsession for Stacy, and with very good reason. 

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Do talking animals make our kids dumb?

In case you don’t feel like reading on, the answer is no.

But the question has been raking up headlines all week anyway, thanks to a University of Toronto (my alma mater !  so proud !) study proving that they do. 

Or at least, kind of proving they do. 

As it turns out, what they’ve done says very little about children’s books – in particular, not much we have to pay attention to as writers or as parents.

But along the way we can have a bit of a laugh looking at the samples of the stories they used, and looking at examples of talking animals who help our kids learn… so keep right on reading!

The Claim:  Talking Animals Hinder Learning

These results indicate that anthropomorphized animals in books may not only lead to less learning but also influence children’s conceptual knowledge of animals. (read the full study here)

This kind of sensationalistic stuff adapts really well to headlines!

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