Does it take crude and rude to get a kids book published? GUEST POST by Nikki Aksamit

How is it that a children's book series about a flatulating dog is in every library, every bookstore in the U.S., but one that explains difficult subjects such as death, cancer and bullying to young kids may never be read, or reach a bookstore shelf?

  Why does a series about a boy and his garbage eating pet fly scream out in all its Technicolor glory from the shelf of the "my first reader section" at my local library, but books that give young kids clear answers to their tough questions sit unpublished on the author's hard drive?

Are we shielding our kids?

Do we think young kids should be shielded from "uncomfortable" topics? Do we think children under a certain age "can't handle" the subject matter? Do we think it's better to entertain than to educate until children reach school age? Or does crudeness sell more books?

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To snot or not to snot? (help me out here!)

This is a little more of a personal question than I usually share here, but I figure, what’s a community for, if not learning and growing together.

So here’s the thing:  I wrote a book.

Yay, me!  Right?

Thing #2:  It’s a rhyming book.

Thing #3:  The rhymes are good.  Yeah, I’m sure.  I’d be mighty proud of them, except for…

Thing #4:  The book is about… snot.

I made it up one day while fantasizing with my 6-year-old, who has allergies and also gets colds a LOT of the time.  He sniffles a LOT.  And I thought out loud – what if you could take a pill and just get rid of all that snot at once?

So I sat down and in a particularly boring Hebrew class, I dreamed up and wrote out the entire story – in verse.

Like I said, it’s good.  But also like I said, it’s about snot.

The trouble with snot, farts, etc

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