Julian Gough on bridging the gap between reading picture books and young fiction/chapter books
Once upon a time, a tired novelist, after a long day’s editing and rewriting, was putting his six-year-old daughter to bed.
Anyway, that’s essentially the story of how I accidentally shuffled ass-backwards into writing what are essentially tiny novels for small children. Unlike adult novels, however, mine are now beautifully illustrated by the great Jim Field on all 100 pages – because my daughter likes pictures. Which means they are not traditional picture books; nor are they traditional young fiction books or chapter books , like, say, Charlotte’s Web or Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
This divide, between fully-illustrated picture books of 500 words and text-only books of at least 20,000 words, was purely an artefact of technology. Neither parents nor children demanded this bizarre split; it was simply an accidental consequence of the limitations and costs of early full-colour printing presses.
Because my own background is as a novelist writing for adults, when I accidentally wrote my first book for children with my daughter Sophie, I had no idea how rigid this modest divide was. I wrote the book to be the length it needed to be – which was about five times longer than a standard picture book, but a couple of times shorter than even the shortest standard chapter book. Maybe 2,500 or 3,000 words.
The story has a happy ending, because it is now published in a remarkable 37 languages, has won a number of awards in various countries, and continues to sell extremely well, year after year. Indeed, I’ve gone on to write five more Rabbit & Bear books with Jim: all 100 pages long, all fully illustrated.
I spend a lot longer trying to refine the 5,000 words of a mini-novel like This Lake is Fake! than I would a 500-word picture book – or indeed 5000 words of adult novel. Children’s books are far, far denser than adult books; far harder, per line, to write.in a book for 5-to-8 years olds has to advance the story, reveal character, or be extremely funny .
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