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I love reading what other children’s writers have to say about the craft of writing for children, being a writer, reading, or really anything that relates. Here are a few quotes that I hope you’ll enjoy, too.

“A real adult, someone who is really grown up and adult, someone like Mrs Thatcher, couldn’t possibly write a book for children. Somebody like me, even when I’m 85, is pretty damned childish. I laugh at things that young children laugh at.”
–Dick King-Smith

“You have the power to make the reader feel something. That’s what you have when you’re writing books.”
–Anne Margaret Lewis

“It’s the ability to bring events and characters to a resolution that draws me to writing, especially writing for children. I don’t want to ever be didactic, but if there’s something I do want to say, it’s that you can bring things around. You can make a change. Adult novels are about letting go. Children’s novels are about getting a grip.”
–Tim Wynne Jones

“”I never [wrote for children]… for the money, though it’s very nice; nor the critical acclaim, which is very nice too. … The most satisfying aspect of [my] work is the … fan letters that [I] receive from children.”
–Dick King-Smith

Many children’s and teen fiction books address painful subjects, and are honest in a way that the adults around children and teens may not be. I believe that fiction with painful truths in them can help children and teens to know that they are not alone, or to think about and experience issues in a safe way that they may not yet have had to deal with, but might have a friend who has. I think truth in children’s fiction is vital. And I love reading what children’s and teen authors have to say. So here are a few quotes about this:

“We read to know we are not alone.”
- C.S. Lewis

“Children read to learn what might happen to them next. As writers, we have an obligation to be honest in our writing. We’ve lived longer, had more thoughts about our experiences; we know what life is like. We do children a disservice if we present life in a sentimental light. We need to be completely honest, as long as we use common sense about the type of experiences that are suitable to the readers’ ages.
…Children want to know what might happen next. A story is a safe place for them to experience dangerous situations. When a child reader finds him/herself in a real-life dangerous situation, they can remember the lesson they learned from the book.”
-Barbara Greenwood

“I like to feel that a children’s book can address worrying or even terrible things, but I’m not in the business of worrying children unnecessarily. I try to have realistic endings, and there are hard times, but I also try to show that, with a bit of luck, you can get through things.”
-Jacqueline Wilson

“Edgy is REAL without hesitation, even if it’s not a reality we all want to acknowledge.
But those books, with their inclusionary, ’so I’m not alone after all,’ value, can literally save lives.”
- Kelly Milner Halls

“These sad, unfair, frightening, discouraging, impossibly hard things come at us–if we let them, if we keep working to peck our way out, they can help to make us stronger.
What I try to do in my novels is create characters that are pecking out of hard shells. I use humor to help them through. I pull from experiences I had, feelings I remember. … I hope you’ll see some of yourselves in the lives of my characters. We’re all in this struggle together. The best part about stories is how they help us remember that.”
-Joan Bauer

“The Y.A. books I was reading seemed to have such strong voices and such heart. No B.S., no filler. I was hooked. … Some of the most compelling, tightly written, emotionally honest, risky, taboo, glorious work I’ve read is Y.A.”
- Libby Bray

“You get into that place where you’re writing from deep inside. You just want to tell the best stories you can. With me, I wanted to be honest - maybe because I felt grownups hadn’t been honest with me when I was a kid.”
-Judy Blume

“It’s a tough world out there that kids are exposed to. … I think we need to show that life can be hard, but we need to show how things can be overcome through emotional strength and getting help. I see being a writer to young people as a bearer of light. We are teaching whether we think about it that way or not. You can teach by all kinds of examples. …
I try to show how great adversity, if it’s addressed, can really make us stronger. Having traveled some difficult roads myself as a teenager, I can underscore the importance of strategically placed adults in my life.”
- Joan Bauer

“I believe in the healing power of love and creative expression in the face of fear. It’s not a conscious thing, but it is in my books.”
- Francesca Lia Block

Books can give so much, in so many ways, and I love reading about that. It’s so affirming, and just speaks to the book lover in me, as well as the writer. I love reading quotes about reading and books–especially quotes from children’s and YA writers. So I’ve pulled together a few quotes from some of my favorite children’s and YA authors on both what they get out of reading, and how to help children and teens read (or how not to put them off reading).

“Why do I read?
I just can’t help myself.
I read to learn and to grow, to laugh and to be motivated.
I read to understand things I’ve never been exposed to.
I read when I’m crabby, when I’ve just said monumentally dumb things to the people I love.
I read for strength to help me when I feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.
I read when I’m angry at the whole world.
I read when everything is going right.
I read to find hope.
…
Reading isn’t passive — I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they’re about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them.
Reading for me, is spending time with a friend.
A book is a friend.
You can never have too many.

-Joan Bauer
–From Shelf Life: Stories by the Book, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

“I always loved stories that could carry me away from day to day life. I’m not saying I had a hard or sad life–because I didn’t–but I loved how words could transport me to a different time, a different place. Stories could even make me feel as though I was a different person. It was like magic.”
-Vivian Vande Velde

“Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school.”
- Beverly Cleary

“The best thing I know to tell parents and teachers about motivating young readers is that reading should not be presented to them as a chore, a duty. It should, instead, be offered as a gift: Look, I will help you unwrap this miraculous present. I will show you how to use it for your own satisfaction and education and deep, intense pleasure. It distresses me that parents insist that their children read or make them read. I think the best way for children to treasure reading is for them to see the adults in their lives reading for their own pleasure.”
- Kate DiCamillo

“Parents have to bring the book to the child, so when the children go to school they’re familiar with them. They need to read with the child at least 20 minutes a day. It gives the parents a little island of privacy and love. With the proper encouragement the child will become a reader, and learning to love books and stories will be something important for the rest of their lives.”
-Rosemary Wells

“Parents risk putting children off reading by dragging them around bookstores and force-feeding them literary classics. … We…forget the inestimable value of spending 15 minutes a day reading with our child. There is no better way to get to know your child than to share their books with them.”
- Anthony Horowitz

I recently attended the Particles of Narrative conference in Toronto, where a number of wonderful children’s and YA writers spoke. The two speeches that I really enjoyed were by Megan Whalen Turner (The Thief, Queen of Attolia) and Kenneth Oppel (Airborn, Sunwing ); these speeches were compelling, exciting, and full of concrete, specific details and discussion about writing technique, which I loved.

For me, most of the other speeches were disappointing, as they circled around writing, and did not talk about technique or much about the writing process at all, and were very intellectual and removed. But Megan Whalen Turner’s and Kenneth Oppel’s speeches were worth the price of the conference, for me.

I took some notes, but I couldn’t type as fast as they spoke! Still, I got something out of it, and I wanted to share a few excerpts here that I thought were particularly helpful or affirming or just pleased me. They’re of special help to writers, and may be of interest to readers, as well. My notes are not what the speakers said verbatim, but they are the general sense.

Megan Whalen Turner: “A good fantasy is something that shows us something true. We’ve all read YA fantasy that doesn’t aim at that, like adventure fantasy. But if we aim at excellence then fantasy is stark realism. Someone recently interviewed Susan Cooper because of the recent release of her movie. She said that fantasy does that best. ‘Whether it’s Beowolf or Harry Potter, it is a metaphor that helps you deal with things that are difficult in the world around you — and that helps you grow up.’

… If you want a message of tolerance and open-mindedness, fantasy can show you that sometimes more effectively than realism, without rubbing your nose in it.”

Kenneth Oppel: “When, how, why does a story need to be finished? When the narrative energy has been spent, readers’ expectations met, desire fulfilled for the reader and the hero. This may be as varied as each individual. Each reader may want many things from ending, a textured rendering of the world. Yet I think there are universal desires especially on the part of young readers for an ending.

… I think readers want simple, basic things from endings. Most readers, if they’re honest, want happy endings. They might not get them, but that doesn’t stop them wanting it.”

Megan Whalen Turner: “The most important thing to me with YA fantasy is the dramatic truth. … But we lie to children. … We lie. We tell them all bullies are cowards that back down when you stand up to them. Or be yourself and you’ll be happy. And we think as they grow older that they’ll see through it. Sometimes good people don’t get to be happy.

And then we get to YA literature. The great truth teller to teens everywhere. And sometimes we’re still lying. That’s why we have those fantasies set in pseudo pre-industrial and feudal periods, but still enlightened enough to have a woman warrior. They may be well-intentioned lies, but these are not young children. They might not be sophisticated enough to see through the lies, but give them the truth, believe that they are ready for it or they wouldn’t be reading the book.”

(I love what Megan Whalen Turner says about truth, and about showing it in YA fiction. I’m a big believer in that. But I disagree with one small part–I think it’s important–no, vital–for girls today to have strong female role models that can succeed, even in societies where they shouldn’t have. There is so much in our society, even today, that tells girls that they shouldn’t be strong, shouldn’t succeed, should only use their bodies sexually to get what they want, and not their minds or their courage…. That is the one piece I disagree with out of everything Megan Whalen Turner said.)

Kenneth Oppel: “Beating like a pulse through the story is what the hero wants, what motivates the hero. Readers want the hero to achieve that, to be safe, to have an order to story, even to an almost Utopian point, they want evil thwarted and punished. It might sound like I’m referring to fantasy, but I’m referring to all genres. Most readers want a transformation at the ending–not only a change in the hero, but also in the readers, themselves. They want to experience something that allows them to mirror the hero’s experience, or gain a new insight into the world around them. They want the endings, paradoxically, not to be endings.”

Aren’t those just amazing quotes? I love what they said, and I’m so glad I got a chance to attend and hear them.

Meghan also mentioned two quotes from YA writers that I really enjoyed hearing, and that brought further insight: from YA fantasy author Justine Larbalestier (Magic’s Child , Magic Lessons ): “Stop it already. The next Young Adult book I read where all the pop culture refs are from the 1980s when it’s supposed to be set now, well, that book I set on fire.”

and from YA fantasy author Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass , The Subtle Knife ): (question and answer on his FAQ) “You once said that His Dark Materials is not a fantasy, but stark realism. What did you mean by that?

That comment got me into trouble with the fantasy people. What I mean by it was roughly this: that the story I was trying to write was about real people, not beings that don’t exist like elves or hobbits. Lyra and Will and the other characters are meant to be human beings like us, and the story is about a universal human experience, namely growing up. The ‘fantasy’ parts of the story were there as a picture of aspects of human nature, not as something alien and strange. For example, readers have told me that the dæmons, which at first seem so utterly fantastic, soon become so familiar and essential a part of each character that they, the readers, feel as if they’ve got a dæmon themselves. And my point is that they have, that we all have. It’s an aspect of our personality that we often overlook, but it’s there. that’s what I mean by realism: I was using the fantastical elements to say something that I thought was true about us and about our lives.”

And Megan Whalen Turner went on to say that: “I would argue that elves and hobbits can do the same, and that they must.”

I totally agree! I think in all fantasy, we’re trying to shine a light on what is true.

Those are such strong, illuminating, and insightful quotes, aren’t they? I loved hearing them! I hope you did, too.

Sarah Ellis was a good speaker, too; she spoke about two YA books in detail, analyzing them (which I enjoy), but because I have such a strong dislike for one of the books, and because she sometimes talked around writing, I wasn’t as enthralled with her speech, though she is a strong speaker and a great writer. But after Ken Oppel’s and Megan Whalen Turner’s, I liked Sarah Ellis’ the best. She has the flair of a storyteller.

You can see Meghan Whalen Turner’s site here and Kenneth Oppel’s site here.

Anyone who wants a copy of my notes from the conference for their two speeches, just let me know and I’ll email them to you.