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#oh god I cant state enough how dull were the kids books I read as a kid
atrixfromice · 3 years
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If you know them and like them, kids will appreciate to learn them!
To my fellow writters, and comic makers;
I would like to give you this piece of advice, that I've never read yet someone who have mentionned it on the internet, but that is a very important advice I think it will be useful for all of you folks.
When you write something, specially when writting children's books. Don't have fear of using words you know and you think they are cool because you worry they might be not very easy to grasp or to remember for kids.
Because I know for experience, that kids DO appreciate it when you give them new words to learn!
And I can talk from self-experience, with myself and also with my siblings when they were also kids, and I used to read them bedtime stories.
When I was a kiddo I had this larousse dictionary that I loved (which I think, it must have been weighed almost half of my weigh at that time...I remember it was heavy as hell! LOL ) which I used to carry with me around the house like if it was my favorite toy.
The reason? Because I've always liked to read, but when I was a kid I didn't have the vocabulary level I have the pleasure to have in nowadays. And to make things worse, when I was kid I had really a hard time liking books that were supposed to be for me. Like for example, when I was 5, the books my mom used to buy for me supposed to be for 5 - 7 years old kids, but they were boring..like...
...terribly, terribly, terribly boring!!!
I remember I often used to felt so upset with childrent book’s authors because I felt they insulted my intelligence, because their stories were too simple and often dull as hell! They lacked of a good plot and interesting characters.
And I think what exacerbated me the most it's the fact I wasn’t able to express the source of my rage at that time. So I would just say my mom "mom! This story is so dumb I don’t like it, this is a book for babies! I love the images but pretty please, next time would you buy me a book for big kids my age?"
My mom was a wise and clever lady, thanks goodness. After that she started to buy me cooler stuff, always for kids two or three years bigger the age I had. Of course, maybe the fact that I learned to speak at 6 months old, and to read at 4 years old (thanks to my mom who patiently took her time to teach me both things, she is an extraordinary woman!) made me skip “the pleasure” of not knowing how to read for a long time and thus be able to enjoy these kiddies books with a lot of illustrations and a couple of paragraphs.
But it was true still, the stories for little kids were dull as hell. So when I was little I enjoyed a lot more reading books targeted for kids bigger than my age, because they were more interesting, and also because I adored to learn new words. And books for little kids had only the words I already knew, and the authors used the same words over and over and over! So much that it was boring as hell! XD
So that’s why I enjoyed “big kids books”. When I was 7 I read “Vingt mille lieues sous les mers” by Jules Verne, in spanish version of course. And afer that, I read a lot of other books. My second book was Harry Potter, when I was 10 or so if I remember well. I also read a few short stories by Allan Poe. And there was one book I don’t remember the name, but it was at my elementary school library, it was about a school where all teachers were vampires.That was a cool one.
And I treated that dictionary like my favorite toy when I was a kid, because every time I found a new word I didn’t know, I knew I could always trust on it to look up to the words I didn't know, and know their meaning.
And have the incomparable, ecstaticly delightful pleasure of LEARNING NEW WORDS and adding them to my vocabulary! Which until today, it’s still one of my greatest pleasures, though it doesn’t happens as often as it was when I was a kid, but when it happens, it’s still as cool as it was when I was a kid.
And after that, I used to use that one word again and again for a good while so I could store in my mind. Which exhasperated my parents sometimes, now that I see it in retrospective...so I guess this is why they’d say “honey I know you love that new word a lot, but could you stop saying “overwhelming"  just for one minute?”
I was considered a weird kiddo by the kids my age. LOL I guess its because of that they thought it was boring to hang out with me at school...
But well sorry I got carried away. So back to my point. When growing up I also used to read books to my brother, then my sister and my other brother that were born later. And while they didn’t know how to read (well, my brother who was born after me started to read at 5 years old, but for bed time stories he preferred that I should be the one who read *chuckles*) whenever they’d heard me reading a new word they didn’t know, they’d go all excited and ask me what it meant, and then I’d go and look up in my faithful larousse and tell them what it meant.
And they they thought I was the coolest older sister. And had these vivid and sparkling eyes, and huge smiles in their faces, that I still remember in nowadays. They had that look in their faces, like if they just had received what they wanted for Christmas.
And that,
That was awesome!
So, I’m not telling you to  write a play worthy of shakespeare for little kids either. You can still write a kids book with a few paragraphs of text and cool illustrations.
But I mean. Don't make the mistake to think they’re stupid, or lower in intelligence.
Don't insult their intelligence with  insipid and dull stories. Write a well developped story with intrigue, action, adventure, and well constructed characters! And for 5 years old kiddos and up, you can go and risk yourself a bit more and, if you know words as “exhasperated”, “overwhelming” “vicissitudes“, that you like and you think are cool, go ahead and write them in your book. Even if it’s only one or two of them at a time.
But don't refrain yourself from writting a cool story with good narration in fear kids will not like it or will not understand new words, because honest to God I tell you,  they will adore it!
I'd even bet my drawing hand for that. I’d cut my drawing hand if that’s not true, because I’m sure it's true, if you do this, Kids will love it!
I think, if you want an example of great children books writters or comic makers, I’d say you should take an eye to the work of @47ness and @jenniferstolzer
I think I would have loved to be a kid nowadays to read their work, because I’d have loved to have better reading experiences as a little kid. But the coolest thing about their work it’s that it’s so well done I can enjoy it even now as a grown up adult in her 30′s! :D
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