What's the Question?

 By Christine Liu-Perkins

My favorite book on writing nonfiction is Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great

Serious Nonfiction—and Get It Published by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato. One key concept they discuss in Chapter 2 is the importance of having a question that drives the book: "Every work of serious nonfiction begins with a question the author has about the topic and ends with an answer the author wants to provide." (p. 77) That question determines how interested editors and readers will be in the book.
 
I find that asking an overall question also focuses my writing. Knowing what question I'm trying to answer helps me decide how to structure the book and helps in making those many decisions about what to keep and what to leave out. For At Home in Her Tomb, my question was, What do the tombs and their artifacts tell us about life in ancient China?
 
Sometimes authors reveal in interviews, Author's Notes, or blogposts what question(s) inspired them to create their books. Here are a few examples:
 

• In Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West, Candace Fleming explored: "Who was Buffalo Bill? Was he a hero or was he a charlatan? Was he an honest man or a liar? Was he a real frontiersman or was he a showman?"

 

• In working on Feathers: Not Just for Flying Melissa Stewart wondered, "How else do birds use their feathers in unexpected ways?"

 

• In her Author's Note for The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus, Jen Bryant said she wanted to know, "Who was this man Roget? . . . And what compelled him to undertake this immensely difficult task?"

 

• "Every day, creatures lose their lives on our highways. What, I wondered, can we learn from them?" This question led Heather Montgomery to write Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill.

 

• At the end of her prologue for Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend, Karen Blumenthal wrote of the two outlaws, "They are romanticized, celebrated, and remembered as the stuff of legend. But why?"

 
To identify the question driving your own project, Rabiner and Fortunato recommend recalling what originally captured your interest in the subject "and why you find it compelling enough to write a book to answer it . . ." (p. 78).
 
What's the question driving your work-in-progress? Defining that question will help you research, write, and market your book.
 
Happy questioning!

Graphic Nonfiction: Visual Storytelling Techniques for True Tales

By Kirsten Larson 

When writing picture books, we’re told to leave room for the illustrator. Pictures tell half the story. But in graphic novels, the visual story is much more important. A picture is literally worth a thousand words, and the illustrator’s job is daunting.

 What does this mean for authors drafting graphic nonfiction scripts?

 As one editor told me, you, the author, must fill in the blanks regarding what should appear in the illustrations. You must imagine every panel (those rectangular boxes) and write extensive illustration notes, called panel description. This includes describing actions and emotions for each panel and providing links to art references for the setting, characters, etc.

If you’re moving to graphic novels from picture books, providing lengthy illustration notes is the opposite of what we’re told to do. Picturing the story takes a mental switch and requires us to build our visual storytelling muscles. To see the possibilities, I recommend studying graphic nonfiction, focusing on “reading” the visual story.

Graphic novels have a lot in common with movies, even sharing some of the same language. (For a great post on camera “shots” in graphic novels, see this post on Rikvah Lafille’s site.) But unlike movies, graphic novels don’t show every second of the action. Otherwise, the books would run to thousands of pages.

Instead, each panel makes a jump in time, and a lot happens between the panels. It’s up to the reader to fill in blanks. The author and illustrator’s job is to figure out what must be shown and what can be left to the reader’s imagination. In other words, what can be summarized, and what must be shown in real time as a scene.

As Jessica Abel and Matt Madden write in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, every time you start a new panel, you must make three decisions:

• When does the new panel take place?
• Where is it set?
• What does it focus on?

Let’s see how some of these decisions play out in this sample from Becoming RBG by Debbie Levy, illus. by Whitney Gardner.

In this spread, a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg learns to dissent for the first time. (For fun, compare this spread to the same scene from I DISSENT, Levy’s picture book biography on the same subject, which was published first.)

The first two panels are summary, a bit of back story about Ruth.  In the first panel, Ruth is reading, and we’re told she likes school. In the second, we shift to a completely different scene maybe on a different day, where Ruth is at her desk raising her hand. By including just one illustration per scene, we get little snapshots of Ruth’s life, and the story keeps moving forward, covering big chunks of time.

Now let’s look at the two middle panels on page 12. This dialog is a snippet of a scene taking place in real time. The jump in time between panels is very small. What’s changed is the focus of the panels, shifting from Ruth to her teacher. 

As you study graphic nonfiction you may notice dialog handled different ways visually. Sometimes both speakers are included in the same panel, even if only one speaks. Other times, the “camera” shifts completely from one subject to the other. Sometimes the characters are offscreen, and only their dialog appears with the camera focused on something else completely, like a voice over. This provides variety in the illustrations.

Returning to our mentor text, what happens after the dialog? We get a bigger jump in time, perhaps several minutes, as we move from the teacher’s instruction to a close-up view of Ruth’s finished assignment. Between the panels we’ve experienced both a shift in time – from beginning to end of the scene -- and a shift in focus from the teacher to the assignment. Imagine how this would read differently if we watched Ruth complete her assignment step by step. It would slow down the story unnecessarily.

Let’s move to the middle of page 13. This is another scene in real time, but it’s mostly wordless. We are in Ruth’s head, experiencing her thoughts and emotions as she makes the decision to break the rules and write with her left hand. This is pivotal moment in her life. The pacing slows way down, and the jumps in time between the panels is incremental. 

First, we see Ruth’s thought, then, a second later, an extreme close up of her eyes as she ponders. Then another extreme close up of her eyes, as she continues to think. Finally, she chooses to switch hands, and we get a close in view of her hands. Using these moment-to-moment transitions slows the pacing forcing the reader to pay attention.

The more you read and study graphic nonfiction, the more well-versed you’ll become in the conventions of visual storytelling, and the easier writing your own scripts will become.

Give it a Try

Select a spread from a graphic nonfiction book and analyze the visual story. For each panel, consider: When does the panel take place? Where is it set? What’s the subject or focus? Also consider how the “camera” is moving.

 As a bonus, take a scene or two from your own work and consider how it might translate into panels. How would you write the panel description?

 For a list of graphic nonfiction mentor texts, see my Pinterest board.  Happy scripting!

 

 

About the Author 

Kirsten W. Larson’s first graphic nonfiction, The Light of Resistance, illustrated by Barbara McClintock, will appear in 2023 from Roaring Brook. Kirsten is the author of the picture books Wood, Wire, Wings: Emma Lilian Todd Invents An Airplane, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, 2020), A True Wonder: The Comic Book Hero Who Changed Everything, illustrated by Katy Wu (Clarion, 2021), and The Fire Of Stars: The Life and Brilliance of the Woman Who Discovered What Stars Are Made Of, illustrated by Katherine Roy (Chronicle, 2023).

Find her online at Kirsten-w-larson.com or on social media @kirstenwlarson.

 

 

 

When Is It Time To Quit?

by Anita Sanchez

Whenever someone asks me how many books I’ve written, I reply proudly, “Dozens!” They’re suitably impressed. And it’s quite true—I’ve written dozens of picture books, poems, stories, and seven full-length novels.

But if they inquire how many books I’ve published, the answer would be quite different. Most of the books I’ve written are unpublished, and probably always will be.

Henry David Thoreau wrote literally millions of words, most of them unpublished in his lifetime. But he never stopped writing. “It is wise to write on many subjects,” he said. “You must try a thousand themes before you find the right one, as nature makes a thousand acorns to make one oak.” Thoreau was not only an author, but a passionate and wise botanist. He knew that the plant which produces only one seed is at risk of extinction, but the plant that produces many has a better chance of survival.

But here’s the terrible question, the one I’ve wrestled with again and again—when to quit a manuscript and move to the next one?

Sometimes there’s a flaw so fatal that the whole project stops in midsentence. I once wrote a biography of a nineteenth-century biologist who studied the weird reptiles known as Gila monsters. He had an uproarious, adventure-filled life, and seemed a perfect subject until my research led me to the unescapable fact that he was an extreme racist. I fell out of love with him, although not with Gila monsters--I wrote about them instead.

But sometimes it’s harder to know when to pull the plug. There’s no one right answer, no magic formula. A clue can be when several people whose judgment you respect point out the same things again and again. (Don’t take one person’s word as gospel, though—always get a second opinion, and a third, and a fourth…) Perhaps when the writing of it feels like drudgery instead of nourishment. Perhaps when the pile of rejections threatens to sap your courage to the breaking point. And perhaps it’s when a new idea is thrusting against the husk of your brain and can’t wait to germinate.

It’s said that the Greek philosopher Plato found his first literary work was not up to his mentor’s standards, and so he threw the scroll into the fire. I could never do that—lose it all forever. But sometimes there does come a moment to click SAVE on the laptop. Once, we authors crammed unpublished manuscripts in dusty drawers, saved them on floppy disks, or consigned them to the dark recesses of cyberspace. But these days, I’m uploading my files to the cloud. I like the idea of my unpublished books floating through the ether, like dandelion seeds on the breeze, drifting off to future possibilities.

Does abandoning a manuscript mean your beloved book will never see the light of day? Far from it. There are always options. After experimenting with new material, I often come back to older work. I might self-publish a nonfiction book on an odd topic and hope to find a niche audience. I could recycle a story into a blog post. I might read a rhyming picture book to my granddaughter as she sits on my lap, a delightful secret between the two of us.

Or someday I might resurrect a book, tweak it just right, and have a triumphant bestseller. You never know which acorn will be the one to touch the sky.

Give It a Try

One of the things I do when I’m stuck as to what to work on next, is to get my ideas off the computer and onto paper. I take brightly-colored index cards (remember them?) and write each possible idea on a card. Any idea, no matter how crazy.

Then I deal them out on a tabletop or the floor, and play with putting them in order. I arrange them in order of originality, and then in order of marketability, and then which ones would be the most fun to research. Then I line them up in order of easiest, hardest, or most controversial. After a while, one title keeps popping up towards the top of the row again and again. Seeing the possibilities spread in front of me helps me choose which one to put my energy and enthusiasm into next.

 

Meet the Author

Anita Sanchez is especially fascinated by plants and animals that no one loves, and the unusual, often ignored wild places of the world. Her books sing the praises of the unappreciated: dandelions, poison ivy, tarantulas, mud puddles, deserts. Her weirdest book is Itch: Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About What Makes You Scratch.

A picture book about animals that love mud, Hello, Puddle! is due out in March 2022 from Clarion Books. In fall look for Meltdown: Why Glaciers Are Melting And What We Can Do About It.

 

Lights! Camera! Action! Starring: Versatile, Vivacious Verbs

By Beth Anderson

When I write an historical picture book, I see a movie in my head, and the challenge is bringing that movie to the page. Illustrations will partner in the process, but the words I choose need to create scenes, provide action, and invite the reader into the experience of the main character. To accomplish this, verbs take front and center stage. 

LIGHTS come first when you spotlight a character, event, and angle to hook the reader. In this thought process, one vital verb guides me—“take away,” as in, What do I want readers to take away? Then, before I start drafting, I brainstorm words that will support theme, character, topics, and imagery—including a list of verbs. Here are a few examples of "priming the pump” and “filling the bucket."

battle, surrender, resist, fight, give up, unite… [An Inconvenient Alphabet]

sniff, permeate, smell, reek, inhale, investigate, detect… [“Smelly” Kelly and His Super Senses]

Then, it’s time to make the past come alive.

The CAMERA carries the reader through the telling. If you examine the “camera” in a story, most often you’ll see it zooms and pulls back—in and out of scenes, from big picture to character interior. If it’s all close, all distant, or hangs in the middle, you lose potential drama that propels a reader.

When I learned about close/deep third person narration, about “proximity” and “psychic distance,” my writing changed. And the secret was in the verbs. “Head verbs,” or “filter verbs,” add an extra layer that distances the reader—the narrator layer. Words like heard, saw, decided, and other “head” actions serve as filters that dilute the action. To bring the reader INTO the main character’s experience, try eliminating these verbs and directly connecting the reader to the main character—go from reporting to experiencing:

          She heard a crash. vs. BOOM! 

          He wondered where it came from. vs. Where did it come from? 

This intimacy feels a lot like first person narration, but by using close third, you have greater access to the world beyond that one character.

This same concept is also in play when you move from indirect speech to direct speech. (This choice gets tricky with strict nonfiction.)

          He told her to get off… vs. “Get off.”  [Lizzie Demands a Seat!]

Often a story about a person from the past involves a thought process or dilemmas and can be less than exciting on the page. Dig into the interior conflict. Eliminating head verbs enhances point of view, builds character, and “shows” instead of “tells.” Oddly enough, sometimes cutting verbs helps keep a story active.

 ACTION is essential to moving a story forward, engaging young readers, and connecting to history in a meaningful way. Even static elements of a story like “state of being,” context, and setting can benefit from some action.

The first and easiest rule for action is to dump BE verbs whenever possible. AM, IS, ARE, WAS, and WERE are empty verbs. THERE WERE and IT WAS beg for replacements, too. Other “verbs of being” such as SEEM and BECOME often don’t contribute much either.

Franz was a curious child. vs. …Franz’s mind sparked with wonder. [Franz’s Phantasmagorical Machine]        

In nonfiction, providing the context readers need to understand the complexities of a different time and place often results in the dreaded information dump. That necessary context impacts character and is integral to conflict, so we need to interlace those ideas.  

How do circumstances affect their actions? For example, in Revolutionary Prudence Wright, taxes and boycotts must be meaningful without a convoluted explanation.

No British tea! Prudence grew herbs and made her own Liberty Tea.

No British cloth! She spun flax into linen and wove homespun fabric.

NO British sugar! She boiled maple sap into syrup.

No gloves or garments, no ribbons or buttons, no glass or paper! She would do without. Prudence could live with inconvenience and additional work. But she couldn’t live with unjust laws and stolen rights.

Even physical setting can come alive to enhance character, conflict, imagery, and themes. How would your character perceive the location? In Smelly Kelly and His Super Senses, the reader experiences the setting through the character’s super-senses via active, sensory verbs.

The metropolis hummed. Buildings stretched to the sky. Scents familiar and foreign wafted in the breeze.

 Specificity is also golden. Connotation adds depth. The right verb lets you cut adverbs. Or can ring with theme, provide a twist, or add humor.

…unwilling to take liberties with their language. [An Inconvenient Alphabet--American Revolution era]

Finally, we all hear the admonition against passive verbs, where the “actor” is not up front taking responsibility for the action in a sentence, or not mentioned at all. Passives can hide an antagonist and minimize conflict. Reframing amps up the telling.

Tad was frustrated by his lessons. vs. Lessons launched him down the hall and out the door. [Tad Lincoln’s Restless Wriggle]

Verbs are “energizers” that power a story. Of course, like the code for pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, what I share is more what you call guidelines than actual rules. I confess an upcoming release has WAS in the first and last sentences, and more. It has IT WAS, and some head verbs. But sometimes you need a verb to fade back for something else to come forward. Or need a head verb to make a character present. Or just need the simplest way to state an idea. It’s all about choices to make your movie come alive.

Give it a Try      

Highlight all verbs in a WIP. Do you see patterns? Overused verbs? BE verbs? Where can you cut head verbs to zoom in? Where can you interlace action with context? Where can you add action or more specific verbs? What differences do your new choices make?

About the Author

Beth Anderson, a former English as a Second Language teacher, has always marveled at the power of books. With linguistics and reading degrees, a fascination with language, and a penchant for untold tales, she strives for accidental learning in the midst of a great story. Beth is the award-winning author of TAD LINCOLN’S RESTLESS WRIGGLE, “SMELLY” KELLY AND HIS SUPER SENSES, LIZZIE DEMANDS A SEAT!, and AN INCONVENIENT ALPHABET. She has more historical picture books on the way, including three more stories of revolution, wonder, and possibility in 2022.  

 

 

Nonfiction Revision Decisions

By Melissa Stewart

First of all, I’d like to thank Pat Miller and the rest of the Nonfiction Chicks—Susan Kralovansky, Peggy Thomas, Nancy Churnin, and Linda Skeers—from the bottom of my heart. What an incredible gift they’ve given the entire children’s nonfiction community!

This year for NF Fest, I’m going to do something a little 

bit different. Instead of writing an essay, I’m sharing

THIS LINK to an interactive visual-audio tool that takes an up-close look at my revision process for Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate.

It includes how my thinking evolved and I worked through big picture revisions as well as a series of drafts where the editor and I are discussing key points via track changes. I created this tool for students, but I think writers will also find it both illuminating and useful. I hope you enjoy it.

Give it a Try
Use the Voice Continuum to come up with a description for the voice of your nonfiction work in progress. Is that the best possible voice for the information you want to share and the way you want to share it? Consider experimenting with a different voice. If you are happy with the voice, how can you revise to make it even stronger?

 

About the Author

Melissa Stewart has written more than 190 science books for children, including her newest titles Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate, illustrated by Sarah s. Brannen Fourteen Monkeys: A Rain Forest Rhyme, illustrated by Steve Jenkins. She co-wrote 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books, edited the anthology Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep: 50 Award-winning Authors Share the Secret of Engaging Writing, and maintains the award-winning blog Info-licious Inspiration. Melissa’s highly-regarded website features a rich array of nonfiction writing resources.

Finding Your Voice in Writing Nonfiction

By Doreen Rappaport

Writing nonfiction for kids is an absolutely wonderful career. It’s a passion, a commitment to the young to present important and meaningful stories that will stretch their minds and hearts.

Research is the first step.  The deeper you dig, the richer, more interesting and illuminating will be your work. And your research will lead you to the right approach for telling the story you want to tell. Don’t worry that someone else has written about a subject you’re passionate about. There’s always room for more well-written books on your subject.  Do your research and you will find your unique voice, the hook to tell your stories.

In writing about the African-American struggle from the kidnappings in Africa to the Civil Rights Movement, I read the work of scholars who took years to untangle and present this history accurately. I read poetry, interviews, diaries, biographies, autobiographies, documents.  All these elements confirmed that this was a history of resistance, and that’s when I found my hook--resistance. Primary sources allowed me to accurately recreate historical events without fictionalizing. Having studied and taught music myself, I knew its importance as a cohesive force for Black Americans and had to include this great tradition. And so, my trilogy uses all these elements. 

Twenty-two years ago, I was asked to write a book on Martin Luther King, Jr.  There were already 10 or so books about him, and I initially resisted because there were so many other great Black Americans whom kids didn’t know anything about, and I wasn’t sure I could find a different way to write about Dr. King’s life.  But I dug in. I went to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture an immersed myself in biographies about Dr. King and in his speeches, interviews, letters, autobiographies, and diaries.  I thought about what Dr. King meant to me, about my Mississippi summer working in a Freedom School, and the joyous day at the March on Washington in 1963, and of course about Dr. King’s now famous speech, and it all came together.

My hook to present Dr. King’s life would be to combine a narrative punctuated with words by this great man, and so Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born.

Seek out experts to clarify facts. A coal miner helped me with my book on a mining strike in Pennsylvania. I reached out to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who read and commented on every page in my almost final draft, catching confusion and demanding greater clarification, helping me simplify but not dumb-down legal arguments. I wanted to add Cherokee words and phrases to my book about Wilma Mankiller, and her husband provided them and a pronunciation guide. I have found people more than willing to help me, because they too wanted accuracy about what I was writing.

Never fear criticism.  It will only strengthen your work. Have a few writer friends whom you trust to show your early drafts. Ask them to read your revisions, also. 

Write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.  Revision is the key to all writing.

Read nonfiction books by other writers.  When I began, I read all of Jean Fritz’s early books. I don’t write at all like her, but she taught me about “attitude” and point of view, that we all are unique, and there are lots of way to tell a story, and they are all valid if they are grounded in research and careful self-editing.

And remember, there will be stumbling blocks along the way.  Times you think you’ll never get it right. You will.  Walk away from the book for a while. Sometimes, I walk away for a month or so. Right now, I’m working on a book that I put away two years ago.

 

Give it a Try

I know you have unfinished manuscripts in your files, books you just "couldn't get right."  Well, maybe you couldn't get them "right" when you wrote them a while ago, but dig them out, re-read them, smile about what is strong, think about what doesn't work. You might be surprised that with fresh eyes you can come up with solutions to finish the book. I'm working now on a book that I put away 10 years ago. A long time, right?  Well, I think I've solved most of the problems. Getting away can be so important, and having the courage to go back is essential. Good luck!  Follow your passion! You can do it, too!

 

 

About the Author

Doreen Rappaport is an award-winning author of 75 children’s books that celebrate multiculturalism, historical events, the lives of world leaders and the stories of those she calls the “not-yet-celebrated.” Her books have received critical acclaim for her unique ability to combine historical facts with intimate storytelling, and for finding new ways to present the lives of iconic heroes such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the Statue of Liberty. Among her numerous honors, Doreen is the recipient of The Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Award for Lifetime Achievement for the writing of nonfiction. Visit her at www.doreenrappaport.com

 

 

 

Not Just the Facts: YOU Are a Part of Your Nonfiction

By Laura Purdie Salas

“There’s a common, crushing misconception that fiction is creative writing drawn from the depths of a writer’s soul, while nonfiction is simply a recitation of facts that any basic robot could spit out. The reality is very different. My personality, my beliefs, and my experiences are deeply embedded in the books I write.” 

I wrote these words for Melissa Stewart’s fabulous Celebrate Science blog three years ago, in 2018.

In those three years, I’ve reflected on this idea a lot, and I believe those words more than ever. In fact, those reflections have worked their way into my actual writing process, which I love! I feel like I’m more perceptive now about which topics and structures might be a great fit for me.

So, let’s explore that final sentence. “My personality, my beliefs, and my experiences are deeply embedded in the books I write.” It sounds good, but what does it mean, exactly? Here’s the breakdown.

Personality

I’m thinking about what qualities in other art forms appeal to me . . . what evokes an immediate, emotional response. I think that’s a deep reflection of who I am. Basically, I love clear, focused, beautiful things. Books with one storyline and a limited number of characters (not epic generational sagas). Songs with clear vocals standing out from a simple, melodic instrumental accompaniment. Images with one strong focal point and bold lines. (Here are a couple of cards I’ve got on my inspiration board.) Not every single work of art I like fits these requirements, of course. But most do.

 

How does that play out in my writing? My concepts are extremely clear, usually requiring broad but shallow research. (I hate interviewing people, another personality facet that affects my writing!) You can generally summarize one of my books in a single phrase.

Secrets of the Loon: a loon chick grows to independence over her first summer

Snowman - Cold = Puddle: equations show how things affect each other in springtime

Water Can Be . . .: water does many more things than we think

 

Beliefs

Explorer and photographer Sebastian Copeland, talking about photography, said, “[M]y mission would be to help people fall in love with their world, because I feel we will not save what we do not love.” That’s it exactly. I want kids to fall in love with their world. Often, that drives my choice of topics in the nature direction, to things like water, leaves, rocks, and the moon. But it’s more than that. I want kids to fall in love with friendship. With curiosity. With science. With themselves.

How does that affect my writing? I write about things that I’m desperately in love with and try to evoke that same response in readers. I want kids to care about animals and how they live. That’s Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle: How Animals Get Ready for Winter. I want kids to fall in love with thunderstorms, like I did as a kid. So . . . Zap! Clap! Boom! And I want kids to love who they are, even if they come from a family that’s weird or different from all their friends’ families. So I invite them to Meet My Family.

 

 

Experiences

I was underestimated and undervalued as a child. Nothing my sisters or I did was ever good enough, so we were never good enough. It felt really unfair. More than that, it made me angry. (Okay, it still does, actually.) But good came of it. It shaped me into a person who doesn’t take other people or other things for granted.

That often translates into writing about a common object to show how amazing and overlooked it is. I hope readers never look at the moon the same way after reading If You Were the Moon. I hope A Rock Can Be . . . and A Leaf Can Be . . . turn readers into rock or leaf collectors. And I hope If You Want to Knit Some Mittens makes them look at their hand-knitted winter mittens with fascination instead of irritation. I want to make kids feel the same awe that I feel.

Sage experts advise, “Write the book only you can write.” I used to feel disheartened by that because my life is pretty boring, ya know? I haven’t lived exotic places nor done headline-worthy things. But now, having thought more about what that means, I know I’m always writing the book only I can write, because I bring myself and all my loves and flaws and passions to each project. And I hope you do, too!

 

Books Mentioned

If You Want to Knit Some Mittens, illus. by Angela Matteson, Boyds Mills Kane, 2021

If You Were the Moon, illus. by Jaime Lin, Millbrook, 2017

A Leaf Can Be . . ., illus. by Violeta Dabija, Millbrook, 2012

Meet My Family, illus. by Stephanie Fizer Coleman, Millbrook, 2018

A Rock Can Be . . ., illus. by Violeta Dabija, Millbrook, 2015

Secrets of the Loon, illus. by Chuck Dayton, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2020

Snack, Snooze, Skedaddle: How Animals Get Ready for Winter, illus. by Claudine Gévry, Millbrook, 2019

Snowman - Cold = Puddle, illus. by Micha Archer, Charlesbridge, 2019

Water Can Be . . ., illus. by Violeta Dabija, Millbrook, 2014

Zap! Clap! Boom!, illus. by Elly McKay, Bloomsbury, 2022

 

ACTIVITY:

My summary of qualities I’m drawn to seems so obvious to me now. But it wasn’t until I sat down and did some brainstorming that I could see how some of the same qualities apply across different art forms.

Here’s the chart I filled out:

 

I wonder what you’ll discover about the qualities you’re drawn to if you do the same exercise? Click the image below to download a .pdf, or just do it on blank paper. Either way, don’t forget to spend some time thinking about how those qualities might show up in your nonfiction writing and your writing process. Making those connections—that’s what will make a difference in your work. I wish I’d thought about this 20 years ago!

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Purdie Salas is a Florida native cozily living in Minnesota. She’s written more than 125 poetry and nonfiction picture books, including Lion of the Sky, If You Were the Moon, Water Can Be…, and BookSpeak! Her books have earned the Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notables, starred reviews, and more. She offers resources for children’s writers at https://laurasalas.com/writing-for-children/ and enjoys teaching and speaking at writing conferences around the country. Laura’s (uncomfortably) on many social media platforms as @LauraPSalas, and her online home is laurasalas.com.

 

ABOUT THE PRIZE

Laura will send one signed copy of the picture book of your choice.