Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Library

Children's books: Squids will be squids.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I very much enjoy looking at children's books. You ought to have a look through the picture book section of your bookstore -- you'll find some amazing art and quite often, clever stories.

One thing I appreciate about picture books, besides the often beautiful artwork disguised as "mere illustration", is that the authors are trim and tight with their writing. The stories are short in total length, and so the writers¹ have to write tightly. They have to use active voice, and strong but clear wording.

My most recent find is Squids will be squids: fresh morals, beastly fables, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Not only are Smith's illustrations bizarrely fascinating and wonderful, but the one-page modern fables dreamed up by Scieszka are hilarious. Really funny. Grasshoppers who put off homework that consists of writing Broadway musicals until just before bed. Things like that.

I would encourage you to get your hands on a copy, but since many people balk at paying $15 for a very slender volume (unless you go the paperback route), at the very least, look for it the next time you're in a book store. Obviously, you can read it right there, in just a short while.

It's clever. And odd.

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¹ And not all authors are. There are a lot of really, really crappy overly moralistic shove-the-lesson-down-your-throat writers. Or the opposite end of the spectrum, where the writer thinks that just because it's a children's book, they don't have to think much on the story, throwing some sappy platitudes about puppies and butterflies out there. Yuck. Kids know a good story. If the story is boring or preachy or badly written, they aren't going to like it. In fact, kids are the best at knowing what a good story is. They haven't been fooled by all the smoke and mirrors yet.