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Picture books have terrible PR amongst the children of this country. Ask any librarian: after a certain age, children just aren't interested in the picture book section anymore. It's filled with moms, strollers, and unbalanced toddlers.
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It takes a lot for a show to withstand the test of time.
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I first moved to New York, like many twenty-somethings before me, to be a grown up. I was attending an MFA program in the city, starting work at a nonfiction imprint at a reputable publishing house, and excited about being on track to becoming the writer I had always wanted to be.
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'Ready Player One' has it all - nostalgia, trivia, adventure, romance, heart, and, dare I say it, some very fascinating social commentary. The novel follows Wade Watts through the virtual reality world, the OASIS, and on a quest to uncover and unlock the secrets buried deep inside.
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I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.
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The first thing I thought when I finished Ernest Cline's 'Ready Player One' was, 'My God, it's the grown-up's 'Harry Potter.'' Now this is from a mega 'HP' fan, so I mean business, here.
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I have often said that I think children's books are like poetry. Finding the exact right words to tell a story is something all writers, regardless of genre, are challenged to do, but it is in children's that the art of selection really becomes an art.
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Children's authors have to pick words that reflect the spirit of a book and convey its message but also words that light children up, that children will recognize. Words that inspire and comfort. Words that challenge yet don't patronize. Words that, well, mean something to them.
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Writers often like to talk about how intuitive the writing process is, but in truth, building a book is a remarkably unintuitive task. Or, to put it more accurately, you need a lot more than intuition. You need plot and characters. You need a setting. You need a theme that is relevant and supported by your text.
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So many tend to brand the Internet as the downfall of youth, but 'Ready Player One' hints that it's more complicated than that.
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It is my greatest wish to teach children what I now believe: that writing is not a burden but a joy.
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The adult fiction and writing for children portions of my MFA program were kept very separate, and there was a stigma around those 'kid people.'
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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: writing picture books is an art - the art of word choice.
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Part of the job of a children's author is to write books that will be remembered, definitely, but if I might go out on a limb, I will say that the other part, the more important part, is to build books that will help children fall in love with reading. That, to me, is the real job.