Why Write for Kids and Not Adults?

Now and again I am asked “Why do you write kids’ books? Why not for adults?”

I can’t speak for writ­ers of adult books—because I don’t write them. But kids share their thoughts about the books they read in direct, and touch­ing ways.

The fol­low­ing are excerpts from let­ters an ele­men­tary teacher sent to me. Her class (I don’t know what grade) was doing an “author study,” with them read­ing many of my books. Here are some of the things they wrote me. Why would I write for any­one else?

• Hon­est­ly, you write very well…I’m cur­rent­ly writ­ing a book but to be hon­est I prob­a­bly won’t fin­ish it.
• [Your book] inspired me to not be scared or afraid.
• I like the book because it talked about real life stuff that unfor­tu­nate­ly hap­pens [in] every­day life.
• I’m not a big read­er but I love your book.
• You make me hap­py when I read your books.
• [I] is my favorite book you have wroten.
• When I was read­ing your book I didn’t have any trou­ble with the words and it was easy to under­stand. While I was read­ing your book it always made me think, “What will hap­pen next?”
• [Your book] is real­ly good so far and I can’t wait to read anoth­er chapter.
• So far it is the best book (under 300) pages I have read. One more ques­tion, do you have any horse books?
• When I read [it] was okay, but I was expect­ing more and it’s not very fun­ny like it said.
• I admire the fact that you branch out and write in mul­ti­ple gen­res because you don’t come across many cool ghost books like this one. I nev­er want­ed to put it down until I was finished.
• I hope you will keep mak­ing amaz­ing books with emotion.