When we talk about identifying the audience for a book, we usually imagine one reader. However, with children's books, that assumption falls apart rather quickly.
The child experiences the story. But the adult buys it, chooses it, reads it aloud, explains it, and quite possibly reads it again tomorrow night. And the night after that.
If you're writing children's books, you're not writing for one audience. You're creating an experience for two.
The Child Is the Reader, But Not Always the Buyer
The story needs to captivate the child, but the adult often decides whether the book enters the home in the first place. That distinction affects more than marketing.
It can affect the language, pacing, humor, illustrations, length, subject matter, and even how satisfying a book feels after the tenth reading.
This came up in my recent In The Writers Chair conversation with Joseph Muller, author of Pirates of Adventure Island.
Joseph's transition from historical fiction to children's literature gave him an interesting perspective on the audience. His most useful source of education wasn't a writing course. It was reading children's books to his son. Night after night.
Read Your Children's Book Out Loud
A sentence that looks perfectly acceptable on a page becomes painfully awkward when you say it out loud.
That's why reading aloud is one of the simplest editing tools available to any author. When you're reading a story aloud, you notice things.
You hear where the rhythm breaks.
You sense when the sentence runs too long.
You notice words that aren't doing any work.
You discover interruptions that pull attention away from the story rather than deeper into it.
When you've read the same book repeatedly, you become very aware of what belongs and what doesn't.
The question isn't simply:
Will a child understand this?
It becomes:
What will this be like for someone to read aloud for the twentieth time?
That's a very different editing lens.
Children and Adults Don't Have to Experience the Same Story
Writing for two audiences doesn't mean every sentence has to be equally entertaining to a six year old and a forty year old. They can experience the same story, but differently.
A child might be captivated by the adventure, characters, silliness, danger, or pictures.
An adult may notice additional layers of humor, meaning, emotion, or insight.
That's one of the strengths of children's literature. Some of the books we remember most fondly manage to speak to children at the level they're ready for while giving the adults beside them something more to discover.
The story still belongs to the child. But the adult isn’t forgotten.
Don't Let the Lesson Take Over the Story
Another temptation when writing for children is becoming heavy on the message.
Joseph wanted bravery to have a place in his story. Rather than stopping the narrative to explain bravery to the reader, he allowed a character to do something brave and let that action affect what happened next.
That's an important distinction.
If you want children to understand courage, show someone choosing courage when it would be easier not to.
If you want to explore kindness, let kindness change something.
If you want to write about perseverance, give your character a reason to quit.
The story carries the meaning. Don't stand beside it explaining everything.
Pictures Are Part of the Story, Too
In an illustrated children's book, the words don't carry everything because the pictures tell the story.
Joseph described working with watercolor artist Carla Bess on Pirates of Adventure Island. Their process wasn't simply a matter of finishing the manuscript and handing it over to someone to illustrate. As the visual story developed, the words morphed with it.
If the illustration shows the pirate is terrified, do we need a sentence telling us he's terrified?
Probably not.
If the picture carries part of the meaning, the words are free to do something else.
The strongest illustrated books aren't necessarily words with pictures attached. Both the words and images contribute to the story.
Rereadability Matters
A children's author imagines the moment a child encounters the book for the first time. They should also imagine the fiftieth time, too.
That's part of the magic.
It also means you're creating something that may become part of a family's routine. The cadence becomes familiar. The pictures become familiar. Children anticipate what happens on the next page.
They may correct the adult who skips a sentence.
Ask yourself:
Does the story hold up?
Is it enjoyable to say?
Are there unnecessary passages slowing it down?
Are there details a child can discover on later readings?
Is there something in the experience for the person sitting beside them?
Those aren't merely editing questions. They're audience questions.
Know Who Is Sitting on Both Sides of the Book
We often tell authors to know their reader because that makes marketing easier.
It does.
But audience clarity belongs much earlier in the process. Knowing your reader can influence what you write, what you leave out, how you structure the story, how you work with an illustrator, and how the finished book feels in someone's hands.
For children's authors, that means remembering both people sitting with that open book.
Want to hear the conversation that inspired this article?
Listen to my conversation with Joseph Muller on In The Writers Chair, where we talk about Pirates of Adventure Island, collaborating with an illustrator, writing for children, finding an audience, and the lessons he's learned moving between historical fiction and children's literature.
Listen to the full episode here.
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