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Get excited about writing children’s books! Write bestselling books for kids of all ages! Writing for kids can be rewarding: discover how to write bestselling kids’ books by knowing what your target readers want. 

 Writing Children’s Books for a Target AudienceFirst, choose your target readers: babies, toddlers, preschoolers, beginners or preteens. A story that’s a potential bestseller with one age group may fall flat with another.

It’s important to decide on the age level before you start writing: this will determine the kind of book you write, the length and complexity of your story, and the number, ages and treatment of your characters.

Studies in childhood development show that as kids grow from babyhood to the preteen years, they look for different kinds of books.

Writing Children’s Books for the Earliest Years: Toddler and Baby BooksBabies and toddlers love to listen to simple tales revolving round the familiar world of home, family and friends. Also popular are adventures of mischievous children, talking animals or toys that come alive.

Babies love to hear about the doings of other babies (especially naughty ones) and baby animals. Learn from bestselling baby books like Welcome, Little Baby by Aliki and Spot the Puppy by Eric Hill.

Toddlers enjoy stories with lots of repetition, catchy words and rhymes. Take a cue from favorite children’s books like Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Jamberry by Bruce Degen. Toddlers also love to hear about the escapades of other kids and talking animals, as in the Alfie stories by Shirley Hughes and the Little Crittur series by Mercer Mayer.

Writing Children’s Books for PreschoolersAlthough some preschoolers may have started to read by themselves, most will still have adults reading to them. How your story sounds is therefore very important; read it aloud — does it flow smoothly? Does the story hold your attention?

Books about family and school life are popular with preschoolers, especially if they’re funny stories with children or animals as the principal characters. Get a taste of kid humor from bestselling children’s books like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff.

Writing Children’s Books for Grade School Kids: Beginner Readers and Chapter BooksBeginner books — also called easy-to-reads — are for kids just starting to read by themselves. The writer’s aim is to make the reading experience a pleasurable one for the child, who can then claim to have read the book “all by myself”. This happy result comes about when the vocabulary and sentences are kept simple and concrete. Most beginner books run to only about 1,000 to 1,500 words, or between 40 and 64 pages.

Chapter books are for more advanced readers, and may range from 1,500 words to 10,000 words, or between 40 and 80 pages. They are usually divided into chapters of 3 to 4 pages each.

Grade school kids enjoy funny stories, and fast-paced adventure and fantasy stories revolving round family, school and friends. To understand what appeals to kids, look at popular children’s books like Kids of the Polk Street School series by Patricia Reilly Giff, the Babysitters Club series by Ann M Martin, and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and sequels by Judy Blume.

Writing for PreteensPreteens want their stories to zip along at a fast pace, with plenty of action, adventure and humor. They prefer protagonists who are their own age or slightly older: active, intelligent, resourceful characters capable of solving problems by themselves.

Preteens look for stories that address relationship and growing-up issues in a way they can identify with: books such as The Divorce Express and Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice?, both by Paula Danziger and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.   

For more tips and ideas on writing children’s books, visit http://www.creativejuicesbooks.com/creative-writing-ideas-kids.html to help you write the best books for kids.

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Are you searching children books online? If yes then Homeshop18 is the best place to buy children book online. Small kids are very fond of books. Books are not only times pass for kids but a book helps them in increasing their knowledge with the concentration power.Homeshop18 is an online store that provides you a wide variety on children books like:National Geographic Reading Expedition: You can get set of 12 books including titles like:o Animal Adaptations o Classification clues o Ecosystems o Life Cycles o Earth Sun & Moon o Extreme Weather o Rock & Minerals o Stars & Galaxies o Wonders of water o Introduction to weather o Bones & Muscles o Respiration & Circulation• Suggested Age Group – 10 to 14 YrsThese books will provide children the hands-on experiments on science and give them dimensions to think like an independent and strategic thinker like scientists.Disney Walle Book SeriesThis is a set of 5 books (graphic novel, activity book, coloring book, learn to draw) based on Disney. Pixar’s children movie WALL.E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) with following features:• Books will attract children and teach them a lot about saving the environment and spreading love • Books have stunning photographs and well designed graphic and text features • While doing these activities and reading books children will always think about WALL.E’s expressive face and never forget his heart – that little electronic device that somehow propelled him to follow a dream instead of a directive, thereby returning the heart and soul to earth and its people • Activities will help children to learn art and coloring with fun • Books will help to cultivate interest in science fiction, technology and electronics, inspiring children to think in scientifically and logicallyBrainworks Book Series for KidsLearning to read and write is a huge step for any young child; these books by Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd. are based on well researched and proven methodology to help your child succeed in school.Features are:• The activity book series ‘Mom Dad & I’ will involve parents in children’s early days learning and teach you the secrets of the spontaneous learning from the experts of the children’s education, so that learning becomes a hobby • Learning to learn can be a great fun, as you explore and enrich your child’s world and build a positive learning climate during his early yearsThere are total 7 titles in this series:• Series I – 3 Books of Creative Learning’s:o Reading Readiness o Writing Readiness o Number Readiness• Series II – 4 Activity Books (Mom, Dad & I)o Activity Book 1 o Activity Book 2 o Activity Book 3 o Activity Book 4Many other interesting topics are also available on Childern Books. The books include the different age group kids. You can choose according to your child’s choice

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I am truly amazed by the amount of cynicism directed by some readers toward e-books, as if their existence were a conspiracy to render traditional books obsolete in the spirit of Fahrenheit 451. Much effort has gone into comparing e-publishing to traditional book publishing. An Internet search for “Will e-books succeed?” brings up numerous passionate articles and blogs dedicated to the concept.

Whether individuals express preference or aversion toward e-books, there are multiple reasons related to lifestyle preferences, as well as personal views on technologies, learning methods, and pleasure reading. Some people desire a familiar kinesthetic page-turning experience, whereas others readily accept that paperbacks no longer require paper.

The problem with the e-book/traditional book debate is that e-books have evolved but common perceptions of them have not. Most people are familiar with e-books only as electronic versions of their logocentric counterparts. For example, consider Powerhomebiz’s “Top Ten Reasons Why EBooks are Better than Printed Books” (http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol127/ebooks.htm). This list offers ten convincing reasons why businesses should switch to using e-books. However, one of the most critical and defining components of contemporary e-books is barely implied:You usually get far more than just the book. Most eBooks are sold with bonuses and related information that usually don’t come with the purchase of a traditional book. You might pay the same or even a bit more for an eBook, but you usually get more, too.

What does it mean to get far more? What are these bonuses? Perhaps the author is referring to hot-links to references and the ability to quickly search the entire e-book for a word or phrase (these features are noted subsequently in the list). Still, the definition of e-book seems rather limited to the traditional text-based approach.

What if we could depart from thinking about books as a collection of words? What if a book could contain video and audio? What if a book could evaluate the reader’s understanding of it? What if multiple intelligences do exist, and what if we could stimulate more well-rounded learning by modifying the definition of “book”?

Before I delve any further into absurdities — after all, everyone knows that words live in books, audio lives in radios, and videos live on TVs — let’s fathom to consider what might happen if these media could be happily married, and let’s use psychologist Howard Gardner’s categories of intelligence as a framework for theorizing how this might impact learning. Verbal-linguistic intelligence has to do with words, spoken or written. Traditional books cater to this type of learning, thus it carries over to e-books. However, in e-books this kind of learning might be enhanced with audio. For example, what if a reader could click on a word to hear how it is pronounced, or roll over a glossary definition to hear it read aloud?Musical intelligence is where a person learns aurally through rhythms. What if book text could be instantly turned into a lecture, so the reader could actually listen to the content? What if a reader could click a button to hear a clever rhyme supplemental to the text, designed to help him or her remember a concept? Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence deals with muscle memory and learning by doing, rather than by reading or hearing. Imagine if a student could read about architectural concepts, and then follow step-by-step videos to build projects (and have the ability to pause the videos when necessary). Similarly, a dance student might find it more useful to observe and follow a video embedded within a dance theory e-book than to read about all the physiological and qualitative details of specific exercises. Spatial intelligence is similar to bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, because it involves learning through visual aspects. People with good visual memory might benefit from embedded videos in e-books just as people more oriented toward bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, since videos potentially offer more sensory stimulation than reading alone. I say “potentially” because learning stimulation is difficult to quantify and is subjective. It is possible to be emotionally or even physically moved by written text, as people more attuned to verbal-linguistic learning might attest.

Considering these four kinds of intelligences — verbal-linguistic, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and spatial — and assuming that people learn through different means, it becomes evident that if we assume the purpose of a book is to instruct it is better to instruct beyond a dominant framework of verbal-linguistic or logocentric intelligence. The only traditional books I’m aware of that have embedded audio, in a sense, are children’s books like Sounds of the Farm by Gail Donovan where the reader can press buttons to hear how animals sound, but the sound cannot be associated with specific parts of the book except through the possibility of textual command to the reader to push a button.

Thus far, I have argued that diverse reading experiences could be enhanced through the integration of aural and visual stimuli with traditional text-based books. However, I have only touched upon four of Gardner’s original seven intelligences. If, by this point in the article, anyone still doubts that e-books can theoretically offer a more comprehensive learning experience than traditional books, I believe any hint of skepticism will be erased after exploring what e-books could do for the remaining three intelligences.

The notion of self-reflection is a dominant theme in contemporary education theories, and was identified by Gardner as intrapersonal intelligence. Interaction with others is interpersonal intelligence, in which learning occurs through discussions and participation in group activities where a person directly encounters others’ perspectives. E-books have the ability to stimulate self-reflection and group interaction if they could be integrated with online learning platforms, thereby facilitating online discussions and journal-keeping. Furthermore, while students can self-reflect on a traditional book by making lengthy notes in a separate notebook, what if in an e-book it were possible to highlight text, type notes in a pop-up window, and even link notes to text?

Last but not least is logical-mathematical intelligence, which deals with logic and reasoning. Traditionally, instructors have been responsible for assessing students’ understanding of course concepts. But what if a student could take e-quizzes and get immediate feedback on his or her comprehension? This would certainly help students know what they needed to review before class or prior to an exam.

So, let’s stop thinking of e-books as electronic versions of the same book you could pick up at your neighborhood bookstore. What if instead they were dynamic learning environments that addressed all seven of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and thereby provided a more engaging and meaningful learning experience to readers? Xplana Learning has assumed a leadership role in the development of interactive e-books and online learning platforms. In the above examples, Xplana answers the question “What if e-books could?” as “Yes, our e-book can.” (See http://www.xplana.com/products/products_xb.php).

In the great e-book debate, it’s time to stop worrying whether e-books will to replace traditional books. Individual preference for reading medium is largely dependant on lifestyle. E-books are venturing into a new realm that oversteps the limitations of traditional text-based books. We should be able to appreciate what e-books can add to the learning experience, and consider how we can continue developing e-books in relationship to contemporary educational theories in order to maximize learning outcomes.

Technorati Tags: Books, Future, Intelligences, Media, Mixed, Multiple

I first got into the audio books habit working at a temporary data entry job. One of the few benefits to engaging in such a mundane task all day is the ability to wear headphones. Listening to the same pop songs hour after hour quickly becomes almost as tedious as silence, so I started to borrow books on tape from the library. While listening to a book may seem like a serious distraction, I -along with many others at my place of employment- learned that even a brain of average capacity can swiftly adapt to the dual tasks of keying names and numbers and following the twists and turns of a plot.
Since then, I have come to appreciate the experience of listening to books. Many people take them on long drives. While I haven’t had many occasions to do this, I can appreciate the companionship a book would provide on a long, solitary journey. I have, however, found other good uses for them. They make an excellent accompaniment to certain kinds of exercise. I’m not a jogger, but since I see many people running down the street or through parks with headphones on, it’s a fairly safe assumption some are listening to books rather than music. Ditto with treadmills at health clubs (or at home). You can also listen while cooking, cleaning up or other household tasks, so long as there are no loud noises in the background (like a vacuum cleaner). If a book is especially engaging, you can, of course, simply listen to it while doing nothing else.
Since I started listening to audio books, about ten years ago, there has been a great increase in their popularity. Formats have also changed. While tapes are still available, CDs started to replace them as the favored format several years ago. Now, with the mp3 revolution, downloads seem to be the wave of the future. Regardless of the format, however, the experience is pretty much the same. I actually prefer tapes to CDs (I still don’t have an mp3 player -I tend to be one of the last holdouts when it comes to new technology; I got my first DVD player only a couple of years ago, long after VHS became almost obsolete), because they are simpler to start and stop.
What are the best kinds of audio books to listen to? It depends, of course, on your tastes. Suspense and mystery novels seem to be the easiest to locate, though you can also find nonfiction (everything from self-help to history), classics and instructional programs (such as foreign languages). One rule I have with audio books is that I almost never get anything that is abridged. This is especially true for fiction. I really don’t understand the rationale behind abridged novels. Is it to save time? Yet, most people who purchase or rent audio books are doing so in order to fill time, so why skimp on the length? As I see it, any novel that would not be seriously diminished by abridgement is not worth reading in the first place (either printed or audio). Even genre fiction is ruined by abridgement. Often, mysteries and action plots, for example, are fairly complex. I am lucky if I can keep up with what’s going on in a full length spy novel; cut out some of the exposition and “minor” scenes, and I am completely lost. One exception to this rule might be nonfiction in a genre in which I am not particularly interested in general. For example, I might conceivably listen to an abridgement of somebody’s ten volume history of the Roman Empire. In this case, I’d probably never get around to reading the whole thing, and since it isn’t a specialty of mine, I don’t mind missing some of the finer points. In general however, in case I haven’t made this clear by now, abridgement is close to sacrilege where books are concerned.
There is a certain kind of literary snob who does not consider audio books real books. By his or her criterion, if you’ve listened to a book, you haven’t “really” read it. We could argue the semantics of whether listening to a book can be literally called “reading” or not, but this is not really the point. When I’ve listened to an audio book, I tend to say I’ve listened to it rather than read it, but I’ve heard others say they’ve read a book they’ve listened to. Definitions aside, the question is, does listening provide the same experience as reading the printed version? I would say not entirely, but the comparison does not necessarily favor the printed book. A lot depends on the narrator, of course, but a well told audio book can bring a book to life in a way ink simply cannot. In an interesting way, the new technology that makes listening to a book possible actually harkens back to the very old tradition of storytelling, which predates the written word by millenia.
As I see it, certain kinds of books favor the printed version, others the audio. Some authors, such as Jack Keruoac, seem at their most natural when you can hear them spoken out loud.
On the other hand, books that require a lot of, shall we say left-brained concentration, are more written-word friendly. Sometimes it depends on the listener. For instance, I enjoy reading Russian novels, but I would not attempt to listen to Tolstoy or Dostoyevskly. I find all the unfamiliar names to be too much of a challenge, and the printed page allows me to take my time and, when necessary, go back and verify who is who. On the other hand, someone whose native language is Russian (or a scholar in the field), would have no problem listening. The same is true for non-fiction. If the field is very obscure to me, listening to it would probably mean missing key points. If it’s something I’m comfortable with, however, this would not be the case.
Narrating an audio book is a subtle art. If you listen to enough books, you will start to recognize the very skillful pros who have narrated hundreds, such as George Guidall. The trick, as far as I can tell (in addition to having a good, clear voice, of course), is to put just the right amount of inflection into the reading. It also requires the skill to do different voices, which is no easy matter in a novel full of male and female characters of varying age, background, geographical origin and education. A few audio books have tried the format of using multiple narrators. While this sounds like a good idea in theory, in practice I find it to be a distraction. The most glaring mistake made by narrators that I’ve listened to is overacting. Narrators should not, as a rule, be acting at all. If they put too much of their personalities into a reading, they are violating one of the primary virtues of books -allowing the reader to reconstruct the book in his or her own imagination. If the narrator does this, thereby intruding on the reader’s mental boundaries, he is actually giving credence to the anti-audio book argument, transforming the book into more of a radio play (nothing wrong with these, they just are not books). Most publishers, however, find skillful narrators who do not overstep their bounds, but put just the right amount of inflection and emotion into the action and dialogue.
Audio books are convenient and pleasurable, but I think they are also one aspect of contemporary life that, as I suggested earlier, actually bring back some of the virtues of slower-paced, pre-modern cultures. You may use an audio book to distract you from tedious chores or a mundane day job (a situation, alas, in which I still often find myself) or from hundreds of miles of highway, but if you are listening to a good, well narrated book, you are getting something more than a mere distraction. You are participating in the time-honored (if updated to fit the information age) tradition of storytelling. This can serve as a refreshing addition, sometimes even a necessary antidote, to some of life’s everyday events.

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Imagine your flight gets delayed and you are stuck waiting in the airport and there is still a lot of time before you can catch the next flight. You suddenly wish if you had your favorite novel with you. But then looking at the overloaded luggage, you just conclude that it was not possible. An e-book is an electronic book or a digitized publication that is equivalent to a conventional printed book. Several devices can be used to read an e-book which includes a mobile, PC, a PDA, a Laptop or any device that has a screen and a memory.

With e-book you can’t feel the experience of placing the book on your shelf or dosing off with it on your bed. Reading an e-book is far more easy, fun and fast than the printed book. You can acquire thousand of e-books from any online storefront without spending time in finding the required book from the books stores. You either need an e-book reader for reading an e-book or you can install it on your mobile. There are number free e-book readers available for Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian users.

Reading an e-book on a mobile is a better option because it fits easily into your pocket. E-books make it easier to keep your focus while reading. They provide you the option to change the font size and scroll it to the required spot effortlessly. Amazon and Sony have recently released their e-book reader in the form of an electronic gadget equivalent to the size of a book. This gadget lets you read electronic texts easily. It is much trouble-free to load several books on one reader, when going on a trip than to take several thick paperbacks with you.

E-books are available in various popular categories including information, romance, religion, philosophy, sociology, psychology and many others. The e-books are quicker to acquire. If you are looking for a specific informative book and you don’t have time to go and search in bookstores, you can easily buy or download it from online storefronts. E-books can be easily updated and upgraded so that you can get the newest versions as soon as they arrive. E-books are cheaper to find than printed books. You can also buy them at discounted prices from various promotional offers and bonuses on Christmas and New Year.

If you’re looking for any particular information from an e-book; you can easily find it by using the find feature. It saves your time and aggravation in comparison to printed book. However, buying a book from a bookshop is more of an impulse buying which gives you the advantage of gaining an idea of what the book is like from inside. This is not much possible in an e-book. There is little chance of ending up with something that doesn’t suit your need.

Looking at the increasing progress of new technology, it seems like printed books will become obsolete in some years or so. But it all depends on how easily we can adopt to make it a part of our lives. In the end we can say that the future digital book will take us far beyond today’s printed books and publishing industry, in many different and sometimes unexpected directions that we have yet to explore.

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