Literature: "Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value." I had never heard the term "kid lit" until a couple of years ago when I was searching out info. on how to write a children's book . I had a couple of great reference books from the library but once I went on-line, down the rabbit hole I tumbled! I ended up visiting some great forums that got me connected with lots of people who shared a love of literature for kids.
I am a big reader, always have been. Enid Blyton's "Famous Five" series were the first books I remember reading on my own and they transported me into a world of adventure with 5 British kids and their dog. Now I have kids of my own and my all-time favourite place to go with them was the public library. I loved going into the children's section when they were small and perusing the shelves of colourful picture books while they graduated from pulling board books off the shelves to chew them to walking over to me with a towering pile of books asking, "can we get all these?" It was so great to be in a place where they could pick out whatever they wanted and I could say, "Yes."
We always rode our bikes to the library. The kids each started out on the baby seat on the back of mine when they were small and then moved up to the trail-a-bike. I always had the back pack to carry all of the books home, so our limit of books was dependant on how much would fit in the pack and how much it weighed! I always went in saying,"only 5 books each. Mummy has to carry these!" I can't say no to a good book or to the child who wants to take them out. Needless to say, I had very sore shoulders on library day and often ended up having a plastic bag full of books dangling from the handle bars as well.
When they could each ride on their own, I had them take their own back packs to help me out, which of course also meant that we could take out MORE books! It felt like collecting treasure. On library days we would have a "three book night" at bedtime, which more often than not, turned into a 5 or 6 book night because I'm such a sucker for reading amazing stories.
My kids are now 9 and 12 years old and we are still reading together at bedtime but the books have definitely changed. We did read a couple of Famous Five books over the years, which had us rolling around laughing at the language they used in the 40's, the freedom the children had in their summers and how outdated they were. (my kids and I still laugh about the cow tongue and boiled sweets the characters packed for their picnic lunch) They were still exciting adventures though, and we had a grand time reading them.
I am not a scholar of children's literature or a writer of children's books but I am absolutely passionate about them, so I decided to create a blog where I would serve up a smackerel of something about our favourite authors and books and all manner of other writings.
