It feels a bit strange to ponder Marion’s question—why do I write for children—since I had never intended to write for children. I was focused on poetry and personal essays.

I write for children because when I see something that is amazing, I want to share it. 

When people ask me why I write for children, I have an easy answer: I raised seven children, read a whole lot of well-written children’s books, and decided to try my hand at writing for this audience.

Caren Stelson is the author of Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story, which was longlisted for the National Book Award as well as A Bowl Full of Peace, Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport and the forthcoming Returning the Sword.

Here is another response to my question, from a colleague who prefers to remain anonymous. 

I’m interrupting the series I’ve been posting, a series asking why grown-up writers choose children as our audience, to take on another topic.  A topic that has, just now, thrust itself into the news.

Guest Blog by Judi Logan

Writing for children was never a conscious intention or goal. I’d been writing for as long as I could hold a pencil, bleeding my secret thoughts into diaries and journals since I was maybe 8 years old.

I’ve asked other children’s writers to weigh in with their own reasons for choosing to write for young readers.  My first response is from Jane Buchanan, author of picture books, novels, and nonfiction. 

We human beings need stories.  In every culture, stories teach and heal.

Will those of you reading this who write for children send me a few words or an essay through the Contact link on my website?  Tell me what has prompted you to choose children and young adults as your audience. 

My parents were English to the bone.  While they didn’t agree about many basics, there was one value so imbedded in both that it seldom needed words. 

Feelings are not quite nice!

Lately I’ve been responding to a question no one has asked.  Or at least a question no one has asked for a long time.  It’s one I encountered often, though, when I was out in the world supporting my books.  The question . . . why did I choose to write for children? 

When my mother was a baby, she nearly died of whooping cough. 

It’s a question I was asked many times when I was out in the world supporting my books.  Why do you write for children? 

I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success

Every single day I give thanks for the multiple kinds of serendipity that gave me my career. 

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin

I began this blog in 2012 at the request of an editor.  She wanted me to write about my just-published novel in verse, Little Dog Lost.

The genius for happiness is still so rare, is indeed on the whole the rarest genius

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything

Your opponent, in the end, is never really the player on the other side of the net