Why Write for Kids?

Guest Blog by Judi Logan

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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. (70 years later, I still have many of those journals.)  And I read voraciously. My youthful idols weren’t movie stars or sports heroes, they were fictional characters and the authors who created stories I could read myself into. 

When I first began writing with the idea of possible publication, I thought my audience would be adults. Or maybe teens. But nearly every character who whispered into my heart and danced around my brain until I gave in and wrote their story was 11 or 12 years old. For some reason I didn’t know at the time, it seemed those young characters knew I’d listen to them. That I’d care. 

It wasn’t until several years after my stories began finding their way into print and I began finding my way into conferences for children’s writers that I discovered the reason I write for kids. By then I had been asked often why I didn’t choose a readership that would make my writing more…lucrative. And when bills were hiding beneath my latest work-in-progress, I’d sometimes ask myself, Why ARE you doing this? 

It wasn’t until I heard Marion Dane Bauer speak at a seminar that I got the answer: I have to. When Marion spoke about “the child hole,” it was as if she were speaking right into my soul – not to a room filled with rapt attendees. And I knew at that moment that my characters and their stories were filling empty places left in my heart from childhood. And while my childhood wasn’t the charmed, carefree existence we wish for every child, the truth is, everyone has child holes; some of us are compelled to fill them through Story.

Only in the looking-back could I see how much of young-Judi’s heartbeat kept those fictional characters moving through their stories. And only in the looking-back did I see how my ability to safely maneuver a fictional child through hard times enabled adult-Judi to apply ointment to leftover personal wounds.  And so, while I didn’t make the choice to write for kids–I’m so glad it chose me! (And I’m so glad to have had the privilege of knowing Marion Dane Bauer for one weekend. I don’t know what I paid to attend that conference, but Marion’s words probably saved me thousands of dollars in therapy bills!) 

Thank you, Marion, for all that you are and all that your characters have done to fill child holes --across the generations and across the globe-- with warmth and joy and so much more!

PS  …My active novel-writing career came to an end when I got my 1st advance on a novel and “have to” was tucked inside my brain every time I sat down to write.  My wonderful editor (David Gale) was excited about the 3rd novel idea I’d proposed and he was so pleased to be able to help me out financially. But in the middle of writing The Boy in the Candle Shop Window, S&S got a new president who wanted to focus on “adventure” novels for YA. The marketing people thought Coyote Girl was an adventure novel – but that was only the surface of it. And teens? I wasn’t sure. David said, “Just try” – and I did. But time and time again, it just wasn’t “right.”  Keep trying, I was told. But there are deadlines that come with advances. I simply couldn’t write my way into keeping that advance. Of course, looking back, I now understand why I couldn’t write a story with PLOT as the central focus; why I couldn’t write a story with a TEEN at the helm. But at the time, I simply felt like a failure. I had let David down and it was clear to me that I only had 2 decent books inside of me.

     Any writer who understands Marion’s “Child Hole” motivation won’t be surprised that there are more than a dozen manuscripts in various stages of completion hiding in boxes in my closet or files on my computer. Just because the world wouldn’t hear them didn’t stop the character's voices from whispering into my heart.      Sometimes I take these WIPs out and revisit them. So much in those stories are too dated. The characters lived in a different era and I don’t think they can honestly relate to today’s middle grader readers. But I still love those characters. I’m just finding new ways to give them their “rest of the story” and fill whatever Child Hole in me they came to fill.

About Judi Logan (writing also as Judith Logan Lehne & Judith Logan Welch)

     I spent 18+ years actively involved in the world of children’s literature, writing & teaching. My published works include the middle grade novels When the Ragman Sings  & Coyote Girl, 5 nonfiction books for children, a 60th anniversary book for a large YMCA, contributing author to 6 books, and 6 plays written for and produced in school drama programs.

     I was an instructor for The Institute of Children’s Literature for 16 years and facilitated writing workshops at Hofstra University, University of Wisconsin, and schools & libraries in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Connecticut &, New Jersey.