Writing for children – Guest post by Author Robbie Cheadle

I am a guest at H.R. Phoenix’s lovely blog, Penable, which provides all sorts of interesting and helpful information and tips about writing.

My post shares my writing for children journey and my tips for writing for little people. Thank you H.R. for inviting me over.

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Hi everyone, I hope you’re all doing great! Today we have a special guest post from children’s author, Robbie Cheadle.

This post is about her experience of writing for children.

Writing for children

I have always been a reader and a writer. I learned how to read at the age of four years old and have always had at least one book on the go ever since. Usually I read and/or listen to three or four books at the same time; one will be an audio book, one will be poetry, and two will be fiction. My interest in reading led me to ‘scribbling’ as a girl. I used to write fanciful prose full of long descriptions about flowers and snowflakes, I also always wrote poetry. English was my favourite subject at school, followed by History.

When my oldest son, Gregory, was born in 2003, I wanted him to enjoy all the books I’d loved as a girl and so I read to him. Initially I read while he fed and as he got older, we had reading sessions which got longer and longer. Even now, whenever I go to see the doctor who delivered Gregory, his receptionist comments how she remembers my son as being the little boy who would sit and be read to for up to three hours while we waited for my monthly and then weekly appointments during my pregnancy with my second son, Michael. Michael was also taught to be a reader. When he came along in 2006, he used to sit on my lap while I read to Greg. I read to, and later with, Michael until he was twelve years old.

We read so much that eventually I ran out of books. We had repeatedly read all my childhood favourites such as The Enchanted Wood and the Wishing Chair books by Enid Blyton, the Dr Seuss books, the Beatrix Potter books, and many others. I started looking around for modern books to read to my sons. I was not delighted with some of the books I bought for them as many of the stories involved precocious children who made a point of disobeying their parents and doing naughty things. I didn’t want to encourage my boys into bad behavior.

When Gregory was in Grade 1, he melted his wax crayons on the heater at school after reading about similar behaviour by a boy in a book. It was this incident that pushed me to write my own series of books for children full of fantasy and adventure. I liked the idea of stories about people helping other people.

Continue reading here: https://penable.net/2020/10/12/writing-for-children-guest-post-by-author-robbie-cheadle/

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