FEATURED POST by Sandy Brannan

No matter how old you are, reading is one of the best parts of life. Reading to children is incredibly important and should not be limited to their early years. It is also wonderful for them to have the opportunity to become independent readers.

Teaching children to read is somewhat of a recipe that needs to be followed carefully. For example, you certainly don’t want to introduce digraphs before phonemes. There is no denying the need for structure, but I think sometimes we get a little off-balance when we think about the role of reading in the life of a child. After all, we really haven’t done anyone a favor if we’ve taught these skills without also introducing reading in an enjoyable way. Children might read because it is required of them, but they will only grow up to become adults who read by choice if we show them that it is a pleasure, not a chore. This can be accomplished easily by:

1.     Steering children toward quality reading material.

2.     Knowing enough about a child’s development             

        to introduce books which will not only entertain 

        

        them but make them feel successful as readers.

3.     Giving them space to read as well as the 

        opportunity to choose whether a book is a good 

        fit for them or not.

Children’s literature is such a foundational genre. When   

we, as adults, go back and read our favorite stories or  

books we remember from our childhood, we often find  

 treasures hidden on the pages. Consider E.B. White’s  

Charlotte’s Web.To a child, it is a delightful tale about a  

pig and a spider. But you can’t get past the first chapter  

as an adult without realizing White had a much deeper  

lesson to convey to us. The beauty of friendship, the gift  

of sacrifice, and the legacy of family are among the  

takeaways he shared with his readers when he chose to  

write this amazing novel. Children need to learn  

these lessons, and book sallow us to share them in a  

gentle way.

I believe children are intelligent and inquisitive. As writers, we owe it to them to write quality stories. These stories should be fun to read because a child’s main job is to play. They should have the chance to have questions stirred up in them while also making sense of their personal world and making discoveries about the world around them. Stories give us a chance to share all of this with children. What a huge responsibility and an incredible opportunity.

I’ve been writing for a few years now, all adult fiction.

Recently I decided to pivot a bit and write a children’s book. Years ago, I created a character, Boy Deer, for my grandson. Every time I told a Boy Deer tale, I was making it up on the spot. My grandson’s reactions always helped me as I created each scene. I’m currently taking these scenes, adding a few new ones, and weaving them all together into a simple chapter book. I want this character to have experiences similar to that of a preschool child. I feel it’s important for children to have someone to read about who has the same questions they have, who wonders about the same things they do, and who works through the same emotions that come from having new experiences just like they have going on in their own lives. If you really stop and think about it, everything is new to a child, and a lot of what they experience can be overwhelming. Stories are a way to let them know they aren’t alone and that their feelings are valid.

A children’s book needs to have pictures. In fact, I believe wordless books are a great first experience for an emergent reader because he can learn to tell the story based on his prior knowledge as well as by using clues from the pictures to think through plot and characterization. Children also can gain a feeling of success as a reader before they have learned to sound out words or recognize sight words. But even when a child is ready for a simple book to read by himself, the pictures help the story come to life in his mind. This is my desire for every child who reads about Boy Deer. I’m excited to have a talented local artist working with me to create a chapter book with illustrations that will appeal to children who can read the book on their own as well as those who pick it up simply because the pictures are interesting to them.

Being on the other side of reading has been quite exciting for me. As a child, the library was a place I visited often, enjoying the freedom of walking up and down the aisles and pulling books off the shelves to examine first the cover and then to open them to reveal the true treasure that waited for me on their pages. I sincerely hope The Adventures of Boy Deer will be a book that creates that kind of excitement. I want my characters to come alive, creating emotions in the readers that will stay with them long after the last page has been read. I hope this is a book that children will not only want to read over and over to hear about Boy Deer’s adventures, but one that will cause them to create their own. A child’s imagination is an important resource, and I’m grateful for my small part to help encourage it to grow.

To learn more about Sandy Brannan, find her online at 

https://sandybrannan.com/