Children's Writer's Word Book / Books for Writers

Sherry Ellis recommended this book to me when I was helping my mom with her children’s story.

Writing for children can be tricky. There are several different genres including picture books, picture story books, easy readers, for specific age groups, and chapter books. Each of these have guidelines such as word count, age brackets, and reading levels. You really have to know the ins and outs of what type of children’s book you want to write and the age of your target readers.

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Children’s Writer’s Word Book by Alijandra Mogilner & Tayopa Mogilner is a great tool to help you learn how to write a children’s book. This book is divided into 7 sections from kindergarten to grade 6^th and middle grade. Under each section is a word list that all children learn at the level and can be in your story. There’s explanations for what children learn in the classroom at each grade level, publishing information such as what publishers expect in terms of length and content, and also short writing samples to give you an idea of how to write for each level.

At the end of the book, there’s a neat thesaurus that highlights common words and provides synonym alternatives for different grades.

EX: abandon (4^th): desert (1^st), discard (6^th), give up (K), leave (1^st), quit (1^st), reject (5^th), surrender (5^th), yield (4^th).

EX: zone (4^th): area (3^rd), arena (5^th), belt (2^nd), district (4^th), field (2^nd), part (1^st), quarter 

(1^st), ranger (3^rd), realm (4^th), region (4^th), section (4^th), space (1^st), sphere (6^th), territory (3^rd), ward (5^th).

If you want to write for children, but you don’t understand the levels and age groups, this book will assist you greatly.

QUESTION: Are there any words I shared above that surprise you with the grade level that they are for?