Explain why you would like to write children's books and whether the results of your market research, as suggested, in this module, enable you to feel more confident in writing for a certain age group or whether you have changed your initial plan and would prefer to write for a different age range.

I was surprised at how easy it was to answer this question – so I guess this is what I want to do!

My answer:

I would like to write children’s books because this has always been a gentre that has interested me. I can remember as a child, running down to the mobile library every Tuesday, to see if there were any new books by Enid Blyton on the shelves. When I saw that there was, I wuold quickly book it out, run home and devour it straight away. It would be wonderful if my books were as eagerly anticipated as this, even by just one child.

I think that the books you read as a child, you never forget and you pass them on to your children and they then pass them onto their children. Children books have stood the test of tiem, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Black Beauty and I’m sure the Harry Poter books will be around for years to come.

When visiting the library, I’m often drawn to the children’s books, firstly to take a look at which genres are popular, look at the new books by David Walliams and the old books by Roald Dahl and to admire the colourful and imaginative covers of the books.

As a grandmother, I love sitting down and reading with my grandchildren, I love the look on their faces as they listen and take in what is being said and ask questions. It would be lovely to think that the same is happening in other families and that my stories are generating the same sort of conversations.

In children’s books, you can include almost anything: talking animals, invisible people, wicked witches, fairies, which means that your imagination can go as wild as you like and you can create whole worlds for the children to be a part of. Even though this still needs to be thought out carefully, you can also have a lot of fun creating your different characters.

The early readers age group has always been the age bracket that I regarded as my target audience, from five years old to about seven. I feel that at this ae they enjoy the simpler stories with straightforward story lines and an underlying message that good is better than evil. At this age, children have progressed from books that have more pictures than words, to more words than pictures, but the sentences still need to be short, with no long, hard to read words and after completing the task of writing a short paragraph for each genre, I found my writing style complimented these types of books.

I would love to write a series of books, featuring the same characters, who face every day dilemmas and are able to overcome these dilemmas wih help from friends and family.

After completing some market research, I am still eager to write for this age group as I think it is a wonderful age when children really do discover the joy of books by reading them themsevles to with their parents, siblings or carers and I would love for my books to be a part of that.

Assessor Comment:

Excellent answer, honest and well written to get your point across.

List your overall goals for taking this course and include any smaller stepping stones to help you achieve those goals. 

I think that my overall goals were quite easy and the smaller stepping stones were common sense.

My answer:

My goal for taking this course is to eventually become a published children’s writer. I would love to have a book published that is ready by children, that they can relate to.

Anothe goal is that I would like to write more often, at the moment I can’t seem to get into this mindset and I would like to learn ways in which I can sit down and be creative and write.

Smaller stepping stones would be to produce good quality short stories for children and I would like to be able to learn how to create interesting characters.

Assessor Comments:

Realistic small stepping stone, everyone needs to start somewhere.

Grade needed to pass: 60%

Your grade: 100%

Your mark: Distinction