Читать книгу Writing Children's Books For Dummies - Peter Economy - Страница 74

Children don’t get to choose their families, and things don’t always go well in that sphere, even if only temporarily. But children don’t have the same concept of time that adults do, and so issues with family can feel pressing and overwhelming. Books provide an excellent way to help children deal with such issues as different family makeup (blended families, gay families, families in which someone other than the parents actually do the parenting, and so on), divorce, siblings, favoritism, adoption, rivalries, extended family, and more).

You can find all kinds of picture books about the many faces of contemporary families, as well as middle-grade and YA books. The Family Book, by Todd Parr (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), which is also in board book form, celebrates the love we feel for our families and all the different varieties they come in; and Families, Families, Families!, by Suzanne Lang (Random House Books for Young Readers), demonstrates all kinds of nontraditional families depicted by animals. If you look, you can find many titles out there on every specific issue that children might have with their families. Figure 3-21 includes Babies Come from Airports, by Erin Dealey, illustrations by Luciana Navarro Powell (EDC Publishing), which is about adoption.

a) Babies Come from Airports North American rights reprinted with permission of the publisher Kane Miller, A Division of EDC Publishing, 2017. Text copyright © Erin Dealey 2017, illustrations copyright © 2017 Luciana Navarro Powell. b) How to Live on the Edge, written by Sarah Lynn Scheerger. Text © 2010 by Sarah Lynn Scheerger. Reprinted with the permission of CarolRhoda Lab, an imprint oif Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this cover may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

FIGURE 3-21: Example titles addressing family issues.

Middle-grade readers also have their pick of books about families. All About Adoption: How Families Are Made & How Children Feel About It, by Marc Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata (American Psychological Association), covers adoption in an easy-to-relate-to manner. You can find so many books for middle-grade and YA that cover families that we couldn’t touch the tip of the iceberg. Ask your librarian or local bookseller for their favorites, and they can lead the way. Figure 3-21 also shows a good YA example in the genre, How to Live on the Edge, which deals with a teen whose family has the gene for breast cancer.