Tara Maya's Tales

I have a son who is learning to read. I want to write stories that will be of 
interest and value to him. I know the 
values that I believe are universal to sentient beings, but are there elements which are particularly attractive 
to the little boy goobers out there? image: Pink Sherbert Photography

                    Read the rest: on Amazon or email me for the pdf at tara@taramayastales.com Buy this book on Amazon

Updated May 16, 2022 We all live in a Yellow Obmarine. Subtext in dialogue is the opposite of the obvious; it's dialogue in which what goes unsaid is as important as what is said. The opposite of this is not, but should be, called obtext . Screenwriters have a term for dialogue in which characters say exactly what they mean: "on the nose." I'll stick with obtext. Sad to say, obtextual dialogue, one obvious and true statement after another, usually sounds unrealistic, because people seldom say exactly what they mean, or all of what they mean. There are two places you can see obtext used to good effect: children's stories and comedy. In children's stories, characters say exactly what they mean, because this is what children themselves do. That's why they walk up to the obese woman and ask, "Why are you so fat?" or ask the man with long hair, "Are you a daddy or a mommy?" or comment on their baby brother's drawing, "It...

  Once a week, I'm going to do a Kid's Corner post, devoted to children's literature. Today's question is about how to define genre in Children's Literature. Some people would place Young Adult lit here too, but I think it makes more sense to discuss that with adult fiction, since the crossover in readership and material is profound. When I discuss Children's Lit, I'm talking about books for young children up to Middle Grade.  Children's Lit encompasses the full range of genres that you find in Young Adult and Adult fiction. But the books are shelved by age, not the type of story. That makes sense. These are books for kids at widely divergent stages of reading ability, and catering to the vocabulary and sophistication of the reader is far more important than narrowing selection by interest. Kids are also more open to different genres than older readers. They aren't as quickly bored as teens and aren't as hardened in their tastes as ...