Juvenile Fiction Quotes

Every novelist should write something for children at least once in his lifetime.

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.

People had been writing to me and saying, "Can you write something for children?" I felt I couldn't quite do it myself because I never had children.

Children's literature is as valid an art form as any other.

I still retain a bit of a child's focus on things, so we [with my sister] figure if we're going to write books, our best shot is to write children's books, because we relate pretty readily on that level.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

I mean, I don't write for kids.

I have always loved reading books for children and young adults, particularly when those books are mysteries.

I don't read many young adult books.

I think so much of young adult literature sort of gets ghettoized - the title 'young adult' makes people immediately discount it. And just like with books that get written for adults, there is plenty of young adult literature that is bad. But there is also plenty of young adult literature that is brilliant.

I began attempting to write for children under the mistaken assumption that writing for children was easy.

I'm not terribly conversant with children's literature in general. I tend to read books for adults, being an adult.

This is the great thing about writing for kids. Adults might not do anything if they recognized me. But if they do see me, and they're with a kid, they'll tell the kid who I am. They think they should give that to the kid. So generally that sends the kid over.

I first read Heinlein when I was very young.

My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.

Kids, if anything, are harder to write for because they are a more discerning audience. They will not stay with you if you go off on a tangent or if you give them extraneous information that doesn't serve the story. You really have to tell a tight story. You have to give them humor and suspense and believable characters. All those things that adults want too, but you have to be really on your game when you're writing for kids.

Talented people are finding that writing for young people is as demanding of high quality as writing for adults.

It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.

I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.

Of course Stephen King doesn't believe in teen novels. I've started to suspect he doesn't even believe in teenagers.

I have a passion for children's literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I've always loved it.

I never set out to write books for children. I don't have a feeling that I'm gonna save children or my life is devoted.

My post-child period resulted in one instant change: I write shorter books for kids.

If it's not good enough for adults, it's not good enough for children. If a book that is going to be marketed for children does not interest me, a grownup, then I am dishonoring the children for whom the book is intended, and I am dishonoring books. And words.

I've always wanted to write an early reader. When I wrote my first novel, my goal was to make it an early reader, but it grew beyond the category.