Have you ever wondered what kids, teachers, and librarians are looking for in children’s books? A writing group in my area took the initiative to bring in a panel of teachers and librarians representing children from grades kindergarten through twelve. These professionals gave us their opinions on “what’s hot and what’s not” in children’s literature for all genres. They spoke of current trends, what teachers want to see, what librarians are looking for, and what kids like and ask for.

Current Trends:

The panel’s advice on trends was that trends change and change quickly. “Kids should be your first focus,” one teacher said. “Deliver a knock out first sentence and a knock out first page.”

What’s Hot:

• YA is the largest market

• Middle grade and non-fiction

• Picture books with strong merchandising and mass appeal

• Early Readers: humor, scary books, book popularity by word of mouth, books based on what’s on TV

• True Stories of what life was like when…

• Historical Fiction with a non-fiction blurb at the end describing real life events of  the time period

• Use of mixed media

What’s Not:

            A large number of children’s books and magazine articles are published yearly. The panel suggested avoiding certain topics and themes. There are too many of these types of books.

• ABC picture books

• Counting picture books

• Bedtime picture books

• 1^st day of school stories

• Anniversary trends: for example, Lewis and Clark

• Fantasies with boys as the main character

• Historical fiction with girls as the main character

What Teachers Want:

When asked, the teachers on the panel told us some tricks that catch teachers’ interests. Furthermore, they pointed out that if we make our stories appeal to the educational market, teachers are more prone to buy them, thus increasing our exposure to the children in the target age ranges. Each teacher mentioned that she likes fictional stories to have something factual in the back part of the book that relates to the fiction.

One teacher stated that excerpts in anthologies expose the children to writers and their stories. Anthologies provide a sampling of a chapters from several books. If a kid reads the chapter and likes it, he or she is more likely to buy the book to see what happens next.

When asked about the trade books used in the classrooms, teachers suggested other ways to increase the appeal. They said to request Accelerated Reader (AR) tests on your books. In the Accelerated Reader program kids read the books and take a short quiz on them the next day. Scholastic has a similar program to AR, Scholastic Counts. These programs integrate learning in the classroom with home study, thus involving the parents in the reading process.

What Teachers Want to See:

• Phonics- for weaker students

• Books for slow or poor readers – incorporate words from the dolch reading list (frequently used word list)

• Fewer trade books in elementary schools

• Index and glossaries (publisher usually does this)

• Hero books: historical figures

• Anthologies: Literature excerpts skills, story elements, characters, and plots

• Graphic novels

  • Needed in elementary and up

• Holidays

  • Needed in elementary and up

What Librarians Want:

            The librarians on the panel expressed their frustration in the difficulties of finding books covering the subjects that kids need to do research on for school projects. One librarian commented that the available resources either were very dry or had an uninteresting cover. She told us that kids have general assumptions about certain topics and reluctantly trudge through research materials in order to get their answers.

Needed subjects for libraries:

• Non-fiction for younger kids that meet curriculum requirements and is interesting

• Science fiction

• Detective stories

• UfO's

• How to build things

• Haunted houses

Subjects That Kids and Teachers are Asking for:

What kids ask for is often very different from what is considered an award -winning book. More often than not, a kid’s choice does not include a great work of literary fiction or nonfiction. They have their popular picks and these choices are often influenced by what their friends are reading.

The teachers also reminded us that parents buy the books until a kid is twelve or thirteen years old. So what a child may end up reading, may be jaded by parental preference.

Elementary Schools:

• More non-fiction first grade /kindergarten level

• Non-fiction topics geared toward young boys:

  • Cars

  • Dirt bikes

  • Motorcycles

  • Pirates

  • dinosaurs

• Upbeat and funny stories

• Picture books dealing with social conflict resolution

Middle Schools:

• Themes

• Upbeat stories

• Ancient civilizations: Egypt, Rome, Renaissance, Mesopotamia

• Non-fiction

• Historical fiction

• Social interactions: friends and relationships

• Scary mysteries

• Adventure/ action

• Longer Ghost Stories – too many short stories

• Mystery – historical

• Music related stories

High School Reluctant Readers:

• Diary

• Poetry formatted stories and articles

• Historical Fiction

• Non-fiction - topics not commonly found

• Joke books

• Discoveries

• Inventions

• Paranormal: ghosts, ESP, haunted houses

The teachers and librarians panel provided many insights into the need and demand in children’s fiction and nonfiction. They apprised us of the shortcomings in the published market as well as telling us what has been overdone. Their opinions offer us a fresh perspective for personal growth within the world of children’s writing. And they may have even provided several sparks for a handful of writers.

Recommended References:

Trend Resources:

1.      Children’s Writer Newsletter

2.      The Horn Book

3.      The Writer

Websites:

http://www.english-zone.com/reading/dolch.html   Dolch reading list

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/reading/dolch/index.htm The Teacher’s Corner

* Previously published in Boost Online Support Group's The Blue Review, September 2004 edition.