What Are The Key Ingredients Of A Good Children’s Book?

The nation’s favourite children’s books makes for a very diverse list: some inevitable titles pop up there, such as Roald Dahl’s The BFG. However, the range can be surprising: the whimsical adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh sit alongside dystopian tales of suffering and survival. So, is there a magic ingredient that connects these much-loved stories?

There’s loads of advice out there on how to write a good children’s book, and the appetite for a good story is something that will never go away. According to BookTrust, there was a surge in children’s reading during the lockdown days of 2020. Their research showed that 47% of parents observed their children reading more.

Stories are a wonderful way to provide escapism and feed the imagination of youngsters, and many people dream of becoming a successful children’s author. The most crucial thing that all well-loved novels have in common is an interesting and memorable lead character. They don’t have to be perfect or heroic; in fact, some flaws are probably a good thing.

Kids aren’t interested in saintly paragons of virtue: they delight in subversive resourceful types who are able to triumph against the odds. Think Roald Dahl’s Matilda, or Lyra, the heroine of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. The character should have a consistent way of thinking and acting to be convincing, however.

The character can be rebellious, an underdog, timid, or noisy, but they must have some relatable or likeable personality traits, and not be wholly obnoxious, or bland and dull. They have to feel as though they could exist in real life, even if the setting of the novel is fantasy. All of their actions, goals, thoughts and dialogue must ‘gel’ together.

It can be tempting to offer a running commentary on the character’s thoughts, feelings, appearance and motivations to try and get your story across to the reader, but most of the time, these efforts will just get in the way. Try and step back and let the character’s actions and reactions to situations speak for themselves.

This is a similar case when writing a setting for your story: it should be convincing and fully realised, especially if it is a fantasy novel. However, constantly describing each scene in precise detail will become wearisome: offer pointers, but put some faith in your reader’s imagination, and let them have a free rein to picture things for themselves sometimes.

Of course, even the most compelling character will need plenty of action and suspense in a children’s novel; they won’t have the patience to wade through a finely nuanced portrait of the human psyche! Grip them to the seat and take them on a journey with a well-crafted plot that results in a problem solved, or a mission accomplished.

Along the way, you can take your character to the very limits of their endurance; in fact, the more the odds stack up against them, the sweeter the victory at the end! Finally, the story should have some kind of coherent message: it doesn’t have to be heavy-handed, but it needs to say something that speaks to both the head and the heart.

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