ABSTRACT
E-mail: ujuto@freenetedmonton.ab.ca
“Writing for children for me is both challenging and rewarding. You have to find a way of writing about a big idea in simple terms. You have to be innovative in order to catch a child’s attention. At the same time, the story has to appeal to you the writer, first. Simple and clear doesn’t mean being frivolous. Writing for children is a good way to learn the fundamentals of fiction and story making. You have to put everything that you put in adult fiction and then some. When I first started writing, I used to write everything. I wrote short stories for adults, I wrote a novella. However, it wasn’t until my first son was born that I decided to write for children. I remember reading to my son some stories that I enjoyed as a kid (like The Little Red Hen, The Lion and the Rat, The Emperor’s New Clothes, etc.) and the writer in me appreciating the brilliant simplicity of the tales. I remember saying to myself that I would like to be able to write with such conciseness and evocative clarity, and it seems to me that writing for children offers an opportunity for doing that.”
