Leslie Helakoski and Darcy Pattison share 9 Picture Book Topics to Avoid (or, at least be forewarned about!)

Over at the Highlights Foundation blog, SCBWI members and all-around awesome picture book folks Leslie Helakoski and Darcy Pattison share a post on 9 Picture Book Topics to Avoid.

What's so helpful is that they acknowledge the well-worn themes, but also point out that if you go there, you better be bringing something new and fresh to the category... and then they list some picture books that have done just that.

From the tooth fairy to a new baby coming into the family, the areas are familiar... but are the fresh takes on those as familiar?

They ask us to consider, for a fresh take on tooth fairy stories, The Dinosaur Tooth Fairy by Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Israel Sanchez

and for something new on the new baby on the way stories, You Were the First (2013) by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin.

The full blog post is well-worth reading.

Consider, does your current picture book work in progress fall into any of these nine categories? And if so, do you have an approach that will help your take stand out?

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

How Do You Know If You've Written a Picture Book?

This question comes up so often, I'm grateful to Darcy Pattison and Leslie Helakoski who, over at the Highlights Foundation blog, wrote a great piece that helps us writers figure it out, How Do You Know If You've Written a Picture Book?

They offer us nine questions off the bat, including:

Does the MC change or evolve over the course of the story? Is there tension and a narrative arc? and Does the story have a universal connection and kid-relatable problem?

And then, a breakdown of what each of the fourteen sections of a picture book must accomplish, from the foundational make the reader want to turn the page to the more meta If this section is left out does the story change or suffer?

Overall, it's well-worth reading—especially when you're trying to figure out if a new idea is a picture book, a magazine article, or something else entirely.

Illustrate and Write On, 
Lee