h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think there's a difference between writing stories for adults, which have children in them, and writing stories for children.

In stories for children, the children need to be the heroes and heroines. They need the space to do the exciting, dangerous things good, sensible parents would stop them doing. So some child heroes are orphans, like Harry Potter, or have parents who are hostile, like Matilda, or escape into an enchanted world, like the children in Narnia.

I suspect writing for children requires a lot of skill. I've met people who've said 'I'm writing a story for children', and, when I ask 'what age group?' they don't know. That strikes me as the first thing to think about.

I think you're right. It's like educational writing.

One thing you need to know is the vocabulary level and level of sentence complexity you need. And you need to know the way they process ideas.

You also need to know what their cultural baggage is.

For example, Kate Douglas Wiggin wrote 'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm'. In her day, it was perfectly normal for a 12-year-old girl to quote Wordsworth, as she does in the very first chapter. When asked how many siblings she has, she tells the carter who's taking her to her aunts' house:

'Quick was the little maid's reply, oh master, we are seven.'

Now, that made perfect sense. Rebecca was educated using McGuffey's Eclectic Readers. McGuffey was big on Wordsworth.

On the other hand, when she says she'd like to see Paris someday, the carter growls, 'I've been there. Dullest town in the state of Maine.'

This sort of conversation was perfectly sensible back then. But don't quote Wordsworth to modern 12-year-olds.

I've been writing for 9th graders (15-year-olds) for a month. I got a note that said: 'The kids won't get this reference.'

The reference was to the song 'Let There Be Peace on Earth'. When I was in 9th grade, we sang it in school.

You're right about children's stories. Kids need to relate. One of my lessons was about globalisation in economics, so I asked them to imagine buying a t-shirt, looking at the label, thinking about the people who made the t-shirt and how they lived, etc. I followed that t-shirt to China and back.

I think my favourite kids' story back in the day was called 'Danny and the Homework Machine'. It was a cool story:

Danny and his friends, all pre-adolescents, hung out at the home of their nutty neighbour the Professor. Amazingly for the 1950s, the Professor had a computer in his basement. (It must have been a big basement, because ENIAC took up a lot of space.) Danny learned how to program the computer to do his maths homework. Danny felt guilty for cheating, and confessed his sins to his maths teacher.

Who laughed and laughed. Danny, of course, was now a certified geek who knew a lot more than 5th-grade maths. I loved that one.

Some of the favourite stories from my childhood were written by Rosemary Sutcliffe. She's particularly famous for her novels of Roman Britain, including 'The Eagle of the Ninth' and 'The Lantern Bearers'.

I think what interested me was that the stories are more realistic than most of those written for children. The characters aren't just heroes and villains, they are real, flawed people, who are trying to live in difficult times.

I have a memory of the Sutcliffe books. I was a student library assistant. I remember shelving them a lot. They were very popular, and with good reason.

I think that's true. Real people are more interesting than cardboard cutouts.

For a younger reader, Robert Lawson is a great history writer. You've probably never heard of him because his subject is US history. His most famous book is 'Ben and Me', about the mouse who was the real brains behind Ben Franklin's genius:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827430.Ben_and_Me

Another book is called 'Mr Revere and I'. Revere's horse is a bit of a snob.