Children's Book

Hello. Good morning.

In the past, I've had a few very kind and generous folks tell me I should write and illustrate a children's book. That absolutely made my day. It really meant a lot. And I got to thinking, "How much fun would it be to write a children's book!" I began thinking of the setting, characters, plot lines, twists...this book was going to be epic. It would span centuries...telling tales of fantastic heroes and wondrous villains. There would, of course, be flying unicorns (I never understood why nobody combined a pegasus and unicorn...that's just common sense), talking sharks, and self-depricating robots. Then I realized I needed to stop right there. I was getting carried away. I could never write a children's book. Not even a short story. Not even a haiku.

Hey kid, you're sticky.

Feed yourself much? Prob'ly not.

Blegh. Ick. Don't touch me.

See?

In high school, we were in a homeschool creative writing class. We were asked to write a short story about whatever we wanted. It had to fit on one page. Everybody else wrote stories about a kid learning to ride a bike, or a family shipwrecked, or a hiker traversing the wiles of Mount Everest. I wrote a story about a cheetah hunting, chasing, killing, and eating a wildebeest...from the perspective of the cheetah. I can't write a children's book.

Kids are odd. I don't know how to relate to them. What do they like? What are they thinking? What do they want from me? I think they're smarter than they let on and that scares the beejeebles out of me. I don't know what's going on inside their mind. Besides, I don't have the literary and grammatical training to write a book. I say things like "y'all's" and "bejeebles". Those aren't even real words. Your kids would never get into college if they read that book.

However, just to see if I could do it, I tried writing a children's short story once...complete with illustrations. I'd like to share it with you.

It's called...What Happens When You Don't Eat Your Veggies.

What do you think? I've got the manuscript out to a few publishers. I'm expecting a call back any day now. Any day now.......