Sand and Snow

From the window here in snowy Denver I can see the white capped mountains to the west. We arrived in a snow storm and it has snowed on and off since. The local news is filled with school closings to the south and stories of the main highway to the east closed from the airport across the plains to Kansas due to snow and high winds creating white out conditions. What a dramatic and different children's world and life style here from the world we just left in sunny Florida.

As a children's writer I think of these differences children readers face and consider how weather conditions affect their experiences and what they might choose to read and their reactions to it.Today after school in Florida children might play soccer and tennis and bike in the park. In Colorado they are sledding down a nearby hillside or skiing down the slick mountains. Maybe they are also helping to shovel snow.

What fun it is to be a children's writer and to construct stories that center on the universal similarities of a child's life to appeal to all children readers but to also color a specific book's plot with intriguing details of a very different place from where most children dwell.

  Also, what an important job too, as a children's writer, to bring a story to life that will touch children's lives in all areas of the country and to address their common concerns and cares, whether they are swimming and helping to sweep the sand out or skiing and shoveling snow.