If You Were a Writer - Hardcover

Nixon, Joan Lowery

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0027682102 ISBN 13: 9780027682106

Publisher: Aladdin, 1988

Synopsis

Melia tells her writer mother she'd like to be a writer too, and as the day progresses she receives many helpful suggestions.

About this title

About the Author:

Bruce Degen has illustrated all the Jesse Bear books. He is the author and illustrator of Jamberry, and the illustrator of the acclaimed Magic School Bus series. He has taught courses on art and the writing and illustrating of children's books to children and adults. Mr. Degen, his wife, and their two sons, Benjamin and Alexander, live in Connecticut in a renovated farmhouse with ducks on the pond, bats in the barn, and a family tree that Jesse Bear himself would love to climb.

From Publishers Weekly:

When Melia begins to ask her mother questions about what she does, her mother has all the answers. "A writer doesn't work just with a typewriter. A writer works with words. If you were a writer, you would think of words that make pictures." Later, Melia discovers that her mother asks, "what if," when she sees a scene, how she might expand on the story ideas around her, how she gets readers to want to keep reading more, and how she begins with a character and a problem to solve, and then thinks of interesting ways for that to happen. The fundamentals of creative writing are passed along, even the adage to "show, not tell" the story, but much of this is wordy. And using the girl and her mother to stage a discussion still has all the trappings of didacticism. Degen's pictures lighten the atmosphere of learning, offering neighborhood scenes of a writer's life at home. The work, despite shortcomings, will be of value to readers, for it gives serious answers to the question of what a writer does. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0027682102
• ISBN 13: 9780027682106
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Degen Bruce