What makes a great children’s book idea?
The truth is that one idea isn’t better than another — it all depends on how you write the book!
(Of course, there is certain subject matter that might not be appropriate for young children. For example, you probably wouldn’t want to write a book for three-year-olds about playing with matches!)
But most ideas have the potential to be crafted into wonderful books. And it isn’t possible to know ahead of time which ideas will turn into the best books.
So, it wasn’t possible for me to choose the “best” submissions.
Still, this is a contest and I had to pick winners, so I picked three that appealed to me for various reasons. Here are the winning entries:
Winning Entry #1
by Margo Ann Sullivan
“Child goes to visit an outdoor topiary museum when ‘animals‘ come to life and escape.”
(This appealed to me because I imagined a fun story where the child would have to find and capture the topiary animals, which might be hiding in the landscape, trying to blend in with the other plants. But maybe the author has a completely different story in mind — that’s okay! There are endless ways to develop the same story idea.)
Winning Entry #2
by Tara N. Gunn
“Grandma’s Closet.
My late grandmother Ellen Allen was born in 1927. She was a black woman who migrated north from the Jim Crow South. This is a story of all the treasures she kept in her bedroom closet. There was a history lesson in each hat and shoe.”
(This appealed to me because I loved the idea of telling the grandmother’s story through the objects in her closet.)
Winning Entry #3
by Sobhanund Seeparsad
“The little yellow looking hen, Piping was Adam’s best friend and laid one egg every day for the boy. But poverty pushed the family to sell the hen. Little Adam was heartbroken and goes out in search of Piping.”
(I immediately cared about Adam and his dilemma and was rooting for him to be reunited with his hen!)
Congratulations to the winners! And congratulations to everyone who has a picture book idea that you can now develop into a great story!