• Age: 5 to 8
• Grade: k to 3

Ever wanted to write or illustrate a children's book and have no idea where to begin or where to seek publication? This handbook for new and aspiring children's authors and illustrators is the ultimate guide to the whole process of writing your book and getting it to the publisher.

Written in clear and expert prose by Peter Carver, one of North America's leading children's book editors, this book will show you how to begin, how to develop the story, how to speak to your audience, and how to refine the work for publication. Peter does not beat around the bush: Writing a children's book is hard but rewarding work that requires the kinds of skill and dedication you can develop from the wisdom and guidance found in these pages. It includes:

• How to get started
• Writing for your audience
• Producing the manuscript
• Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama
• How illustrators get hired
• Illustrating picture books and nonfiction
• Planning your portfolio
• Knowing fiction and nonfiction, trade or education markets
• Should you get an agent?
• Submitting for publication
• Self publication
• Contracts
• Copyright
• How a publishing house works
• Lists of writers' resources and associations
• And much more.

Peter Carver is the Red Deer Press Children's Book Editor. Under his direction, Red Deer Press has published such notable talents as Kevin Major, Martine Leavitt, Cora Taylor, Ted Staunton and many more. He was awarded the Canadian Library Association Award for Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada and the Writers' Union Freedom to Read Week Award.When he's not editing children's books, Peter Carver teaches creative writing classes in Toronto.

Peter Carver's profile page

So You Want to Write a Children’s Book: An Insider’s Handbook for Children’s Writers and Illustrators Who Want to Get Published

For those just beginning to write down or sketch out ideas for children’s books, award-winning children’s book editor Peter Carver helps them understand the world of children’s book publishing in his short gem of a handbook. If you’ve ever believed writing and illustrating for children is easy, Carver sets you straight.

The handbook is divided into three sections, the first consisting of information primarily for the writer, the second for the illustrator and the third for both. However, it behooves both writers and illustrators to know what is in the other’s section. Carver delves expertly into the different genres and markets, how and where to submit manuscripts and portfolios, what research you ought to be doing, how publishing houses work, how writers and illustrators get paid, whether/when you need an agent and how the new digital technologies fit into children’s publishing. He also provides a great look at copyright that is brief but pointed and informative.

Carver’s discussions are very well-written, the various issues and topics presented in a style that is conversational and easy for readers to understand. Carver targets both Canadian and American readers, informing them of what to expect from both markets. Such people as Kenneth Oppel, Janet Lunn, Tim Wynne-Jones and Barbara Reid share helpful hints and stories from their own experiences.

In the last several chapters, he lists organizations in Canada and the US that provide useful information and resources; different associations of which unpublished and/or published writers and illustrators can be a part; government and cultural programs and grants; book resources for writers and illustrators and more.

Despite all that you need to know about writing and illustrating for children, though, Carver points out that you need “to possess, above all, an innate respect for children and their capacity to understand and grow.”