Sara Pennypacker: Writing Chapter Books...


Something I love about attending SCBWI conferences is the opportunity to hear writers talk with so much passion about what they do. Sara Pennypacker is one such writer. I got a sense from her that she cares deeply about both her characters and her audience.

During her breakout session on writing chapters books, she told us as she works she keep in mind why she's writing chapter books and who she's writing them for. Before she began writing Clementine, Sara's first series was centered on Stuart, a boy who was afraid of everything. When she talked to second- and third-graders during school visits, she would ask them to write down something that they worried about. Their number one worry, it seemed, was that they wouldn't be able to find the bathroom. After 911, however, they began to worry about planes crashing into buildings. This made her think: Am I supposed to be doing something about this? She feels it's important that kids learn from books that in life there are choices. And there's no downside to telling kids they have choices. However, she says a book is not a place to preach and proselytize.

Sara feels that whatever it is you're writing, you have to believe it in order to be able to go the emotional distance otherwise your voice won't be authentic. She told us that she gets totally immersed in her characters when she's writing, almost becoming them in an altered-perception-of-reality kind of way. There are so many series at chapter book level, she says, because they are for new readers, "and we need to throw them a rope."