CALEB Award Review | Camp Max by Penny Reeve

Review by Jenny Blake | @ausjenny

Omega Writers is a Christian writing group serving Australian, New Zealand, and South Pacific Christian Writers. They held their annual writing conference the last weekend on October, in Adelaide, South Australia.

One much-anticipated part of conference is the Saturday night award ceremony for the CALEB Award. CALEB stands for:

Christian Authors Lifting Each others' Books

About Camp Max

Attention, campers! Seeking maximum adventure? Looking for maximum fun? You need CAMP MAX!

Tania's all set to go on camp! She's planned which cabin she'll be in, what snacks to take, she's even arranged for her best friend Emily to come.

There's one small problem though: Emily's parents gave away the money that would have bought her ticket. Luckily the town talent show offers camp tickets as a prize - all they have to do is win.

During their rehearsals, no one's expecting Tania's own ticket to go missing. And when it does, Tania knows she's going to need more than just talent to avert maximum disaster.

A sweet new story about challenges, friendship and family with Tania Abbey.

My Review:

This was an enjoyable book by Penny. I am sure Primary aged children will enjoy the book and also relate to the story. The book is about Tania and her brother Daniel and Her friend Emily and her brother Sam. Tania is so excited about going to Camp Max. She has been a couple of times and can't wait to go again this time with her new friend Emily. The only problem is we learn Emily and Sam didn't apply to go to camp as they used the money for a different reason which you will find when reading the book. The reason leaves Tania questioning why and if she would do the same thing if she was in the same position.

Tania finds a flyer for a talent show with two tickets to Camp Max as prizes. The two girls and boys enter with their own acts to win. What they didn't count on was Tania's ticket going missing. The what ifs start to happen. What if only one wins a ticket etc. Reading the bible helps Tania with some hard questions and we see how it all plays out. I don't want to say to much as I hate giving away stories.

I read this book while in the city to watch cricket. I was able to read it during break time and loved every minute of it. This would be a great stocking filler for a young Girl for Christmas.

About Jenny Blake

AUSJENNY is a cricket fanatic who loves reading although not reading as much as she use to. She loves to be able to help promote good Christian books and support authors.

You can read the introduction to Camp Max below:

Exploring Genres - Picture Books & Chapter Books

by Penny Reeve

Picture books and middle grade – invitations to the world!

I was in conversation with my daughter the other day and, as is fairly common at our place, the
conversation turned to books, children’s books in particular. She related how, upon sharing her
excitement at discovering the children’s books section of her university library, none of her young adult friends understood her enthusiasm.

‘They don’t understand,’ she commented. ‘They think, just because they’re grown up now, they should leave children’s books behind. They don’t realise some of the best books written are children’s books.’

Of course, I agreed. I’m a children’s book writer!

But, feelings of successful parenting aside, I do believe she has a point. Somehow our society has decided that children’s books, picture books and middle grade novels and the like are simple. But I’d encourage you to go browsing, next time you’re in a library or a bookshop, and take a closer look.

Children’s picture books and novels can be fun, silly, hilarious, rebellious, challenging, heart breaking, tear jerking, thought provoking and altogether beautiful in a way that no other genre can imitate. AND they have the incredible ability to do all of this, frequently at multiple levels (so each reader – despite their age and experience – can connect with the text in their own way).

So what exactly are the features of the genre that allow for such depth and, in my opinion, treasure worthy pieces?

Picture books

A picture book is a book in which illustrations carry a significant (if not majority) role communicating a story. A picture book cannot exist without it’s artwork, but some can exist without text.

The conventions of writing a picture book are very strict and they are known, for good reason, to be some of the hardest pieces of writing to pull off. Here’s why:

- A picture book needs to fit within 32 pages (and this includes the title page and imprint pages). So it’s typically 14-15 page spreads.

- Picture books are typically only 600 words long. (So that’s the WHOLE story in 600 words, or less if possible)

- The text of a picture book must be written in a way that allows an illustrator to extend, enhance and fulfil the storytelling.

- Many times illustrators and authors never meet, so the text must be as perfect as possible, often richly poetic (though not necessarily rhyming) with absolutely NO wasted words.

It is this mysterious interplay between words and pictures in great picture books that is the wonderful strength of the picture book genre.

Some highlights in the genre:

Check out the illustrations of Jesus as a child in Mighty Mighty King (Penny Morrison and Lisa Flanagan)

Notice the powerful role of illustrations in When I See Grandma (Debra Tidball and Leigh Hedstrom)

See the gentle communication of emotion and personality in Same (Katrina Roe and Jemima Trappell)

Children’s novels

Children’s novels are another genre that’s worth dipping into for us ‘grown ups’ but also for sharing with kids. 

From a literacy training perspective, they bridge the space between picture books and young adult novels. Whereas picture books assume an adult reader and child listener, children’s novels assume a child will, at some point, approach the book alone. This inevitably creates child friendly structure for the book in terms of:

- Word count. At the lower end of the scale are ‘Chapter Books’, these are a child reader’s first foray into the novel genre and word counts can be as low as 1000. The upper level nudges closer to 40 000 words for what is considered ‘Middle Grade’.

- Chapter length. This can vary, but is usually kept shorter than YA to encourage a fluid, realistic reading experience for young readers.

- Child protagonists are usually at a similar age to their intended reader.

- Plot complications, characterisation and description. Although these must be heavily worked by the author to make for authentic writing, they are communicated sparsely and with precision. Young readers aren’t going to tolerate long descriptive passages of the view from the cliff top, and yet (especially if that cliff top is important to the theme/setting/plot) they need to know what it looks and feels like. So a light touch is required.

- Illustrations. Many children’s novels include illustrations of some sort. The occasional black line illustration etc. The longer the novel, the smaller a role such illustrations play.

Some highlights in the genre:

The Grand Genius Summer of Henry Hoobler (Lisa Shanahan) is a beautifully written story of friendship, bike riding, courage and family.

My Tania Abbey novels tackle issues of faith, friendship and responding to poverty amid a setting of everyday life.

Kelsey and the Quest of the Porcelain Doll (Rosanne Hawke) is a lovely adventure story for young readers and considers topics such as belonging and learning about different cultures.

Author bio:

Penny Reeve is the Australian author of more than 20 books for children, including the CALEB Children’s Category award winning Madison picture books. She writes to empower children to engage with - and respond to - the world around them. Her most recently published books are Camp Max (a children’s novel for 6-10 year olds) and Out of the Cages (a YA novel about human trafficking). You can learn more about Penny and her books by visiting her websites:

www.pennyreeve.com and www.pennyjaye.com

Top Tips for Marketing Children’s Books

Today I'd like to welcome Penny Reeve to Australasian Christian Writers, to talk about marketing books for children. Welcome, Penny!

Marketing Children's Books

If you ask an author what the least favourite part of their job is they’ll often talk about marketing or publicity. Regardless of how unpleasant many authors find these tasks, publishers, booksellers and even readers expect authors to be involved - and this includes writers of books for children.
So, what marketing and publicity strategies do children’s writers use? And are they different to those used by authors of books for a wider market?

To understand this we must first look at the intended audience of a children’s book. For, while a children’s book is written primarily for children to read (or be read to) it is generally NOT the children to whom marketing and publicity strategies for children’s books are aimed. Children are consumers of children’s books, but they are disempowered consumers. Their choice, preferences and financial buying power lie securely with the adults that surround them.

Consider the purchasing chain for a novel for adults: the adult sees the book - they like the book - they buy the book.

Contrast this to a purchasing chain for a children’s book: the child sees a book - they like the book - they must convince their adult to take a look - the adult sees the book - they like the book - they buy the book.

Because of this dominance of adults (be they parents, teachers, librarians, family or friends) in the children’s book buying chain it is imperative that children’s writers carefully consider how to market their books to adults – on behalf of the children the books are intended for – at various points along the purchasing chain. The following tips can be helpful for narrowing down relevant opportunities:

Tip #1: Clearly identify who your purchasing adults are. 

Are you targeting librarians? Teachers? Grandparents? The marketing strategy to each group will be slightly different based on their purpose behind buying. Don’t assume one strategy will reach the ears of everyone, think strategically and purposefully about your target groups.

Tip #2: Find out where these adults gather information about potential children’s book purchases. 

Is it Goodreads? Facebooks? Parenting magazines? Librarian conferences? Find out, and then consider building an author presence in these settings.

Tip #3: Carefully prepare marketing pitches to meet the needs of potential buyers. 

Why should these adults buy your book for their child? What need does it meet? Enjoyment? Education? Shared experience? Something else? Spend some time thinking about it and then prepare sales pitches that adequately (and truthfully) explain how your books meet these needs.

Tip #4: Be prepared to market for the long haul. 

Although you’ll most likely want to get your books out and sold as soon as possible, word-of-mouth remains the best seller of books. And word of mouth takes a long time to build up momentum. Teachers talk to librarians, friends talk to grandparents, parents to parents, and book recommendations are passed on. The brilliant thing about children’s books is that the market repeats itself over and over. This year’s five year olds might grow out of your picture book, but next year’s five year olds haven’t even heard about it yet! Be committed to marketing your books over a long period of time and allow that beautiful word-of-mouth momentum to grow.

Tip #5: DON’T forget the children. 

Although a children’s writer must sell books to purchasing adults they must never forget who they are writing for. Always allow opportunities to interact with children themselves and look for events where children can interact first hand with your books and stories. School visits, playgroup talks, store story-times, library visits, writing workshops etc. Often these events will not translate to immediate sales (remember the potential drop off points in the purchasing chain?). But child centred events will remind you who your true audience is, sales or not, and why you must remain committed to creative marketing in order to get your books into these hands.

About Penny Reeve

Penny Reeve is the author of many children’s books including the popular Tania Abbey Adventures and Find The Animal series. In 2013 she won the Children’s Category CALEB Prize with illustrator Jemima Trappel for their picture book Wonderfully Madison. She now lives in western Sydney with her husband and three children, and will be guest blogging for ACW on the topic of writing for children over the next few weeks.

Writing for Children: Picture Book Basics with Penny Reeve

By Penny Reeve

Picture books are beautiful. They are fun. They are made for sharing, reading aloud, and for reading over and over and over again! Unfortunately (or fortunately – depending on your view of things) this means that writing picture books can be difficult. Much more difficult than most people imagine.

For starters, picture books are short. In terms of word count the average Australian picture book is between 500 and 800 words long. (US picture books seem to be more wordy, but over here the trend is short and tight.) The obvious implication of such a small word count is that there is no space for waffle. Each and every word must be worth its place in your manuscript.

There is also a page limit. Typical picture books are 32 pages long (this is determined by the way the physical paper is folded and cut to produce the book). Of these 32 pages an author can lose up to 3 or even 4 pages in title and imprint details. So the story of a picture book must be told in about 14 -15 page spreads.

A picture book also relies heavily on illustrations. And this is more complicated than the seemingly obvious: ‘It’s a picture book, it has pictures!’ The very best picture books utilise the skill and storytelling abilities of the illustrator to compliment the text of an author. Because of this, a writer of picture books must keep their text sparse, allow for much description to be in the illustrations and even leave space for multiple storylines that will exist without written accompaniment. Writing picture books is about writing a strong story well, and then leaving scope for an illustrator to build on it.

And then there is style; rhyme, repetition and the powerful use of language. Although picture books texts are short, they are anything but boring! Picture books are designed to be read aloud by an adult and therefore they allow exciting explorations into vocabulary that children love to hear. Rhyme works brilliantly in picture books—if it’s brilliantly done.

Repetition, alliteration and other word play are all enjoyed by children and their accompanying adult reader. Many picture books are extremely poetic in the way they have been written, even if they do not use rhyme. It takes time to find just the right words to tell your story in just the right way.

When I write picture books, they take me a long time. Longer, often, than a middle grade novel because I need to give myself time for ideas to brew, characters to grow and just the right words to find themselves in my story. It’s a challenge, and sometimes it just feels like hard work. But when the story comes together and your publisher finds an illustrator who can bring it to life with their unique spin, you know it’s worth it.


Happy writing,

Penny.

About Penny Reeve

Penny Reeve is the author of many children’s books including the popular Tania Abbey Adventures and Find The Animal series. In 2013 she won the Children’s Category CALEB Prize with illustrator Jemima Trappel for their picture book Wonderfully Madison. She now lives in western Sydney with her husband and three children, and will be guest blogging for ACW on the topic of writing for children over the next few weeks.

Writing for Children: Interviewing Penny Reeve

Today I'd like to welcome Penny Reeve to Australasian Christian Writers. Penny is a well-known Australian children's author, and she's going to be sharing about writing and publishing for children. Welcome, Penny!

Please start by telling us a little bit about yourself – family background, publishing history etc.

I grew up as the child of missionaries. My parents worked for MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) and as a result we moved around a fair bit. We lived in the Northern Territory, Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea. It was in Bangladesh that I wrote my first book. I was seven at the time and wrote a fully illustrated chapter book titled ‘Creepy Crawlys’. I think this is what first captured my imagination when it came to being a writer, but it wasn’t until my daughter was born in 2000 that I first started writing seriously, and for publication. That was fifteen years and 21 books ago.

What ages does children’s fiction cover?

Children’s fiction is a really wide category. It covers everything from board books for toddlers to deep, challenging novels for young adults. Some children’s writers specialise in a particular age bracket, but many of them, like me, write across all ages.

Are there "standard" age groups? What are they?

Yes, there are some ‘standard’ categories within the realm of children’s books. The Children’s Book Council of Australia categorises books for children into the following groups:

• Older Readers (typically YA)
• Younger Readers (novels for ‘middle grade’ age groups) 
• Early Childhood (books for children in lower primary age groups) and 
• Picture Books (books using the picture book medium, but often catering for a wider age range than the Early Childhood books). 

The boundaries of children’s books are often challenged by the books themselves; for example, some YA novels are now becoming commonplace in adult reading diets, and some picture books make grown-ups choke back tears while reading aloud to a contented child. The beauty of a well-written children’s book is that it will appeal to a wide variety of ages at the same time and/or at different times.

Do you illustrate your own books?

Oh, No! I am NOT an illustrator. I can draw to keep my children happy, but that’s about it. Each book of mine has been paired, by the publisher, with an extremely talented illustrator who has been able to bring my stories to life in their own unique way.

What are the differences between children’s books aimed at the general market and the Christian market? What are the similarities?

I think the main difference between the two is the market expectation. People who buy ‘Christian Books’ are expecting some level of deliberate ‘teaching’ or ‘theological exposition’ to be taking place in the book they buy. Sometimes they want ‘clean’ fiction for their children, or ‘safe’ content. The trap authors and publishers need to avoid is to focus purely on the lesson, to the detriment of quality, story and character.

In the general market the focus is primarily on story, or character. So, if a book has faith content but is aimed for the general market the expectation for ‘teaching’ doesn’t exist. Any Christian characters are present as crucial elements in the story and are not tools for teaching a ‘spiritual lesson’.

Similarities between books for the general and Christian market lie in type and reach. Age groupings are the same, style and format often overlap, and sometimes popular trends (for example fantasy or historical content) can be same.

What's the best thing about writing for children? The worst?

For me, I think the best thing about writing for children is the scope of it. From picture books to novels, it’s all there, and one of the things I enjoy is being able to consider this smorgasbord of possibilities and choose the medium that will best tell the story I want to write.

The worst thing? As far as I’m concerned, there is no worst thing. I enjoy it all.

About Penny Reeve

Penny Reeve is the author of many children’s books including the popular Tania Abbey Adventures and Find The Animal series. In 2013 she won the Children’s Category CALEB Prize with illustrator Jemima Trappel for their picture book Wonderfully Madison. She now lives in western Sydney with her husband and three children, and will be guest blogging for ACW on the topic of writing for children over the next few weeks.

That ‘wordless recreation’ -- Jo-Anne Berthelsen

At a recent meeting of a Christian writers’ group here in Sydney, I had the pleasure of hearing children’s author Penny Reeve share aspects of her writing journey. At one stage, she mentioned an old book, Becoming A Writer, by Dorothea Brande, originally published in 1934. I had never read it, so, because I love books that deal with the writer’s attitude or mindset rather than with the ‘how-to’ of writing, I decided to buy a copy.

This book makes for quaint reading in spots—for example, when Dorothea Brande mentions how every author has his or her own portable typewriter these days! But, in amongst all the great ideas for tapping into our unconscious mind, writing to a schedule, reading as a writer and more, I found a little gem of a chapter entitled ‘The Writer’s Recreation’. In one section there headed ‘Wordless recreation’, I read the following:

If you want to stimulate yourself into writing, amuse yourself in wordless ways. Instead of going to a theater, hear a symphony orchestra, or go by yourself to a museum; go alone for long walks, or ride by yourself on a bus-top. If you will conscientiously refuse to talk or read you will find yourself compensating for it to your great advantage. ... Only experiment will show you what your own best recreation is; but books, the theater, and talking pictures should be very rarely indulged in when you have any piece of writing to finish. (p 133 Tarcher/Penguin edition 1981)

What would Dorothea Brande say these days, I wonder, about writers who sit for hours watching TV. Yet something in me resonated with the point she was making, which was that such things, particularly at crucial times in the creative process, might not only distract us but change our whole attitude to our writing or perhaps cause us to give up altogether.

Our garden in process

I am not at any crucial writing stage at the moment. I have finished a non-fiction work and am still between books, unable to decide what to pour my energies into next. But right now, I am learning the huge value of ‘wordless recreation’. Yes, I am reading lots (sorry, Dorothea!). But recently, I have re-discovered how enriching the simple, mundane task of gardening can be for my creative mind. It involves hard work and persistent effort—yet I find it so rewarding when I see what my co-labouring with God, the ultimate Creator, has been able to bring into being in our poor garden.

Alongside this, I have re-discovered how baking—another mundane, wordless task—can also feed that creative part of me at times. Too bad the results in this area do not stay around for me to enjoy looking at for long! Perhaps my next challenge will be to emulate some of Dorothea Brande’s writer friends from the 1930s and try horseback riding or sitting alone on a park bench or whittling for hours or embroidering my initials on everything I can find (p 134).

Whether writers or not, we all need times of solitude and quiet reflection, not only to be at our creative best but also to become more aware of God’s gracious presence, strengthening and renewing us daily. So ... what ‘wordless recreation’ would you choose? Which one have you discovered benefits you most?

Jo-Anne Berthelsen lives in Sydney but grew up in Brisbane. She holds degrees in Arts and Theology and has worked as a high school teacher, editor and secretary, as well as in local church ministry. Jo-Anne is passionate about touching hearts and lives through both the written and spoken word. She is the author of six published novels and one non-fiction work, Soul Friend: the story of a shared spiritual journey. Jo-Anne is married to a retired minister and has three grown-up children and four grandchildren. For more information, please visit www.jo-anneberthelsen.com.

ACRBA Tour Can God See Me? by Penny Reeve

18 - 22 November

Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance

is introducing

Can God See Me?

Wombat Books Oct 2013

By 

Penny Reeve

About the Book
I read in the Bible, so it must be true, God can see everything that I do. But what might this look like? And how far does God's care reach? Join the wild, hilarious and certainly crazy ride of a young boy who dares to imagine the incredible scope of God's love and care.

About the Author
Penny Reeve grew up as the child of missionary parents in a variety of cross cultural settings. She then went to university, got married and served for several years herself in PNG and Nepal.

She now lives with her family in Western Sydney and is the author of 11 children’s books including the very popular Find the Animal series for young children and the social-justice themed Tania Abbey novels.

Website: http://www.pennyreeve.com/