Several months ago, I caught the tail end of an NPR report about parents supporting their children's writing. In the same week two parents called to ask me where their children could submit work and I caught at least six teachers gripping about the writing tests. I was glad to have two new resources to recommend.
Children who want to begin sending off poems, stories, reviews, and other work should have Kathy Henderson's 4th Edition Market Guide for Young Writers published by Writer's Digest Books. It's subtitled Where and How to Sell What you Write and I admire the author's dealing with every step of the process. She begins with preparing a manuscript, emphasizing the importance of editing and evaluating. She alerts kids to marketing issues, like hidden contest costs and vanity presses. And the book goes all from advice from editors, writers and published kids to specific sources and contests. Henderson writes in approachable language, takes kids seriously and provides solid, thoughtful information.
At the beginning of the school year I gave Michael Levine's The Kid's Address Book to each of my kid's teachers. I've bought several since because copies keep disappearing. The Kid's Address Book, published by Perigee. The list of 2,000 addresses of celebrities, athletes, and entertainers is probably the biggest attraction. But besides the addresses of TV, movie, and sports, game show stars, there are also addresses of organizations ranging from The Academy of Model Aeronautics to Young Concert Artists. There are business addresses to help kids write to everyone from Adidas to Wrigley. There are addresses for magazines, comic books, publishers, and museums. There are helping organizations like the ABA Center on Children and the Law and twenty pages of political listings.
I like Levine's thought behind the book. He sees his book as more than a collection of addresses, but as a tool of pleasure and empowerment for a generation of children who often don't feel heard and seldom take the time to communicate their thoughts in a way that will get results. As he writes to kids, "Remember, a person who writes to another makes more impact than ten thousand who are silent."