Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen does more than make me laugh. She makes me believe! This author had flown under my radar until Hampire!. Once I discovered her prowess at parody, she (or her books) fill my most-wanted list.

Sudipta, what’s right about children’s literature?

What’s right….I think there are a lot of things “right” right now about children’s literature. We have rich characters, compelling plots, talented storytellers, and all those things seem to be trending upward. Gone are the days of boring, functional books—those have been replaced with characters like Olivia or Skippyjon Jones (or, dare I add, the Hampire or Quackenstein or Half-Pint Pete, the Pirate?) who occupy our minds and hearts and make us hunger for more. Books are intended to open doors to worlds we are unfamiliar with, and today’s literature leads to worlds that readers love to visit and hate to leave.

One thing I would like to highlight, though, as particularly good is how relevant today’s literature strives to be for real children. The idealized worlds of yesterday’s books have been replaced with cities and suburbs, rich and poor, happy families and those still searching for happiness. This is a very important shift, in my mind—here are many children who use literature as a guide to get them through the difficult parts of life. A child who is trying to make sense of his of her challenges may not connect to a character with a perfect family and perfect life. But because today’s literature can offer so many different outlooks, we give every child a fighting chance to find his or own story in a book somewhere. I take pride in this, both as an author and as a mother.

What can be done to make that “good” better?

When I started writing, I dreamed of writing picture books—and really nothing else. Now, as my children have grown, I’ve learned that my interests have changed and I now write chapter books and middle grade novels as well. But my first love will always be picture books—so it has saddened me to witness how picture books are getting a bad rap these days. Too many parents think that their children would be smarter if they skipped picture books altogether and started reading early readers, chapter books, and the like. I wish I could put out a PSA to convince parents that skipping picture books is not good for their kids! Picture books are developmentally appropriate for young children, exploring issues that are relevant and important to them, whereas early readers explore the needs of older children—in light of that, how could anyone want to lose the picture book experience? Furthermore, picture books are designed to be read by an adult, not by a child, and therefore the language is much more complex. A child who can independently read a picture book is a much stronger reader than one who can independently read an early reader. Because picture books are not held to readability standards, they are not only more difficult to read but often more beautifully and lyrically written than books intended to teach children to read. Its so much easier to love literature when the language in books you read is beautiful—in my opinion, children who experience picture books have that much more love for books in general.

So…to return to the question, I would make the “good” in children’s literature better by encouraging more people to experience picture books with the children in their lives, and not rush through to other things. Childhood goes by too quickly as it is—let’s let kids enjoy their picture book years for as long as they need to.
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Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen never thought she’d grow up to be a writer. She’d thought of being a doctor (but she’s afraid of blood), a model (but she likes to eat), or the President (but she had a dissolute youth) — so much for childhood dreams! Sudipta is the award-winning author of over 35 books for children, including picture books like Half Pint Pete the Pirate (Putnam), Hampire! (HarperCollins), and Chicks Run Wild (Simon& Schuster), and will soon be launching a new series of early middle grade novels. Sudipta often visits schools to share her stories, and teaches writing to children and adults. She lives in New Jersey with her three children and an imaginary pony named Penny. Find her on the web at www.sudipta.com