Then there'll be stories for children

My next book in the publishing pipeline is a prose venture, written to be read aloud to young children from the age of about three and a half. There will be three separate stories in the book which I have called The Mind’s Eye.  Here's why.

Our times are so dominated by visual media that I fear the precious power of the mind to formulate its own pictures may dwindle.  Typically, a story book for young children will have glorious colour pictures and simple, repetitive text.  But my experience of reading aloud to my small relatives is that they will respond happily to the chance to create their own images as the story unfolds.  There is a precious moment, I have found, when the child’s head tilts slightly sideways, the eyes peering into the middle distance rather than up into my face.

The stories are long, divided into many chapters, allowing for development of plot and character, and use reasonably complex vocabulary and sentence structure. I believe a young child, given a lively and expressive reading by the adult, can respond to the challenge.  I think that few things are more delightful and worthwhile than reading aloud to a beloved child!

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