Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon! by Pat Cummings

Look for books that would compete with the topic you want to write about. You are My I Love You by Maryann Cusimanoĥ. Everyone Poops (My Body Science Series) by Taro Gomi NEW TOPICS ADDED IN 2009ģ. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown.ġ2. Barnyard stories (! She wasn’t sure why she was getting barnyard stories, but there they were! Rural nostalgia?) Farmer McPeeper and his Missing Milk Cows by Katy Duffieldġ1. Dealing with a disability (thus, message-driven)ħ. Still–it’s a book about losing teeth and it’s competition if you write this kind of story.Ħ. NOT strictly a tooth fairy book, because the fairy is just implied at the end. She said she’d love to see books that address kid-friendly topics in such a unique way. A Little Brown editor once commented that this book has been in print continuously for 20 years and is still a steady seller for them. Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon by Pat Cummings.ģ. Or as Waniewski put it, “Just because I see these topics many times doesn’t mean you can’t write about it.” However, the competition is very stiff for picture books in these categories and your submission should really stand out in today’s crowded marketplace.” Knowing that many others writers are working on these topics, should make us either avoid them entirely, or take our manuscript to that next level.ġ. Good examples of these topics are given, because we need to know our competition. Instead, they are so common that you must really rise above the competition to be accepted. Recent spot checks confirm that these are still topics with stiff competition that you should avoid. Many topics were repeated, but she added five more topics that she saw too often. Two years later, in 2009, I asked her if she would update the list again, Liz kept track of her submissions for a month. This resulted in my 2007 posting 12 Picture Book Topics to Avoid, one of the more popular posting in the 30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book series. For a couple months before the conference, she kept track of her slush pile picture book submissions by category. Stiff Competition for These Picture Book Topicsĭial editor, Liz Waniewski (ONE–es-key) spoke at the Arkansas SCBWI 2007 conference.

Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon! by Pat Cummings