On writing for children

I'm interrupting my own radio silence to bring you some thoughts from Newsweek's interview with Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak, director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers. The interview is filled with brilliant thoughts on writing for children and I really can't encourage you enough to click through to read it in its entirety, especially if you write for children, yourself.

The following excerpts especially resonated with me and the story I'm on LJ-hiatus to craft:

Jonze: The big disagreement is that [the studio] thought I was making a children's film and I thought I was making a film about childhood ... I want children to see it, and it's not like I made it not for children, and it'll be on the video shelf under CHILDREN'S, but I didn't come at it that way. I came at it from the inside out as opposed to the outside in.

Sendak: Europeans have done films about children, like The 400 Blows or My Life as a Dog, which is one of the most wonderful movies ever. It's tough to watch his suffering when his mother is dying and he scoots under the bed. That's the kind of way they have of dealing with children and they always have. We are squeamish. We are Disneyfied. We don't want children to suffer. But what do we do about the fact that they do? The trick is to turn that into art.
Newsweek: What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate...This concentration on kids being scared, as though we as adults can't be scared. Of course we're scared. I'm scared of watching a TV show about vampires. I can't fall asleep. It never stops. We're grown-ups; we know better, but we're afraid.
Newsweek: Why is that important in art?
Sendak: Because it's truth.

I just think that is so critically important. In all stories, but especially in children's stories ("children's," in this case, referring to anyone younger than adulthood). Capturing the truth of the story--making it real in that way, so the reader believes the story is taking place somewhere not too far away or so they feel they can relate to the story or learn from it somehow, even if it's about unicorns and dragons and blue people with seven legs--that is the most important thing we can possibly do as writers: evoke that connection between the reader and the story where the reader thinks and feels: I *know* this.

The only sort of story worthy of that intimate, precious relationship with its readers is a story willing to stock itself with truth--a story willing to put itself on the line and say: I am like you. I feel what you feel, I hurt when you hurt, I fear what you fear but I also love when you love and rejoice when you rejoice. Stories that curb and shelter, stories that try to protect the Delicate Emotions of others don't speak those words.

Don't be afraid to write the truth of your story--be bold with the emotions you weave into your words. It matters.