To start things out, I have the wonderful pleasure of posting a guest post by Linda Thieman, the author of the Katie & Kimble series! This will give readers a bit of a glimpse behind Ms. Thieman's desire to write such great stories for young children. Later on, in another post, I will give my review of Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish, as well as let readers know how they can win their very own set of Katie & Kimble books!!
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Writing for the Child in Me!
by Linda Thieman, author
The Katie & Kimble series
One day not too long ago, I was browsing advice sites for children’s writers, and I read this tip: Write not what YOU like but what your audience will like. Oops! When I write the Katie & Kimble books, I always write what I would like to read, or perhaps I should say what that little girl who I used to be would have loved to read.
One thing that always bugged the little girl in me was the total lack of affection between friends and family in the books I read. No hugs, no words of love. Everybody was just so busy trying to keep a stiff upper lip! Maybe it’s because I come from a family that is openly affectionate. Not a day went by that I didn’t get a hug and an “I love you” from at least one of my parents. So I put that in the Katie & Kimble books. As the friendship between 9-year-old Katie and Kimble, the ghost of a 10-year-old-girl grows, they express how much they have come to mean to each other. It just seems so much more real to me than every character always holding back their fondness for each other.
And my young readers have responded to it, too. Katrina, aged 8, in her review of Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story, wrote: “Katie & Kimble is a very honest book with a lot of friendship and truth. I thought it was a really great book, one of my top favorites. It was a very sweet, loving book.” And Madeline, aged 7 and a half, wrote: “I like the parts when Katie and Kimble hug each other because they are such good friends.”
Maybe the little girls today are not so very different from how I was when I was that age. Adding love, affection and healthy family relationships to my stories may be laughing in the face of convention, but, hey, I always do that.
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A Bit About Linda Thieman:
Linda Thieman (pronounced TEE-mun) writes the Katie & Kimble chapter book series (RL3) and runs the Katie & Kimble Blog (http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com). She is a former English language teacher who has created a set of reading skills worksheets and classroom materials that teachers and homeschoolers can download from the Katie & Kimble Blog free of charge. The materials correspond to the first two books in the Katie & Kimble series and are guided by the standards set for third grade reading skills in Iowa school systems.
Linda lives in Sioux City, Iowa. She hopes to publish Katie & Kimble: The Golden Door (book 3) in 2009.
.You can visit Linda's website at http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com/
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