Rhyming Picture Books--Commencement Addresses into Musicals

If you want to be a picture book writer, then you've most likely thought once or twice about writing in rhyme. I know I have.

Why, may I ask, do we do this to ourselves? It's like taking something already difficult, like giving a commencement address, and then attempting to write it in the form of a song as if you were living your life in a musical. Fantastic (maybe) if you pull it off, but most likely doomed to embarrassing failure.

The thing is, well done rhyming picture books are fun to read, entertaining, and memorable. Something we all want our picture books to be, so I occasionally strive to reach that pinnacle of picture book perfection. I haven't made it yet.

But now I'm armed with this:

RhymeWeaver.com by Lane Fredrickson.

I can't say it will turn my embarrassing failures into bestsellers, but after going through this entire easy and fun to read site, I know a great deal more than I did before.

Counting syllables? Pointless. Soft rhyme? Don't do it. Meter? At least I know what it is now, even though I thought I already did--and not just meter's definition, but why it works, how it works, and how to fudge with it when necessary.

I now know why certain lines of rhyming picture books don't sound right to me, and how to avoid those same problems. But hey, those books got published. Maybe someday, now, mine will too.

If there are other websites that teach how to write a great rhyming picture book, I'd love you to post them for me.

And, by the way, I actually did give a commencement address in the form of a poem. Yes, it was very embarrassing. At least I didn't sing it.

Curious Interview: Ginger Churchill

Cabinet of Curiosities plans to bring you monthly fun and informative interviews. Ginger Churchill, a Cabinet contributor, is honored to be the guinea pig and do our first.

Ginger has five rambunctious children and thus the obligatory sense of adventure, humor and the tendency to lock herself in a closet from time to time on purpose. She is the author of Carmen's Sticky Scab--a ripping good picture book told with depth and sharks and also a Humpty Dumpty Magazine "Choice book" (Tanglewood 2008). Another picture book, Wild Rose's Weaving, is due out this October, also with Tanglewood. Wild Rose's story weaves together themes of creativity, the interplay of art and life, and the important gifts that are handed down through generations of women. Though Carmen and Wild Rose are artistically different, Ginger insists they are inseparable friends.

CABINET: Nature plays an important role in the picture book you have coming out later this year. If you go outside right now and look up--what do you see?

Ginger: Potential...and questions. How deep into space can you actually see out here under the blazing sun? Is a star right in front of me staring back? If I squint just right, could I see it? And how much hope does it take that cottonwood tree to send out these thousands of seeds? Will any of them grow? Potential. And questions.

CABINET: What website (apart from email or Facebook) could you not do without?

Ginger: Easy! My Writing in Depth online writers group. Friends, fun, laughs, tears, success, cyberhugs and writing. Absolutely indispensable.

CABINET: Could you explain to us the relationship between outhouses and spiders?

Ginger: Ha ha! No. I've blocked it out (although I do remember it was a monstrously huge Black Widow spider, and that it visited me more than once). If I manage to break through my psychological barrier, I'll post a link to it on my personal blog.

CABINET: Many of the characters in your stories get in trouble at school. Were you the teacher's pet or a fixture in the principal's office?

Ginger: Wow, that's tougher to answer than you might think. Both actually, but much more the pet than the fixture. In high school the principal kept calling me in to chat about personal issues--hers not mine. And then there was the time my dad gave the vice principal a ticket for running a red light (YES, Mr. Ardema, I KNOW you think it was yellow!!) I was always getting called in for something or other but not usually my behavior.

CABINET: If you could be any superhero or cartoon character, who would you be and why?

Ginger: FIRESTAR! I had the hots for Peter Parker in that afterschool Spider Friends show in the eighties. I used to try and heat up the water from my faucet like Firestar could. I swear it worked a time or two.

CABINET: Thanks, Ginger, for being a good sport and picking which of our many curious questions you wanted to answer and post yourself.

Ginger: Why you're welcome. Pleasure being here with all of you!

CABINET: No, no. OUR pleasure to be here with you, Ginger. OUR pleasure.