Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Third Person, First Person, Past Tense or Present? These are the questions…

I’m flipping through a stack of ‘How To’ books that I borrowed from the library: Writing and Illustrating Children’s Books for Publication, Writing For Children and Young Adults, Writing Children’s Books for Dummies.

I specifically want to know which point of view and which tense are recommended for picture books.

Hmm. Looks like the latter two books recommend third person and past tense as a good rule of thumb. One even claims that first person can be confusing for the picture book age category (typically 4- to 8-year-olds).

Confusing? Why? I’m a reporter; I need answers. Let’s take a look at a random sample group of kids’ picture books that I happen to have kicking around:

* Little Bear’s Friend, written by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Opening line, chapter 1 – “Little Bear sat in the top of a high tree. He looked all about him at the wide, wide world.” Yup, third person, past tense.

* Olivia… and the Missing Toy, written & illustrated by Ian Falconer. Opening line – “One day Olivia was riding a camel in Egypt.” Third person, past tense again.

* The Kissing Hand, written by Audrey Penn, illustrated by Ruth E. Harper & Nancy M. Leak. Opening line – “Chester Raccoon stood at the edge of the forest and cried. ‘I don’t want to go to school,’ he told his mother.” And again.

* Curious George by Margaret and H.A. Rey. Typical opening line: “This is George. He lived with his friend, the man with the yellow hat. He was a good little monkey — and always very curious.” Wait a minute! It starts off as present tense (“This is George”) and then goes into past tense (He lived with his friend…). I have long found Curious George… well, curious really; in my mind I imagine the Reys delighting in breaking the rules by mixing tenses, and writing stories that, by today’s standards anyway, are way too long and rambling. Still, it worked then and it works now. See what I mean? It’s curious.

I wish I could thank Margaret and H.A.; they give me hope.

Although it appears that most picture books are indeed third person, past tense, I’m not one to be hemmed in by formulas. Right now, the first draft of my story is third person, present tense, but, I must admit, it doesn’t feel quite right. Will I end up bowing to convention?

This exercise, researching and conducting a random sampling of picture books, has bolstered my need to figure this thing out: I will play around with the tenses and the points of view and sooner or (more likely) later, I will nail down what works best.

Here we go…

~ Sherryll

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