Just the other day, I found myself almost wanting to give up on a children’s book I had been writing for my 5-year-old nephew.

Almost.

I have been writing profusely for children over the last few years so how did this happen to me?

Because it happens to everyone. Because writing for children can at times be harder than writing for adults.

I fell into the trap that almost every children’s writer falls into. Time and time again, if not always.

The world-building got too complicated, the language too suave, and the characters became too serious.

Kids do not respond to beautifully written prose, nor to imagination so wild it could sweep even the most avid readers off their feet.

In this blog, we will discuss traps that wait open-jawed for writers wishing to mesmerize young readers.

Hitting Readers Over the Head With a Lesson

This is a classic mistake.

Many newbie authors start with a lesson they want to teach kids.  The blessing of love, the joy of sharing, the evils of bullying etc etc.
 
I am not saying there’s anything wrong with any of these. In fact, they’re all good and important topics. The trouble starts when the lesson becomes more important than the story itself.

The thing is, kids are not fond of lessons. And Especially not books full of pictures acting the part of the local moral police.

The moment a story starts feeling like a sermon disguised, you have got a bored kid who would love nothing more than to mess up your living room all over again.

Think about your favorite children’s books growing up. Chances are they taught you something valuable. But they didn’t wave a giant sign saying, “THIS IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY.”

Instead, they let you discover it.

That’s the sweet spot.

A great children’s book doesn’t force-feed a lesson. It plants a seed and lets it grow naturally. Sometimes less is more.

And sometimes the lesson that isn’t shouted from the rooftops ends up being the one children remember most.

Not Knowing Who the Book Is Actually For

Remember the book I almost gave up on? Yeah. I didn’t know exactly who I was writing for.

One day, after a particularly chaotic pudding disaster in the kitchen, I thought to myself, why not placate the little monster with my genius? I excitedly handed him a draft featuring two kingdoms in turmoil, an ancient witch, a mysterious island, and a lioness who spoke in riddles. I thought I had created the next great children’s classic.

My nephew stared at me for a few seconds and then asked, “But where’s the dinosaur?”

That was the moment it hit me.

I wasn’t writing for a five-year-old anymore. I was writing for myself.

And that’s a mistake far more common than most writers realize.

Trying Too Hard to Teach a Lesson

One of the first children’s books I ever wrote was basically written out of this compelling need to teach my niece the importance of not using my make-up on her dollies.

Lol. Yes. I was 16 and quite petty.

I thought I was being clever. The main character, a creative energyball like her, learned that when you play with things that are not yours, you end up in a forest full of mutilated lipsticks, eye-shadow palettes and face-creams trying to hunt you down.

When I read the manuscript to my niece, she sat through the first few pages politely enough. Then she said cheekily, “Well, that’s just silly now. Make-up is a non-living thing.”

Yeah. She knew that word.

There were no ugly grinches trying to steal Christmas, no spiders going up the spout, no flying carpets.

Just a sermon on why it was a bad idea to annoy your aunt.

That was my mistake.

Many first-time children’s authors become so focused on teaching something valuable that they forget to tell a story. The lesson becomes the destination instead of the story being the vehicle.

Kids don’t pick up books because they want a sermon. They pick them up because they want adventure, laughter, mystery, excitement, or simply a good time.

Ironically, the best lessons are usually hidden inside great stories.

Children remember how a story made them feel far longer than they remember what it tried to teach them.

If you focus on creating a wonderful story first, the lesson will often sneak in naturally. And that’s usually when it sticks.

Thinking Everything Has to Be Perfect

A few years ago, the same niece wrote a story. She said she was inspired by me.

The main character was a talking tom who was also somehow a pirate, AND, as if that wasn’t enough, a healer as well.

The villain disappeared halfway through.

The ending arrived out of nowhere.

And the illustrations looked like they had been drawn during an earthquake.

Naturally, I thought it was adorable but not something that could ever be published.

Well, how wrong I was.

When her parents, thinking it was the best thing that was ever written in the history of written word, eventually shared it with other kids from her class, something surprising happened.

They loved it.

They talked about the characters as if they were real.

And my niece actually won an award that year. “Creative Genius” it said. Sadly, the teachers weren’t so creative with the award titles. But anyway the point is, adults often judge children’s books through an adult lens.

Children don’t.

They care far more about emotion, fun, imagination, and connection than technical perfection.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should ignore quality.

Editing still matters.

Storytelling still matters.

But don’t spend years polishing every sentence while forgetting the reason you’re writing in the first place.

A good story with heart will always beat a perfect story with none.

Making the Story More Complicated Than It Needs to Be

I once rattled my brains so hard to create an unparalleled fantasy book that fell flat before ever seeing the light of day.

There were kingdoms, wars, alliances that could put period shows to shame, secret histories, an adorable map and a family tree that featured around 70 people. Yup. An entire generation!

Suffice it to say, I had gone overboard. Maybe a tad bit too much. My nephew, ever the critic, was not impressed.

When I showed him the draft, he ignored everything and pointed at the king’s bird.

“Can it talk?”

That question taught me more about children’s storytelling than three days of world-building.

Many first-time authors assume complexity equals quality.

In reality, children like clarity. Their little brains would rather turn your beautiful kitchen upside down than grasp at worlds that make little sense to them.

A simple story about one memorable character facing one clear problem is usually far more engaging than a complicated story filled with a thousand sub-plots leadings to the ambiguous climax.

Children want to know who they’re following, what that character wants, and whether they’ll get it.

Everything else is secondary.

That doesn’t mean children’s books can’t be imaginative. Some of the most imaginative books ever written for children are wonderfully simple at their core. When in doubt, simplify. If you can remove a subplot, remove it. If you can cut three pages and lose nothing important, do it. The simpler the structure, the more room there is for wonder.

Talking Down to Children

I still cringe when I think about one of my earliest children’s book manuscripts.

Every sentence sounded like a teacher droning on and on rather than a storyteller taking little readers on a fun ride full of magic. The characters certainly didn’t sound like kids. More like frowning teachers reading on and on from a dog-eared book without glancing once at the students. I remember one scene where a six-year-old gave a speech that would have made Caesar turn in his grave.

Thankfully, a friend read the manuscript before it ever saw the light of day and helped me simplify it.

Looking back, I realized I had fallen into a trap that catches a lot of first-time children’s authors: underestimating kids. Sometimes writers simplify ideas so much that the story becomes dull, while others over-explain things children have already figured out for themselves.

The truth is, children are incredibly perceptive. They notice details adults overlook, ask questions nobody else thinks to ask, and often understand far more than we give them credit for. They don’t want to be talked down to.

They want to feel included in the story, trusted by the author, and respected as readers. The goal isn’t to write beneath a child’s intelligence; it’s to write in a way that matches their age while still honoring their curiosity and imagination. These days, whenever I’m unsure about a page, I imagine a real child reading it. If it feels like I’m lecturing instead of storytelling, I know it’s time to rewrite.

I learned a similar lesson at a school reading event years later.

After I finished reading one of my stories aloud, a young boy looked at me with complete seriousness and said, “It was good, but the funny part wasn’t funny.” My first instinct was to defend myself, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was absolutely right.

Somewhere along the way, I’d become so focused on plot structure, pacing, themes, and all the other things writers tend to obsess over that I’d forgotten something obvious: children read because they enjoy it. Fun isn’t an optional ingredient in a children’s book. It’s the reason most kids pick one up in the first place.

Whether you’re writing a fantasy adventure, a mystery, a comedy, or even a story with a deeper message, there should be moments that make children smile, laugh, wonder, or turn the page with excitement.

Many novice authors get so caught up trying to write a “good” book that they forget to write an enjoyable one. Most children don’t care whether your story follows every writing rule. They care about how it made them feel. And honestly, that’s probably the best measure of success there is. If a child asks to hear your story again tomorrow, you’ve done something right.

Falling In Love with your first draft

This one, I am sure, is no surprise. All writers experience this compelling obsession with their first drafts until they start seeing the loopholes and the awkward phrases.

Some writers only outgrow this obsession when they create something better and then the obsession turns into a desire to never go back to the previous work.

Both phases can kill your passion. The initial clouds your judgement, and the latter makes you give up.

The way to go about it is, whip up a first draft, read it once, fix what you can. The make someone else read it. Listen to what they have to say. Remember the feedback is not personal, it’s constructive. Take a break. And come back to the draft when you’re ready.

The space allows you to think about your work and how it can be made better rather than beating yourself up about not creating the world’s best book on the first try.

Conclusion

If you have ever faced any of the problems we discussed in this blog, do not fret. Consider it a children’s book writer’s rite of passage. You make mistakes. And a thousand of them. But you learn. That’s the only way to become the best at anything you wanna do. Theories and even blogs like this can only take you so far. You must make your own mistakes and learn from them.

But is it worth it?

For me, a million times yes! What started as a passion project has become something I absolutely cannot live without. What’s more, I get to share what I primarily write for my own kids with the rest of the world. And believe, it’s the best feeling in the world.

So chin up! Get that pen scribbling across the page!