“Snugs The Snow Bear,” Book One of my Children’s Fiction Series, was great fun to write, and it taught me something about the way I see.

I have never been a film buff as such, but studying media and film as part of my first degree in Sociology, gave me a sense of how cinema works, and in particular, the ways in which movies make the eye of the camera, and the movie watcher’s eye, one and the same thing. My kid’s book exploits long shots, close ups, and camera angles, to make the reading experience cinematic.

When writing for kids, you take the leap back to childhood, and try to see things, literally, through a child’s eyes and perspective. Everything suddenly looks bigger than it does to an adult. Children tend to be more in touch with physical sensations, and bodily functions, and are interested in the physicality of things, animals, and people. They live in the now.

Kids are walking dictionaries when it comes to categorization of everything - things which roll, shiny things, yummy things to eat, animals that swim, animals that growl, animals that are soft, birds that are funny, people who are kind, places that are near or far, and so on.

Do you remember, as a young kid, really looking at things, and studying people in minuscule detail and asking questions, and being curious about everything in your world?

Many of us lose that inclination, as the “sameness” of everyday life cultivates an apathy, and tendency not to look at things at all. We lose our sense of wonder.

A children’s book can cultivate this sense of wonder in kids, and tap back into the experience of wonder, in a way that helps adults experience it afresh.

The writer’s eye taps into the natural child in all of us. For me, it is not just an eye that sees - it hears and feels, too.

Suzy Davies, Children's Author, Copyright 08/12/2016. All Rights Reserved.