A friend recently asked me how she should go about writing a children’s book that represents her family’s life. I admit that on any given day, I might find this question aggravating. While some of the people who solicit writing advice are indeed writers, many of the people interested in writing books for kids are not. And sometimes that matters to me and sometimes it doesn’t. On this day, it didn’t aggravate me one bit–it got me thinking.




The person who asked me this particular question on thi...