I visit schools to bring awareness of my story to the target audience. I also want to push the benefits of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) in education.
It was difficult to get right – what is the ideal age and how old are the children that will read and enjoy my book? I just made a wild guess at first but figured that most 8-year-old children could handle the story’s content. However, on visiting my first primary school, I quickly realised that it depends on the ability of each individual child as to whether or not my story will appeal to them. Then, of course, there’s personal taste, we don’t all like the same books, do we?
I took a deep breath but also followed the advice from a teacher who told me that some of the words I’ve chosen throughout the story may present a challenge to less experienced readers. She said whilst most children of eight could cope with the story, some of the subjects covered, like writing code, talk of social media platforms etc might make it more suitable to an audience aged anything up to thirteen years old.
Oh no, I thought. I’ve used too many complex words and forgot to simplify a little! No, said the teacher, it’s fine because your book encourages the children to learn, to lookup words they don’t understand and to consider asking a parent or teacher to help.
This was a lesson for me. For some reason, maybe my more senior years of experience (which is a fancier way of saying I’m a bit old) means that I automatically use words in my vocabulary that some people may not use or have come across.
Having said all that, my beta testers (people who read my book before I officially published it) were no older than 10 and they all loved it and asked, “When’s the second story being released”?
Watch this space!
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