Natalie Babbitt, award winning author of children’s literature, died Oct. 31 at the age of 84.You may know her book Tuck Everlasting, with Babbitt’s subtle warning about immortality, but have you read any of her others?  

 I plan to remember her with my own binge reading  of:

• The Search for Delicious
• Kneeknock Rise
• The Devil’s Storybook
• Goody Hall
• Jack Planke Tells Tales
• The Something
• Moon Over High Street

Roald Dahl presented his philosophy of writing at a lecture in 1990. Natalie Babbitt and her wonderful portfolio of children’s books met all the criteria. I will miss her.

“What makes a good children’s writer?

• must have a genuine and powerful wish not only to entertain children, but to teach them the habit of reading
• must like simple tricks and jokes and riddles and other childish things
• must be unconventional and inventive
• must have a really first-class plot
•  {tell} stories that contain a threat
•  {use} new inventions; unorthodox methods; eccentricity; secret information
•  know what enthralls children: action, suspense, being spooked, finding treasures, ghosts, chocolates and toys and money, magic, being made to giggle, seeing the villain meet a grisly death, {seeing}the hero be a winner
•  know what bores children: descriptive passages and flowery prose

Your story, therefore, must tantalize and titillate on every page and all the time that you are writing you must be saying to yourself ‘Is this too slow? Is it dull? Will they stop reading?’ …{If your answer is yes}, you must cross it out and start again.”