SO…who is going to the

Wild Wild Midwest SCBWI Conference 2016

Friday, April 29, 2016 – Sunday, May 01, 2016

It is next weekend near Chicago and I can’t wait!

If you are a RhyPiBoMoer and are attending please stop by our

RhyPiBoMojito Party on Saturday Night.

We will have “Kid Lit-friendly” Mojitos and

you can add Rum to yours, if you like.

For those who already know me…we will have plastic cups ONLY!  ; )

Stop by and say hello! I will post the place and time in the Facebook group so be watching for updated information.

Please RSVP in the Facebook Post so I can plan for snacks.

I can’t wait to meet you!

I met today’s Guest Blogger at the LA SCBWI Conference last summer. I attended her session on writing rhyming picture books…of course! We immediately connected over our love of RPBs and she kindly agreed to share an agent’s perspective on writing them.

 

I’m pleased to introduce

Agent Alexandra Penfold

Alexandra Penfold photo by Donny Tsang

AN AGENT’S PERSPECTIVE ON RHYME

Rhyme can be fun! Rhyme can be funny! Rhyme can be playful and joyful and meaningful, too. But rhyme can also be dull and dry and boring. And when rhyme falls into those categories there are few things that are more tedious to read.

When you’re settled in at your computer and looking at a new draft on the screen, it’s important to ask yourself, “will this rhyme stand the test of time?” Because when you press send and share that manuscript with the world, that’s what an agent and editor are going to be asking.

If you’ve ever been to an SCBWI conference, you’ve probably heard editors say “Don’t send me rhyming picture book manuscripts.”

But if you go to the bookstore, you see books being published that are in rhyme. If no one is requesting rhyming texts, where are these picture books coming from? What gives?

I think the trouble is not the rhyming itself. It’s not an industry-wide distaste for poetry. It’s the abundance of bad rhyme that agents and editors see in their submissions that turns them off. Just like one apple can spoil the bunch, one bad rhymer can set an agent or editor’s eyes rolling and their mouse scrolling. Click, clack, delete.

As an agent, I’m looking for manuscripts that I think will stand the test of time. Ones that I know I’d have wanted to acquire when I sat on the editor’s side of the desk. Ones that I know readers would love to read again and again.

While rhyming picture books can break out, it’s important to consider why the manuscript is written in rhyme. Does this story need to be told in rhyme? Is rhyme the best vehicle for telling the story? Is the rhyme itself the reason for the story—i.e. sometimes a writer thinks of a rhyme and devises a plot around it. And this is where you need to be brutally honest with yourself, was that original rhyme so funny and so great that it deserves a story?

Rhyming text when not done well can be constraining your narrative voice. Even if you can maintain the story with the rhyming couplets, sometimes it might feel like the story has to meander a bit to get you that rhyme. With such a short and patterned text it can be hard to get a sense of a real voice. And that’s all the more challenging when you have meandering stanzas to hit all your beats.

Recently I’ve been utterly enchanted by Jonathan Fenske’s Geisel honor award winning book, A Pig, a Fox, and a Box.* With simple language and a buoyant rhyme scheme, not to mention spot on vocabulary for emerging readers, this deceptively simple early reader takes the reader through a rollicking rhyming story in three parts that begs for repeat reads. The front flap shows the titular, Fox with the text: “I have a box. I like to play. I think I will trick Pig today.” The set up and language are simple, but the humor and use of language are timeless. And most of all it’s joyful to read aloud. And that’s the sweet spot for any picture book.

*Mr. Fenske is not a client or acquaintance, so this is just unbiased fan gushing.

 

 

Bio

Alexandra Penfold is a Literary Agent at Upstart Crow Literary and has been working in publishing for over a decade. Formerly an Editor at Paula Wiseman Books/Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, she specializes in young picture books, middle-grade fiction, and young adult. Prior to becoming an editor, Alexandra was a children’s book publicist. She worked on media campaigns that appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and NPR’s All Things Considered. She’s the co-author of New York a la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks and the author of three picture books: Eat, Sleep, Poop!, illustrated by Jane Massey, out this fall from Knopf Books for Young Readers, as well as the forthcoming We Are Brothers, We Are Friends illustrated by Eda Kaban, about the special relationship between two young brothers and Food Truck Fest, illustrated by Mike Dutton, her first rhyming(!) picture book text.

New York a la Cart: Recipes and Stories from the Big Apple’s Best Food Trucks 

Eat, Sleep, Poop!, illustrated by Jane Massey

Twitter

Upstart Crow Website

Thank You Alexandra!

PLEASE like our guest bloggers on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, go to their websites and express your appreciation for their time and wisdom! Many have generously donated multiple prizes and this event would not be successful without their support, so please support them! Oh…and buy their books too!!

To be eligible for today’s prize drawing by Random.org you must comment at the bottom of the page where it says “Leave A Reply” AND add your FIRST and LAST name in the comment. If I don’t have your name or how to contact you via email, you can’t win.

You must be a member of the RhyPiBoMo Facebook Group and if you haven’t officially registered, you are not eligible to win.

Please follow the pledge rules daily to get the most out of this challenge!

The drawings will be done daily and announced on Monday of the following week.