Refining your craft includes reading. I haven’t done as much reading of children’s books as I should have recently. I’ve been too busy doing my paid work (professor) to do much reading for fun.

I know better than that.

When we stay too much in one genre or one idea, our imaginations can dry out, wither, and die. We should keep things fresh for our imagination.

One way to do that is to read other people’s books. See what you like in what they did. See what you don’t like. Sometimes there will be things done well and poorly in the same book.

For a few days I am going to be focused on the reading I purchased at my Friends of the Library book sale earlier this month. I’ll switch to other things after a week or so, but I will probably come back to the books.

I love kids’ books. I didn’t love them as a kid, because I wanted to be the big important grown up. When I was in college, though, I would go to the library and check out a whole big stack of children’s books and read them on the lawn at my residential college. It was fun!

I’m watering my imagination.

It’s something we all need to do.

Read Recently Published Books:
At the conference I attended, several people recommended this. One said to concentrate on the kind of books you want to write from the last two years.