With the books, there are so many kids in that demographic, eight to 12 that are loathe to pick up a book in the first place. They have way too many other things they could be doing, things that move much quicker and, you know, I have two kids. I see what they like.
So the hook on these books is two-fold. One, in my case, I try to be funny. And in my case, I’m literally showing it to my kids the minute it’s done and I’m there with them when they read it. I’m seeing if I’m making them laugh. Because if I can make them laugh, they’ll keep turning the pages. So that’s one hook. The second hook is, while kids might not like, you know, Pride and Prejudice, they’ve always liked comic books.
And this genre, which has a big long name like illustrated novel for middle-graders, I call it Wimpy Kid style books, this genre sort of shoots the gap between, you know, your Pride and Prejudice and your superhero comic book. It’s kind of in the middle. By that I mean it’s part text and then it’s part drawing. It’s about 50/50, maybe 60/40 text. So it’s easier on the eyes, my paragraphs are not big and dense, it moves quickly.
So that’s what the format is designed to do. So I think between the humor and the format, it works. I mean, Wimpy Kid is great proof of that or Big Nate. Yeah. It works.