Recommended by writing instructors and award-winning authors.

Whereas Volume I of this series investigates the overall structure of children's picture storybooks at the macro level, this volume, Volume II, investigates the very building blocks of picture storybooks at the micro level: the word, the sentence, the scene and the story.

We look at the importance of word choice for giving the story meaning and cohesion.

We look at ways to change sentence structure to emphasize the information that is important, and to ensure that sentences flow easily from...

Recommended by writing instructors and award-winning authors.

Many of us think of children's picture books as being written mostly with simple declarative sentences. What an eye-opener to learn that they are actually filled with delightful figures of speech.

I am not talking here about the common figures of speech we learn about in grade school: simile, onomatopoeia, alliteration, hyperbole and personification.

I am talking about more subtle and sophisticated figures of speech which we may not even recognize as figures at all (until they are pointed...

Benjamin Franklin-racy? When we think of Franklin, we think of a statesman, an inventor, a man of worldly wisdom-and a man temperate in all his affairs. The last thing we think of is racy. But Franklin's own words, written in a letter to his son, tell of the scrapes, the tricks, the imbroglios and the intrigues that young Ben was party to. Did you know that Ben had to post bail for himself? Or that he was afraid of contracting a venereal disease? Did you know that he jilted a girl? And engaged in bribery? These "little family anecdotes of no importance to others," as Ben called them, make for...