A Quote by Rebecca Serle

I have often said that I think children's books are like poetry. Finding the exact right words to tell a story is something all writers, regardless of genre, are challenged to do, but it is in children's that the art of selection really becomes an art.
I used the second year of my MFA program to write a young adult novel and began pursuing picture books as well. I loved the economy of this art form, choosing, with pristine attention, the exact right words to tell the exact right story.
Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe... Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the... public.
I think that children who read are better writers, and children who tell stories appreciate books.
I think when something becomes a comfortable genre, it's against what street art stood for in the beginning - breaking out of genres and taking art out of galleries. Now street art is in the gallery, and it's all made up into a nice, packaged concept.
I don't really believe in political art. I feel in my heart the purpose of art transcends cultural and class and politics. I think something like the Sistine Chapel is something that goes beyond just being a Christian thing. It transcends its Christianity and becomes sort of a universal beauty. And I think that's true of music and art and literature.
A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest." He also said: "No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally - and often far more - worth reading at the age of 50 and beyond.
Great children's books are wisdom dipped in words and art.
The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it.
I think that the first part of the art is making the art, but when art really becomes art is when it belongs to somebody else.
Most songwriting like poetry takes a careful selection of words. Sometimes you're just channeling something and a selection of words come out that you wouldn't normally say, but you come up with an assortment of words that are really special. It just makes sense even if it's normally how you wouldn't express yourself.
I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts, and honor.
Children's authors have to pick words that reflect the spirit of a book and convey its message but also words that light children up, that children will recognize. Words that inspire and comfort. Words that challenge yet don't patronize. Words that, well, mean something to them.
To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’... You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making.’ The art of poetry is the art of making poetry. The art of love is the art of making love... My father never talked to me about art. He could not bear the word.
I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called "The Package", and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.
I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called 'The Package', and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.
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