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Comment by conductr | Hacker News Reader

Were they parents too? In my experience, the act of parenting and reading a crap ton of children books made me start thinking of stories and “book ideas”. You also end up having to find ways to explain all kinds of things to a toddler audience. It could be complex or simple, but it’s what a lot of kids books are. Why to brush your teeth, why to share your toys, or some other educational lesson. I had a different book idea every week when my kid was in the toddler age range. I’m sure if I was a creative person, I’m sure I would have executed on some of those ideas.

My best friend from grade school is artistic and he actually did write, illustrate and self publish a book via Amazon basically because of this same reason, parenting put this product in his hands as an adult with the skills to execute.

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Aside: We're scientists so all of our friends got us multiple copies of those Chris Ferrie "Quantum/aerospace/chemistry/etc for Babies" books.

Do not be like our friends.

His books are terrible for babies. They're more like books for dumb undergrads, if that makes sense. In that, he has a series of pages with only a purple circle on it and a short sentence (for example). Like, no baby out there just wants to look at a purple circle and have their parent tell them that this circle has different words on the page. They just see a purple circle. Works fine for the first or second read through. But after that, like, every kid is bored of it. The parents are bored of it. Like for real, just put more stuff on the page than the simple .ppt diagrams. At least a shadow of the thing. Put some monkeys or giraffes, some plant life, hide a ladybug. Anything but only a purple circle for three pages.

The Sandra Boynton books are great for kids though. Easy to riff off and make little songs and dance numbers. Get those for babies.

Yeah Sandra Boynton is pretty amazing. Our son loves them.

A lot of people who don't have children or who haven't spent a lot of time with one think "oh yeah we'll just make some subject I'm interested in approachable." And don't even get me started on the books that rich and famous people produce that are absolute garbage for children. I'm reading to my son, Jimmy Fallon. You forgot your audience.

I don't have kids and had never heard of sandra boynton, but I happen to be waiting for someone at a department store some years ago and idly picked up a copy of "not the hippopotamus" from a nearby rack of children's books to leaf through. I was really impressed with the quality of the writing and illustrations, and told myself I would go home and send the author a fan email, but then I googled her up and discovered she was already super famous :)

>His books are terrible for babies. They're more like books for dumb undergrads, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I never assumed those books were actually for babies. I kinda thought they were a joke.

I also get Sandra Boynton books for people when they have babies. They are a great way to encourage a love of reading and they are fun to read to your kids.

I’m a designer and also a parent, when you start reading children’s books to your child you realise how many bad stories there are, they can be empty, with bad writing etc.

Once you find a good author you stick with them, perhaps back then there were less and so they took it upon themselves to create them. My favourite’designer’ book is little blue and little yellow by Leo Leoni (I think), it’s basic colour theory, so simple and easily conveyed.

I’d also recommend anything picture books by Julia Donaldson and Alex Schafer (the Gruffalo). They are great for 2/3+. My child is 11 now and refuses to donate them, she loves them so much.

> when you start reading children’s books to your child you realise how many bad stories there are, they can be empty, with bad writing etc.

I'm also a parent, although my children are rather older, and I agree with you. Books for young children are a massive sector - perhaps because parents (often) want to expose their children to books, and parents and children seek novelty (albeit for different reasons). But there just aren't that many good children's authors, and the recent trend for celebrities to write children's books just floods even more filler into the space. A poor book can be a bedtime disappointment.

To your great suggestions I'd add Judith Kerr (the Mog books) and Lynley Dodd (Hairy Maclary, Slinky Malinki). Its been a decade or more but I can still recite quite a lot of Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack from memory.

Great suggestions, we have mog in a corner somewhere too :)

>But there just aren't that many good children's authors, and the recent trend for celebrities to write children's books just floods even more filler into the space.

Even worse is when grifting rightwing politicians get into it. There are some downright insane ones being marketed now.

A signal we used when picking out books for our kids was to avoid any book that had a silver foil medal on the cover announcing it had won the Newbery or some other award. These books often had an eat-your-vegetables vibe about them. They were books adults thought kids should like but rarely were ones that our kids would go back to again and again.

That seems like a reasonable heuristic for books from the mid-70s on, but before that they were usually really good books.

The only book with a foil I'd not avoid is Where the Wild Things Are.

I couldn't agree more. More than 90% of the children's books you find in a bookshop (in Germany at least, but I imagine it's similar elsewhere) are terrible: terrible writing, badly rhymed, cheap computer-aided illustrations, facile educational content that no-one needs, etc

On the other hand, when you find good authors like Leo Lionni (start with Frederick), it's amazing because it's as much fun for the parents as it is for the kids.

Other wonderful authors include Toni Ungerer (The Three Robbers). Any other recommendations?

Parenting made me remember drawing skills that I had. I had drawn several record books of comics up until 6th grade, then kept drawing a little bit of cartoonish characters up until graduating from high school, and then it vanished from life. My skills are crude, but enough to draw some simple story with animal characters. Turns out, other adults around can't draw anything -- my when my wife draws, the son can't tell a cow from a pig, lol.

Apart from that, parenting indeed shows that your secondary skills are important -- any DIY is fascinating for kids.

There is a German author called Marc-Uwe-Kling. He writes hilarious stories for adults. Sure enough when he got kids he started writing children books too. (Which incidentally are also hilarious and my son loves them)

It feels very natural that you try to apply your skills for your kids too.

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