characters who write, kids book edition

October 2, 2023 4:04 PM

My kindergartener is really interested in writing, and is currently inspired to copy things that book characters write. I'd love to encourage that! What kids books (picture books or easy chapter readers) have writing characters in them? Bonus if what the character writes is actually pictured in the book.

Some current favorites to copy are:
- That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown (Emily writes a notice to pin up on the garden gate.)
- Time to say Please by Mo Willems (the mice write single-word signs throughout the book.)
- The Princess Twins series (the sisters write name cards for a party.)
- the Zoe and Sassafras books (Zoe keeps a science journal, and writes her hypotheses and experiment details down.)

Send me some other great ideas!

posted by jolenex4 to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Best answer: The Mailbox in the Forest series! My kindergartner loves it. The books show the letters written between the girl and animals.
posted by inevitability at 4:15 PM on October 2, 2023

Best answer: A Squiggly Story: "Also helpful, the boy's story is shown both as he actually writes it --- with just a few letters, some punctuation marks and typographical symbols --- and as he imagines it."

Adding: 10 Picture Books about the Writing Process
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:15 PM on October 2, 2023

Drew and Jot is a graphic novel about a kid making a graphic novel, and his work appears as part of the book. Pretty cool says my 6yo kid!
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:17 PM on October 2, 2023

Cat kid comic club!! It’s by the fabulous Dav Pilkey and is a graphic novel about a bunch of kids who make graphic novels. It’s definitely a touch over kindergarten level but maybe still fun for you to read with them? It gets into the creative process and is fun to read.
We are huge Dav Pilkey fans in my house.
posted by Vatnesine at 4:28 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Jolly Postman! You can open the little envelopes and pull out and read the letters that the postman is delivering from/to the characters.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:55 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Also on the Dav Pilkey front but aren't all the Captain Underpants books comics that the two main characters wrote?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:13 PM on October 2, 2023

Best answer: The Great Sea Monster by Berthe Amoss is exactly this.

I learned of it through this now defunct blog: Vintage Children's Books My Kids Love.

Heavy on pictures, but higher concept. Might work for a Kindergartener.
posted by AbelMelveny at 6:10 PM on October 2, 2023

Best answer: Epistolary Picture Books such as Dear Mrs. LaRue, which is a series with several books featuring Ike the dog writing to his owner.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:10 PM on October 2, 2023

The 13 Storey Treehouse books (13 Storey Treehouse, 26 Storey Treehouse, ...169 Storey Treehouse) are about two friends who live in an ever-expanding treehouse and write books. I haven't read them but my son is re-reading the series now and he loves it. He thinks it's non-fiction because the characters in the book are writing those same books (i.e. at the end of the 13 storey treehouse, they publish "The 13 Storey Treehouse" which is the same book and is basically the story of writing the book etc.)

Also, Dear Mr. Henshaw.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:41 PM on October 2, 2023

I was coming the say The Jolly Postman. I loved that book as a kid.
posted by hoyland at 6:57 PM on October 2, 2023

One of the main characters of the Magic Treehouse series takes lots of notes about the clues they find and what they learn traveling through time. We didn't read anywhere near all of them, but I remember it as a key element of the books.
posted by rube goldberg at 10:06 PM on October 2, 2023

Not sure if this quite counts, but The Day The Crayons Quit is told in a series of letters, each hand-written by a different colored crayon.
posted by Mchelly at 7:35 AM on October 3, 2023

Best answer: I am an early reader connoisseur, and one of my all-time favorites, Houndsley and Catina by James Howe and Marie-Louise Gay, has a hilarious bit where you see Catina's handwritten attempt to "be a writer." There are a few handwritten signs that could be copied in one of its sequels, Houndsley and Catina at the Library. I don't have the other entries on my shelf, so can't confirm if it's an always-recurring theme or not.
posted by lampoil at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2023

Best answer: I've only read the first two books in the Library Mouse series by Daniel Kirk, but they feature a lovely mouse who writes tiny books and leaves them in a library for people to find. When I've read them to kids, they've always inspired tons of them to write their own tiny books. (Something about it looks achievable.)
posted by blueberry monster at 5:33 PM on October 5, 2023

Response by poster: Some great recommendations here! Library Mouse and The Great Sea Monster were especially inspiring. We are well on the way to having a personal library full of tiny books, which is fantastic!
posted by jolenex4 at 10:08 AM on November 12, 2023