F.C. Author Says Learning Mind of the Child Key to Writing Children's Books

Jacqueline Jules can still remember some of the books she read as a girl. The memories of characters like the Poky Little Puppy tumbling and bumbling down hills still stick in her mind.

The repetition and the vivid words and images remain as powerful as they were when she first read them. Now, though, the poet turned librarian turned children’s book author is doing her part to add new stories and characters to the collective consciousness of today’s youngsters.

Jules, whose name is actually Jacqueline Hechtkopf, a librarian at the Timber Lane Elementary School in Falls Church, recently released her fifth book Noah and the Ziz, published by Kar Ben/Lerner Publishing, the second installment in a three part series about a mythical bird from the Bible named Zizu.

Jules first discovered the character of Zizu when she was teaching Jewish education in Nashville, Tennessee. She read about this giant bird, much like the mythic Rock from Greek mythology. But instead of a ferocious monster, Zizu was described as clumsy and ungainly, a description that immediately struck Jules as a perfect character for a children’s book.

In Noah and the Ziz, Noah is collecting two of every animal for his ark, nervous about the floods that will arrive any time. With all the animals on the earth, God realizes that Noah needs some help, and sends Zizu. Rather than assisting, though, the Ziz creates problems with his clumsiness and impatience as he gathers animals without realizing how destructive his big size can be. But after a word with God and some reflection, he learns to work gently and helps get all the animals in the boat just in time.

Jules knew that children would be immediately attracted to the Ziz. He is large and imposing which children find empowering, while at the same time he struggles with some of the same clumsiness and impatience that many children deal with, she said.

Certain about her character, she decided to make him part of a story about Yom Kippur, titled The Hardest Word. Earlier, Jules had written Once Upon a Shabbos, a book that detailed a story of bears celebrating the Sabbath in New York that had been published by Kar Ben Publishing, later to become part of Lerner Publishing.

Jules pitched the idea of the Ziz to the publisher and was accepted, but acceptance only meant the beginning of the process for her. After signing on she had to work to perfect the text of the story. She would pour over sentences, making sure that each phrase, each word, sounded just right.

Since she has started working in children’s literature, she has discovered that writing for children is much more difficult than it first seemed. The brevity of the story, rather than making it quicker and easier to write, actually makes it more difficult to tell a complete story without leaving anything out.

Fewer words also mean that each word gets more attention, and there is more pressure to choose just the right word. Also a poet, and at one time a freelance journalist, Jules has learned to cut the fat from her writing and get to the point. “There can’t be a single extra word,” she said. “Every word is examined.”

Aside from being short, there is also an art to writing stories in ways that will capture a child’s attention and imagination. As a librarian Jules often reads to children at school and has become familiar with what they respond to, she then tries to incorporate those things into her writing.

One of those important things is repetition. Because children like to be involved in a story, phrases repeated throughout a story allow the kids to predict what will be said and join in. In Noah and the Ziz, every time Ziz is told how to do a task by Noah or God he is instructed to “be careful,” a phrase that Jules has her audience say with her when she reads out loud.

She has also learned that kids like to take part physically when being read to. When reading to children at school Jules will often get the kids to enact words that are physically descriptive, so in her writing she will incorporate words that describe actions. In Noah and the Ziz, every time the Ziz flaps his wings, Jules adds a whoosh that the children can act out, flapping their arms just as they imagine Zizu would.

But just as she writes for the children she works with, so too is she most nervous when she reads one of her stories to kids for the first time. While she has spent months choosing the words to resonate with the children, she is never sure that she has succeeded until she sees the smiles of her audience as they listen and participate in the story she has written.

The fact that she has succeeded in capturing the essentials of the genre is sometimes still a surprise to her.

As a young girl Jules knew she wanted to be a writer. An avid reader, Jules had an insatiable urge to be a part of producing the art that she loved so well. Still for the longest time she didn’t know what that was supposed to look like.

After she graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, where she received a B.A. in writing, she began writing poetry for adults, even while raising two children. She saw the adult poetry genre as the proper forum for her talents and aspirations to come together. Later when her children had grown older, Jules went back to school to become a librarian, a field she felt she was suited for, considering her love of books.

But fate had other things in mind for her. When the librarian job that she was expecting fell through, she was left without any prospects and had to send off her resume to any job notices that seemed interesting. Her wave of correspondence ended with her getting a job as a librarian in a private school, meanwhile working in Jewish education. It was not the work that she had originally expected, but the experience would inform her writing for years to come.

While working in the library she started to realize that she loved working with kids and came to a greater appreciation of children’s literature. Later, some of her poems that she had originally written for adults were published by the children’s magazine, Cricket.

"I guess I was writing for children the whole time without realizing it,” she said.

Since her writing has always come out of her work with her students, all her books published to date have focused on Jewish stories. But her work with the students at Timber Lane over the past three years has given her a host of new ideas for books to come.

Still, Jules has become attached to the Ziz. Now when she goes to readings, she carries a stuffed version of the loveable bird, created specially for her by a local artist. The third book, The Ziz Saves Hanukkah, already written, is in the process of being illustrated and published and will be released in the fall of 2006. For more information about Jules’ books and writing for children visit her website at http://www.jacquelinejules.com.