When I mentioned to someone how much research I was doing for my children’s series what I received in return was a blank stare.

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?” I asked.

What unfolded was frustration on my part that someone thought that children’s book should not be researched on their topics. This blew my mind. It was sadly not the only time I’ve heard this.

My series is based on our rescued and adopted parrot, Jasper, who’s history is from the rainforest. While I know about birds and my birds in particular I certainly only knew the bare minimum about where he was from.

So, yes I researched it. One key example I toss out at people is this. I was looking for a new animal to introduce to the story line. A friend suggested an elephant and how cool that would be. I ran off with this. I ended up writing almost four pages for the scene to unfold.

It only hit me after. Are there elephants in the rainforest? Well, no. So that was wasted time and energy.

I want my readers to enjoy the book and to learn from it. But to do that work is needed to make it accurate. Our children deserve that in my opinion. An author should put as much care into this genre as any other genre. Why is it important for the adults and teens but not them? That is a disservice to children in this age group.

Anyone who writes in this genre are getting the children ready for future reads and genres. Giving them false information just to get the story done, being to lazy to make it worth the time by researching, not feeling they deserve a well rounded book like any other genre and don’t need the attention to detail like others is something I don’t subscribe to.

This is why I research all my genres, the adults and especially the children.