Age appropriateness in children’s literature is subjective. There’s the issue of how to tell whether vocabulary or content is appropriate for specific age ranges, but an editor also has to take into account who is reading the book and how it gets into their hands.

Picture books may have some of the shortest word counts of any books, but that doesn’t make editing them straightforward. Here’s what editors and authors need to consider when using the format of the book itself to build the story.

The Dahl estate has struggled for years to deal with the Dahl’s anti-Semitism, and this concern about how aspects of his books could be problematic has surely been on their minds for some time. However, to really understand the situation, you need to also consider the commercial aspects of the publishing industry.

A great query letter isn’t particularly hard to write. Most of it is formulaic in structure, but requires getting a few key things just right, while keeping everything short and to the point.