Today is Encourage a Young Writer Day!

I love writing! I also love working on writing projects with my grandsons, so a day which encourages children to write is a day I believe to be well worth celebrating! We all know how essential it is for the ones we love to become people who read. When my grandsons were young we spent many evenings reading books and also making up our own special stories, so one day when they were at my house for a sleep-over I had a special project in mind for them. Since my grandsons loved making up stories with me, from time to time they even turned one of their stories into a book for me; in fact, one of my favorite birthday presents ever was the book my oldest grandson made me titled - Super Josiah Saves Grandma from all the Robot Spiders in History! This book is on my refrigerator and when I see it, it always makes me smile!

So on this particular day we worked on a new story - The Jiggly Oreo Monster! My grandsons made up the story and illustrated it. The story involves a dragon which spits poison and a castle which is guarded by little Oreo guards and poison lightning! In the end, the hungry dragon eats the Oreo monster king and the Oreo guards! It is definitely a story written by boys!

I then had my husband scan the story into the computer for me and used a coupon to take the drawings and make a book using snapfish. The boys were so happy when it arrived! 

Today it is much easier to make books from the stories you make up with the children you love. Just use Amazon's kindle direct publishing - follow the instructions and you will end up with your own special books! I love how it encourages them to be creative, to use their imagination and to delight in seeing their story "published". Of course having a "book signing" is also a lot of fun as well!

My grandsons have also worked with me to develop, create, and write the books in the Life on the Goldilocks Planet series of books and Praying Deeper Through the Psalms - Children's Edition. They also were the motivation behind my The Little Ginormous, Humungous, Hairy, One-Eyed Monster Boy's Adventures. I have to say it is a wonderful thing when a child holds in their hands a book where they were the author or were part of the writing team.

On Encourage a Young Writer Day you, too, are able to encourage the children you love to become writers. Nationaltoday (dot) com says - 

• National Encourage a Young Writer Day encourages new talent. The day urges all of us to recognize the writing talents of young individuals and to help them sharpen their skills.
• Some children may be great writers without them realizing it. National Encourage a Young Writer Day can help children discover their latent talents.
• National Encourage a Young Writer Day also forms healthy habits in young people such as reading, writing, and spending time by yourself.

You will find out more about this day at the following link. Take time to help the children you love become young writers!