The Rhyme and Reason of a Child’s Choice of Books

If I could have an adult type of conversation with my daughter at her young age of 19 months, one topic I would choose is the reasons for her preferences of certain books over others. She definitely communicates which books she wants my husband and me to read to her through body language and her small vocabulary of 50+ words, but I am still stumped about some of the books she prefers.

• Are the books shorter? Not necessarily.


• Is the text exceptional in rhyme and rhythm? Yes, but not all the books have a pattern of rhyme and/or rhythm.


• Are the illustrations bright, colorful, and creative? Usually, but they range in types of illustrations from simple to complex, from black and white to color.


• Does she relate to the main characters? Maybe, but then she'd be associating herself with girls, boys, babies, dogs, zoo animals, Elmo, Puff, pigs, and pirates.


• Does my reaction to the book or how I read it influence her choice? I try to read each book with equal enthusiasm, but it's possible that she may detect a choice preference on my part. But some of the books she loves I find just okay.

So is there a pattern to the books she loves? Or maybe she has developed an emotional attachment to each one independently of the other. Is this possible?

There are two reasons why I’m interested in having this grown-up conversation with my toddler: to understand the workings of her mind and to understand what makes these books worthy in her eyes so that as a writer I can create something that she and other children would prefer to read over other books.

Although I haven’t quite figured out if there is a pattern to it, I do think two major elements impact my daughter’s choice of books: the text is successful with rhyme and rhythm and the illustrations are appealing.


Since I began writing full-time two years ago, my children's book manuscripts have gone through quite an evolution in terms of rhyme and rhythm. Before taking the Institute of Children's Literature course, I naively jumped right into attempting rhyme. After the course there was an absence of rhyme as well as rhythm. Once my daughter was born I took a couple of months off from writing and that time away gave me a new perspective. Now I am slowly learning how to improve writing both rhyme and rhythm in my books, but it's one of the bigger challenges I face: How to be successful with both or at least rhythm while writing an excellent, creative story at the same time? I've read many articles and books to help me with this, but one website in particular has really helped. Dori Chaconas spells it out quite clearly in "Icing the Cake." If anyone has found an article, book, or website that is a big help in writing better rhyme and rhythm I'd love to hear your suggestions!

P.S. I've made a shelf of my daughter's favorite books at the bottom of my blog for you to view in case you're curious which books she currently prefers!