As a little girl growing up in Cuba, books were my window into the world of "what if." Regardless of what was happening around me in the turbulent years after Castro, my reading brought me a great measure of peace.

Over the years I have made my living as an editor and writer with a special focus on children’s books. My experience, and that of my colleagues, confirms what I’ve known all along. Editing children’s books is both an art and a science. It is also a business. "

The Art of Editing Children's Books
Editing is an art, the art of molding words and concepts on a page into an understandable whole. When stories ring true , editors see their potential. They see beauty in the midst of what can be a chaotic submission. The art of editing children’s books in particular comes in as editors put themselves in the place of the children who will read their books; they see the manuscript from the child’s eyes. They visualize children reading the published title and anticipate their reactions.

Editors know good writing when they see it. In The Art of Editing, an August 15, 2000 radio interview on The Connection, a radio program hosted by Dick Gordon for the University of Boston, Betsy Lerner, a literary agent and past senior editor of Doubleday, described how she knows a manuscript she’s looking at is good writing. “It keeps my attention. It moves me. The experience of reading is deeply emotional. I like the world to fall away, that’s how I know it’s good. I’m lost in it. I’m transported by it.”

[ Click to read the rest of the article as originally posted to the David C. Cook's website ]