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The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing Books for Children

katherine paterson

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A new, peerless collection of speeches and essays by celebrated author Katherine Paterson. Featuring selected essays originally published in Gates of Excellence and The Spying Heart, this collection also includes the complete acceptance speeches for her two National Book Awards and two Newberry Medals, plus a new introduction and eight speeches never before published in book. form.

With the same perception, wit, and generosity that characterize her fiction, this much-honored writer shares her ideas about writing for children, as well as her passion for reading, her spiritual faith, and her conviction that the imagination must be nourished. Her words will touch all those her care about the literature and the lives of children.

266 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31,2001

This edition

Format
266 pages, Hardcover
Published
December 31, 2001 by Dutton Children's Books
ISBN
9780525464822
ASIN
0525464824
Language
English

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About the author

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katherine paterson

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Katherine Womeldorf Paterson is an American writer best known for children's novels, including Bridge to Terabithia. For four different books published 1975–1980, she won two Newbery Medals and two National Book Awards. She is one of four people to win the two major international awards; for "lasting contribution to children's literature" she won the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing in 1998 and for her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2006, the biggest monetary prize in children's literature. Also for her body of work she was awarded the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2007 and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association in 2013. She was the second US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, serving 2010 and 2011.

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 30 votes)
5 stars
9(30%)
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30 reviews All reviews
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BaliX017
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I love Katherine Paterson. This book is a collection of essays and speeches about writing for children. I hate reading books about writing, but Katherine Paterson has such a beautiful style and worthy ideas about writing for children, it encourages me to try harder to write quality stories.
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Tomah
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book is an amazing hidden treasure writing by Katherine Paterson. Within this collection of essays and speeches you find out more about her life as a child growing up in China, her missionary parents, her faith, family and of course, her books. I read this book at he same time as my sister and we discussed the chapters on the phone. You should definitely have a book buddy to reach this book with. Want to one this one for sure.
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bulkyhog
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The Invisible Child (subtitled "On Reading and Writing Books For Children") is a collection of speeches and essays written by Katherine Patterson over the course of her career. I have mixed feelings about some of her books, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one; I was particularly impressed with how integral her faith is to her writing. All her books are ultimately about characters who are homesick for Eden.

A choice quote:

On good writing: "I suppose it would be possible to write a book whose plot jumped all around like a frog on pep pills, but that's not what books are about. If that's the kind of writing you want to do, I think you should be in a more hectic medium. Books are meant to be read slowly and digested. These days people don't pray much or go to services of worship, they don't commune with nature - why, they hardly go to a national park without a TV set, a laptop, and a cell phone. The book is almost the last refuge of reflection - the final outpost of wisdom. I want children to have the gifts that books can give, and I don't believe they can get them from a book that attempts to imitate the frantic fragmentation of contemporary life." (p. 55)
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xiphoid_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I couldn't put it down. when I started it, I thought it was a book about writing. I was half wrong. It's a book about thinking. About peering into the unreadable parts of a book and noticing what remains with us when the words are forgotten.

This book is a collection of talks and essays by Katherine Paterson. I love finding out the story behind her stories, even if the seed from which they were born were sad. I marked every page; I loved every word.
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SG3
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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An enthusiastic 5 stars. The book is a collection of her speeches at various events over the course of 20 years, lending itself to some repetitiveness. It is a great reading for anyone who is in the position of giving books to children, and at least a few of the essays should be required for children’s librarians and educators. A great encouragement to provide children with quality literature that feeds their imaginations and souls, and not just the milksop that is so prevalent today in the name of “education.”
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Calcar
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I like how thought-provoking the essays are about reading and writing books for children. This is a book of substance that causes a writer to rethink characters and revise for more depth.
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