Meeting young readers where they are

 

-Don't jump around in time and space much. Children's minds don't easily leap into the past, and from one place to another, like adult minds do. Kids haven't lived long enough for that. For example, the following might be an arresting opening for an adult article: Egyptian Queen Cleopatra and Elizabeth I, Queen of England hundreds of years later, both had difficult love lives. However, an opening like this would go nowhere in children's writing.

-Besides jumping around in time and space, there's another problem with the concept in the above example. Children are more likely to relate to something close to their everyday lives, like pets, friends, or school, rather than private lives of unknown adults.

-If your opening relates to children's interests and lives, you can lead them a long way from there. If it doesn't, they may just stop reading.

-After you have them reading, keep them with you by continuing to relate things to their own experiences. E.g. instead of writing "The narwhal was five metres long," consider saying something like "The narwhal, at five metres, was about the length of an average living room."