Greetings,
So…I’m taking this in the ‘critique’ approach, so please take what I say in that sense, not as criticism… I have two small boys, who are pretty picky about their reading material.
Without being able to download the whole thing (you have to sign up) all I could look at was the preview, which didn’t display well at all. It looks interesting, but…my eldest is 4.5 (pre-K) and already reading things with more of a plot/point than at least was visible in the preview, so I think it’s targeted younger than 1st grade. (My POV may be skewed, however, as he’s an advanced reader.)
If I compare it to a more ‘start to read’ book, like The Fox on the Box, I see more similarity to what you seem to be going for…the repetition of the ‘busy day’ phrase, and a more slice-of-life approach. There are too many sentences per page for that kind of book, though. In those, you want a few small words per page, so that they have a sense of accomplishment when they read each page, that draws them on to continue reading.
I think you need to refine your target, either add a bit more plot (without seeing the parts beyond the preview, I can’t tell if there already is one, so forgive me if I just didn’t get to it) and less repetition, or shrink the number of sentences and words per page significantly, and aim for the younger crowd.
Irrespective of whether you choose to target younger or older, you should also edit just as ruthlessly as you would edit for Young Adult or Fiction writing, so things like ‘just like most brothers and sisters do’ would be removed, because it’s both unnecessary and hand-wavy. You want to write in unambiguous, simple, short statements with as few conjunctions as possible.
<rant (not at you, at other small childrens book authors)>Writing children’s books is harder than writing normal fiction, because as adults, we don’t think in those patterns anymore. You can take contextual shortcuts in writing targeted at young adults and adults, because there is a wealth of shared knowledge and understanding. That shared context doesn’t exist with the age group you’re aiming for. I have several books that were nominally written for small kids, and my eldest can read and recognize the words just fine, but the meaning of it all together completely escapes him because he hasn’t experienced politics, gender differences, behind-a-desk schoolteachers, janitors, etc., in a way that he can relate it to.</rant>
Your story seems like the start of a simple slice-of-life story. I only got to ‘“All right,” said Billy. “Let’s go.”’, the page before the picture (presumably) of the playground, as that’s all the preview allowed.
My wife is a writer, so I know how hard it is to work on this stuff. Hopefully you have small children you can sit and read it to, and fine-tune it offline as well.
I wish you the best of luck!
— Morgan
