Kids for Kids, By Kids Stephen Bakes Biblio.com
Mozart began writing symphonies when he was nine years old. S.E. Hinton began writting her first novel, The Outsiders, when she was 15 years old. Maybe this isn't a fair comparison, but at an age when most of us are planning what to do for summer break, Hinton and a handful of precocious writers have been able to take their young experiences and turn them into art. These young authors' early works are often books for their peers: children's and young adult novels. Their familiarity with their audience often couples an universal perspective with an undeniably unique voice for their content.
The Outsiders, has become a classic, if somewhat controversial youngadult coming-of-age story, and a mainstay for classroom assigned reading, but S.E. Hinton is neither the first, nor the most successful young writer.
Francis Hawkins is the earliest known published child publishing a guide to etiquette, Youth's Behaviour, or Decency in Conversation amongst Women in 1641 at the age of 8.
In 1937, Katharine Hull, 14 and Pamela Whitlock, 15 coauthored The Far-Distant Oxus, taking turns writing alternating chapters. The famous children's author Arthur Ransome, upon reading the childrens' manuscript, sent the book to his publishers, calling it the "the best children's book of 1937."
Perhaps the best known and most read young author was an unintentional voice to the young of generations to follow. Anne Frank kept a journal of her life and experiences as a young woman growing as a Jew hiding from the Nazis. Frank died in a concentration camp, leaving behind a haunting personal account of the universal concerns of adolescence against the brutal backdrop of that place and time. Her journals were published posthumously under the title Diary of a Young Girl.
What all of these authors show is the potential that all kids have.
The prize for youngest published author goes to Dorothy Straight, who, at the age of four, wrote How the World Began. Published in 1964, the book has been long out of print, and become very scarce. One of the most successful young authors of recent time is Christopher Paolini who began writing Eragon at age 15, and brought the book to publication when he was 19. The novel was a New York Times bestseller and inspired a successful movie adaptation.
Some of these young authors wrote one work, very early in thier lives, and went on to other pursuits. Some of these writers were demonstrating signs of creativity that would lead to great mature literary carrers.
The word that the literary world uses to refer to works by very young authors is Juvenalia, and The Juvenilia Press is a publishing house dedicated to publishing the early works by known writers such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, and Malcolm Lowry. These publications give us a unique look into the beginnings of some of the most notable writers in the English language.
What all of these authors show is the potential that all kids have. It's one thing to know that you, as a kid, one day, when you grow up, may become something great in the world. It's completely another thing to know that one day may be tomorrow.
