40 x 4 Picture Book Challenge: Week 3

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Welcome to Week 3 of the 40 x 4 Picture Book Challenge! Our goal is to read 40 picture books in 4 weeks so we can immerse ourselves in our genre. This has oodles of benefits for us as writers.

One of the biggest benefits of reading so many books in such a short time is that a couple of books will outshine all the others. They’ll resonate within your author’s heart. They’ll sing! They’ll grab you like none of the others did.

These are picture books you’ll want to treasure as mentor texts. You’ll want to dissect them with a fine-tooth comb and ask yourself WHY are these books so special?

When I find a picture book that’s a mentor text, one of the first things I like to do is type it out on my computer and save it as a document file. Why type it out? Because typing out a winning picture book actually trains our brains to get a better grasp on the language, flow, pace, plot, and length of what our own manuscripts want to attain to.

So keep your radar out for potential mentor texts as you’re binge reading picture books this month. And when you find them…treasure them like gold!