Nonfiction for Children’s Magazines: Format

If you’re planning on writing a nonfiction article for a children’s magazine of your choice, then find a current issue with a nonfiction article where you say, “I think I could write an article like that!” Use that article’s format as a guide to write your own manuscript.

If you’re choosing to submit to Clubhouse Jr. magazine as I am, first choose whether you want to submit an article about extraordinary kids doing extraordinary things OR if you want to write a nature article. (Their two main current needs as my editor explained.)

An extraordinary kids article needs its own format so you’ll need to order in sample issues that have stories like that. (I’ve not yet written any of those.)

But if you want to write a nature article, I wanted to share 3 formats that have been successful for me. I’ll be posting these individually in upcoming posts with the actual articles so you can use one of these as your mentor text.

For my article, GOD’S AMAZING CREATION…FROM A TO Z! I simply used the ABC format and wrote about my topic from A to Z.

For my article, BLUE RIBBON MAMA, I chose ONE topic (mother alligators) and wrote about 4 unique facts on them.

For my article, NOSEY NEIGHBORS, I chose one animal characteristic (unique noses) and wrote about a number of animals that have unique noses.

These 3 formats seem to be featured frequently in their magazine, so they’re a good foundation to start with. You can choose which one you prefer for the topic you want to write about.

I’ll share more details about each of these formats in upcoming posts so stay tuned!

Filed under: Magazines, Nonfiction