A Conversation With Chris Grabenstein on Writing for Kids (Killer Writers)

Author Chris Grabenstein grew up outside Chattanooga, Tennessee. So did I. But we didn’t know each other until we met one year at Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference. We quickly learned we had much in common, including a sense of 12-year-old-boy humor. Chris was learning his craft and making his way writing for grown-ups when I met him then. Really funny stuff. It was the John Ceepak mystery series with such delightful titles as Whack a Mole, Tilt a Whirl, and Mind Scrambler. 

(Find more Killer Writers conversations here.)

I liked him so much and he was such a personable guy, I brought him back several years later as a Guest of Honor and he had, not surprisingly, changed audiences on me. He was now a multiple award-winning #1 New York Times bestselling children’s author.

I told Chris, who lives in New York City now, that I’d like to talk with him for this column. “It’ll only take about 15 minutes,” I said. An hour-and-a-half later on a Zoom call, we were still talking. And that’s the kind of guy Chris is: one of the most giving authors I know, such an easy conversationalist. No wonder children love him.

Like Chris, I’ve written for children, and I’ve written for adults. It’s curious how one arrives there. “So, Chris, you’ve been at this a while. I know you aspired—and did quite well—as a comedian sharing the stage with the likes of Bruce Willis, Robin Williams, and others. When did it all start for you?”

“I was very fortunate that I had a really great teacher in Junior High School. I wrote a paper for her, and she scribbled in the margin, ‘You will make your living as a writer someday.’”

“Had you thought about it before?”

“No. I’d been reading Mad magazine, watching Rocky and Bullwinkle, developing a sense of humor to deal with the bullies who were picking on me in seventh grade. And so, when she said that, the next year, when I had to write the ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ essay that we all had to write almost every year, I said…”

“Based on her…”

“‘I want to be a comedian or a writer.’ You know I launched my career with a series of adult mystery books.”

“The John Ceepak Mysteries. I loved them.”

“At the time, there was an editor who was looking for ghost stories for middle-grade readers.”

“Ages?”

“Kids eight to twelve. I’d written several books that had gotten rejected. My third book I wrote that got rejected from everybody was a ghost story, so my agent said to this editor, ‘Well, Chris wrote a ghost story, but it’s not for middle-grade readers.’ And the editor said, ‘Well, if the story is any good, we can turn it into one.’

“Okay.”

“So he read my third book. It was 110,000 words long. To my surprise, he said, ‘this would be a great book for middle-grade readers. You just got to get rid of the adult situations, the adult language, and cut it down to like 50,000 words.’ And my agent said, ‘Do you want to do that?’ That’s like cutting 60,000 words out. By the time I wrote that third book, I’d already spent a year working on it, so I’m going to have to spend another year on it.”

“So, what was the verdict?”

“Nieces and nephews. My nieces and nephews, they really wanted to read something that I’d written that was appropriate for them to read, so I said, ‘I’m going to do it.’

“And that decision made you a New York Times bestseller.”

“It wasn’t simple. It took a lot of research. I always recommend that, if you’re going to try a new category, you need to get to know it a little bit. Read a bunch of books. So, I started reading a lot of books for eight- to twelve-year-olds. And after reading quite a few, a lot really, I said, ‘Maybe I can do this.’ I can put in a couple of fart jokes here and there.”

“Crazy as it sounds, that’s the age group and that’s what’s there.”

“The kids have got to be in charge of the story. They’ve got to be the ones solving whatever the mystery is. Carl Hiaasen’s written for that age group, Hoot. There’s a great book called Holes by Louis Sachar. I read those. They helped me get in the sense. And as I wrote, I was tapping back into that Mad magazine, 12-year-old kid that I used to be, and I was having such a blast, too. You have to really tap in. You have to tap into your own memories. And one of the things you have to tap into is how you felt when you were that age. I listened to music by The Monkeys…”

“I remember them. Saturday morning. Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith.”

“I was in fifth and sixth grade. I got my old junior high school yearbook and I saw how miserable I was trying to play football because that’s what my father wanted me to do, and how happy I was working for the school newspaper because that’s what I might have actually had some talent doing. So, you remember those feelings.”

“And you became a middle-grade author.”

“When I first started writing for children, my agent and I both kept saying, ‘I’m writing YA.’ And my editor said, ‘No, you’re writing middle-grade.’ And I said, ‘Well, what’s the difference?’ So here’s a tip that I was given: in middle-grade books, the boys and girls like each other, but they don’t like each other. So, you’re basically writing before the hormones kick in.”

“But there’s a wide range, say, between a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old.”

“Middle-grade has been subdivided almost into two groups. There’s upper-elementary, which is what I write for mostly. Most of my books are for third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Fifth grade is like my sweet spot. I get some seventh graders, but by the time they get to seventh and eighth grade, they’re looking for something a bit more challenging. My ghost stories, because they are so dark, probably still would appeal to seventh and eighth graders. So, it’s interesting. There’s a whole substrate of writing for children.”

“It’s scary, though, writing for kids, because we’re not kids. How do you make it contemporary rather than something recounting our own childhoods? That would be a historical!”

“The example I use is, if you were a kid in sixth grade, and you were called, in my day, to the chalkboard to do an answer for something you hadn’t studied, and let’s say you had no idea how to do it, how you felt would be the exact same way that a kid today in sixth grade would feel when he is called up to the whiteboard, or the smart board, or the hologram, and have no idea how to do it. Whatever technology or setting they’ve got now, the feeling is the same. The props change.”

“So, we contemporize the setting, but we retain our own adolescent feelings and insecurities.”

“Exactly.”

“It’s fun.”

“I’m a big kid at heart, and the kids are really silly.”

“You do a lot of school visits.”

“Oh, yeah, they treat you like a rock star. They send the nicest letters.”

“I love it.”

“Kids stand in line hugging your book, you know,” he says.

“Rare at book signings do you see adults hugging your book. It makes you start thinking of Annie Wilkes.”

Chris laughs. “If I talk to a school, I’ll get like a big envelope with all these hand-drawn illustrations of me and the characters from the books. It’s pretty cool.”

“That is cool.”

Chris and I continued to talk, and I’ll have more to share later about his career trajectory, how he made it to #1, his work with James Patterson, his fling with Hollywood, and all the wonderful things that are truly Chris Grabenstein. But now, like you maybe, I’m thinking I might need to go back and write another kid’s book. I still remember the feelings. As a parent, I know the setting. How about you? I can sense your wheels turning. Send a note to me and let me know if this has inspired a children’s book in you.

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Chris Grabenstein is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mr. Lemoncello, Wonderland, Haunted Mystery, Smartest Kid, and Dog Squad series. He has also co-authored three dozen fast-paced and funny page turners with James Patterson. https://chrisgrabenstein.com/