Hello,
My name is Diane L. Johnson. I am a retired Forest Service employee; most of my career was spent as a Range Technician. In that position I checked grass, weeds, water tanks, fences, cattle grazing use, wildlife grazing use, and pasture rotations. In the winter I wrote reports about the summer field data I had collected. I realized finally, that I like to write. Now that I am semi-retired I want to write books for children, especially children that hate to read.
A wise boy about nine years old told me, “All the books I can read are too babyish.”
I want to engage that child with books that are age appropriate but easy to read.
A girl age eight said, “I don’t like robots or superheroes. I want to pan for gold”.
I would like to show that girl in song, story, or pictures how to pan for gold.
When I write for children I use pictures to help the child visualize the concepts or situations I am describing. I use short sentences whenever possible and paragraph breaks to keep a page of text broken in smaller chunks to read. I use vocabulary and sentence structure that is brief and simple so that the child can read along and not be stopped by unfamiliar words. I have a picture glossary in the back of some of my books. Children usually go through a book and look at the pictures first anyway and if they see the unfamiliar words defined with photos they won’t have to stop once they have begun reading.
My focus is on rural children using images and situations they can relate to and stories that entertain them.
My husband Richard and I have two grown sons, two daughters in law, and four grandchildren, two boys and two girls. We all love the outdoor lifestyle we have here in Montana.