How to Write Rhyming Picture Books: Having Fun Creating Rhyme and Rhythm

1. Overview of How to Write Rhyming Picture Books: Welcome to how to write rhyming picture books with me. Author Tracy, see gold. Kids love rhyming picture books, but they can be really hard to write. That's not only because, not only does the rime have to be awesome, but picture books that rhyme it need a consistent rhythm. That can be quite a challenge to nail down. We're going to talk about some fun, playful ways to approach this challenge. We're going to walk through how to write rhyming picture books step-by-step. We're going to cover how to decide whether a book should Ryan, the importance of rhythm, how to analyze rhyme and rhythm. How to pick which rhyme and rhythm scheme to use. How to draft and revise running picture books. Some simple do's and don'ts for reading rhyming picture books, you're going to come away from this class with a draft of a project. You can do this just for fun. Or who knows? Maybe your project will become a actual book you can hold in your hands. We're going to analyze nursery rhymes like Mary Had a Little Lamb. Then you're going to add your own new spin. This way, you'll learn about rhyme and rhythm from a familiar rhyme and then have a good base for branching out and creating your own rhyme and rhythm. I love rhyme, and I have four books published or coming out soon with a variety of rhyme schemes. For example, everyone's sleepy, but the baby has a looser rhyme scheme, whereas trick or treat, bugs to eat really closely mimics that trigger treats, smell my feet, nursery rhyme. I love teaching, writing, and working as a freelance editor. And I can't wait to dive into talking about rhyming books with you. I would love to hear a little bit about you and what brought you to this class and what you hope to learn. Go ahead and make a post in the discussion when you're all signed up for the class. In our first lesson, we're going to talk about how to decide whether a picture books should Ryan. Let's get started. 2. How to Decide Whether a Picture Book Should Rhyme: To rhyme or not to ride? That is the question. Let's dive in. Rhyming picture books can be so much fun. There's a huge variety within rhyming books to like the very simple rhymes you'll find in Brown Bear, Brown Bear to the expansive romp of a twist. Scientists. However, there is a lot of confusion around writing rhyming picture books. Let's do a little true false quiz to clear things up. First question, true or false. All picture books have to Ryan, what do you think? There are many wonderful picture books published every year that do not Ryan, you do not have to Brian. All right, here's the next question. Totally conflicting belief that some people have. Some people believe that agents and editors hate running picture books and that it's very hard to get a rhyming picture book published. So true or false. Again, false. There are many wonderful picture books published every year that do Ryan. People love rhyming books. There are a few nuances to discuss here ago. It is true that in order to get a rhyming book traditionally published, you need both skill and a little bit of luck. That's true for getting any book traditionally published though. It's just not easy. Some agents and editors would prefer not to work on rhyming picture books because editing rhyme takes a specific skill set that not everyone has or wants to gain. Lucky. By taking this class, you'll be gaining some of those skills. Also, agents and editors see a lot of really bad rhyming picture books coming through and it kinda can put them on guard. A lot of the rhyming manuscripts submitted by newer writers are clunky and forced. Many newer writers. And I was in this place myself. They don't know or they try to deny that rhyming picture books also need to have a very defined and regular rhythm. For me and for many writers, the hardest part of writing rhyme is not actually there when it's getting the rhythm right. Don't worry, we'll be talking a lot on how to just rock the rhythm. In my opinion, one of the best ways to decide whether to Ryan is to make sure that you're picking the right topic for a rhyming book. So here are some of my criteria for a good topic for a rhyming book. I think rhyming books should be simple, flexible, and joyful. Let's dig into why. Simple stories that don't involve complicated plots or ideas are much easier to tackle with Ryan. You don't want to end up writing three stanzas to explain something that could have been explained in one sentence of prose. I would also watch out for stories that include long words or technical terms. One way around that is to write a simple rhyme about the topic and then include nonfictional back matter at the end of the book in prose. I did this with trick or treat bugs to eat and the topic of echolocation. Let's look at it. Here's what this looks like in the book. Here's the stanza in rhyme I wrote about echolocation. Here my calls bounce off was echoing as darkness falls. Obviously the illustrator, Nancy less knockoff helped me out a lot with that very cool illustration. Actually, as I was reading this book as like, oh gosh, how are they going to illustrate echolocation? And I'm thrilled with what Nancy came up with here. Here is the nonfictional back matter at the end of the book, which does not rhyme. It's written in prose. The line breaks that you see here are just the formatting as the words around the image. I'll read it for you. That's echo locate by making noises and waiting to hear the noises bounce back from objects and insects around them. Can you learn about your environment by listening to echos? Try it out, and started teachers. But at this point in a school visit, I asked the kids to yell echo and see if they can hear it bouncing back. But of course they can't because it's like 20 kids yelling echo, that we have a lot of fun. So adding this back matter allow me to keep the rhythm simple and the rhyme simple while still explaining a complex topic. On to the next criteria. Flexible stories allow you to change the book to fit the rhyme and rhythm scheme as needed. For example, in trick or treat bugs eat, there are some types of bugs I couldn't include because I just couldn't figure out a way to work them into the rhyme and rhythm. I desperately wanted to rhyme mosquito with burrito because who doesn't love burritos, right? But I couldn't get it to work. So I had to cut that stanza. I might have only cried about it a little bit. Ideal topic for rhyming book allows you to swap stanzas in and out without causing a ripple effect of problems for the entire plot of your book. Lists. Books are great for this trick or treat. Bugs eat is basically list of what bats eat. There are so many books like this. Mama had a little den by Jenifer Ward is a list of animals that make dens. We're going to talk about that in the project video. Next criteria. Joyful stories are great for rhyming books because rhythm and rhyme tends to create a B field. You can definitely succeed with lyrical, sweet rhyming books that are bittersweet and that touch on deeper subjects. I would however, watch out for trying to write a rhyming book about complex challenging topics like bullying or bodily autonomy or grief. When you're explaining sensitive topics to kids, every single word needs to be chosen for how appropriate it is to explain that subject, rhyme and rhythm and limit your word choice and can make it much harder to tackle a tough topic. You might end up sounding like you're writing a cheery romp about a kid who was bullied, and that's probably not what you want to go for. When you're deciding whether to rhyme, ask yourself, is your idea simple, flexible, and joyful? If the answer is no, or you're just pulling your hair out trying to meet that book rhyme. Maybe that book should be written in prose. You do have a third option, which is reading your book in free verse. That means you'll use poetic windbreaks, but the book will not run. I would suggest this method for more serious or lyrical books. You'll find me, which grapples with grief or eyes that kiss in the corners. About a little girl who realizes her eyes look different from her friends eyes. I won't go too much into free verse because this is a class about rhyming. But I did want to include one specific example to show you what I'm talking about. Here's an example from eyes that kiss in the corners by Joanna how illustrated by John kyle. I'll read a little. My eyes wrinkle into crescent moons and sparkle like the stars. Gold flecks Dance Central while story's world and their lung pools carrying tails of the past and hope for the future. You'll see there are two rhyming lines. They're twirling world. But the book as a whole does not have a consistent rhyme or rhythm scheme. The line breaks enforce a more poetic feel where readers have to slow down and consider each line, but it's not bouncy at a set rhythm. Keep in mind that if you do use reverse, you don't have to write an irregular Reimer rhythm, but it should still sound good. I would recommend avoiding too much rhyme at the end of your lines because you don't want people to think you tried and failed. You can still play with sound, repetition and rhythm to make your book lovely, to read aloud the discussion for this class, I would love to hear about your favorite published rhyming picture books. I'd also like to hear where you stand on whether books that you're working on right now should rhyme. Are you struggling to decide? Let's talk about it. Next up, we're going to dive into rhythm and how rhyming picture books need a consistent rhythm. 3. Rhyming Picture Books Need a Consistent Rhythm: Here we are ready to talk about the biggest sticking point for many authors of rhyming picture books. That is rhythm. While you may find exceptions to the rule, the best rhyming books flow off the page because they have a wonderful consistent rhythm. Remember, picture books are mostly consumed by being read aloud. The way the words sound is vitally important. All of the words, not just the rhyming lines. In the poetry world, a set consistent rhythm is often written. In the poetry world. A set consistent rhythm is often referred to as meter. You might remember discussing iambic pentameter. When studying Shakespearian sonnets in school, analyzing the rhythm of a metrical poem to find the stress or emphasis syllables is called scanning it. When I first started writing rhyming picture books, I was really intimidated by memories of my high-school writing classes. I had struggled to scan poetic meter and memorize so many terms like iambic pentameter. So instead of working hard to write my rhyming books and meter, I just said to myself, Oh, I'll just make it sound good. Well, guess what? None of those I'll just make it sound good. Rhyming books sold to a publisher. More complicated story is that when I sold, everyone's sleepy but the baby to the publisher, familiar, it actually didn't rhyme. However, it did have a repetitive, consistent rhythm with the editor at familiars. I then revised it into a loosely rhyming book. I think I just got lucky. I also think that book would have worked really well without the rhyme and even better with a little bit of rhyme. But before I sold trick or treat bugs to eat, I had to write in meter. Now, if you're freaking out about memorizing terminology like I was, I have good news. I will talk about some of the specific terminology throughout the course so that you can learn it if you want to. But don't worry about memorizing it. You do not have to know all of the terminology of poetic meter to write a smashing, rhyming picture book, you just have to develop an ear for which syllables are stressed and unstressed. And write each stanza in the same basic rhythm. That's it. It's just a more methodical way of making it sound good. It's not easy, but you don't need to keep a little dictionary of terminology by your side as you do it. In the project for this class, you'll be analyzing a nursery rhyme and writing your own spin on it. That's what I did with trick or treat bugs to eat. I took an existing successful rhyme and rhythm scheme and I mimicked it. Changing the subject matter. You don't always have to do that. But knowing how to analyze well-known rhythm schemes will help you be successful when you write your own. Another fun way to work on this is to come up with silly parodies for pop songs like Weird Al Yankovic that will help you build your ear to. In the discussion. Go ahead and talk about a rhythm from a picture book that really sticks in your head. Get us started. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom. By Bill Martin Junior, illustrated by John or Jimbo, always sticks in my head to Chicka, Boom, Boom, will there be enough room? Next up, we're going to take a deep dive into analyzing rhythm. You will learn how to scan a rhyming book and analyze its meter. Don't worry, it's not gonna be scary, okay, maybe a little bit scary, but not that scary. And I'm going to hold your hand. You might even find out that scanning poetry, dare I say it. Button 4. How to Analyze Rhythm in a Rhyming Picture Book: Alright, let's get down to analyzing rhythm. Fancy way to say that is scanning poetic meter. Again, all we're doing is learning how to make a rhyming book Sound good. The way to do this is by establishing a consistent pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Okay, let's talk about it. What does that even mean? No stress syllable is a syllable under a lot of pressure at work and home. I couldn't help me. So when I say stressed, I mean the syllable that you emphasize. For example, when you say puppy, the part stressed. Puppy, moat is stressed in motor. Po1 and tail are stressed in ponytail. Of course, just to make you tear your hair out. Not everyone stresses some words in the same way. For example, when writing hide and seek, nuts to eat my book about squirrels, I discovered I couldn't use the word Pecan. I couldn't even say it right. Just them because they have both with the pronunciations in my head. So the problem is that some people stress P and some people stress can pecan. Can pecan. It just starts to make your head spin. So that men, I couldn't reliably predict how the rhythm of my line would read. Some other words that have this problem include caramel or caramel. Mayonnaise. That's another one, Manet's or mayonnaise. So it just can really be stressful. And my approach to these words is to just try not to include them if I can get away with it. So I hope by this, You see what I mean about how picture books have to be flexible if you're going to work. So to use a movie quote, when you know language well, you can tell when someone puts the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. Of course, that should read the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable. When you scan a line of poetry, you're looking for the naturally stressed syllables. If your rhythm leads people to stress syllables that aren't naturally stressed, It's going to be difficult and clunky to read aloud. I find that some newcomers to rhyme, think about the counting syllables for rhythm. Yes, you will have the same number of syllables for every line that's in the same rhythm. Counting syllables can be a helpful tool. However, if the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is forced or inconsistent, the number of syllables does not matter. Let's dive into analysis. We will start with a rhythm. You might have learned in school. Iambic, pentameter, Shakespeare's favorite. So when I am is one type of metrical foot. What is that? Let's find out. What is a foot. Each set of syllables that roughly goes together is called a foot. The best backstory that I found for this. And it doesn't seem like anyone knows for sure, is that people sometimes tap their feet to keep in the ribbon. So a unit of rhythm ended up being called a foot. An IM is the foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. So a line of iambic pentameter is five sets of ions. Here's a line of iambic pentameter using the word ion. I am, I am, I am, I am, I am. I really like iambic meter because it sounds like a heartbeat. The thumb, the thumb, the thumb. Or if you wanted to add two more, you could get iambic pentameter, the thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. You can always use your fingers to count with it helps you work on iambic pentameter and scan this couplet from Shakespeare's Hamlet. After I read it, you can pause your video to see if you can identify the stress syllables. When I learned this back in school, we used Mark's special marks to identify stressed and unstressed syllables. But in the age of the computer, we're just going to bold the stressed syllables. I'll go ahead and read that this couplet allowed to sleep, perchance to dream. I, there's the rub for in the sleep of death, what dreams may come? Alright, go ahead and pause and bold the stressed syllables. Alright, let's see if you've got it. Here's the caplet with stress syllables in bold. To sleep per chance to dream, I, there's the rub for, in this sleep of death, what dreams make cotton. You have now scanned metrical poetry. I hope you feel fancy. Now. You do not have to memorize the names of all of the poetic feet out there in the world. In order to analyze ribbon, you just have to be able to look at a stanza of poetry and bold the stressed syllables. When you write your own writing book, you can create your own pattern of stressed syllables. We'll talk later about which patterns are best for picture books. Let's cement this skill by talking about a picture book. I'm going to use my picture book again. Trick or treat bugs to eat because the rhythm is pretty much as far away from iambic pentameter as you can get. In fact, I'm not even sure what to label it. So this is a good example of how labels really don't matter. So when I first got the idea for this book, I started with the old folk rhyme, trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. So go ahead and pause the video and see if you can bold the stressed syllables. Okay, Did you get it? The rhythm is pretty strong and clear here I'll read it in an exaggerated way. Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. Now, here's a stanza from my book which swaps out kids trick or treating for candy with bats, tricker treating for bugs. I went ahead and already bolted the stressed syllables. I will read this in an exaggerated way from our cave, were so brave. We fly out in one big wave. On this slide, we can look at the original on the left versus a stanza from trick or treat bugs to eat. On the right. See how the stressed syllables are in the same places. When you rhyme. That's really all you have to do. Decide on one set rhythm scheme and mimic it for every single stanza. Every line doesn't have to have the same rhythm in trick or treat bugs to eat. The first, second, and fourth line all follow the rhythm of trick or treat. But the third line has an extra unstressed syllable, the end. That's thing in the original and in the stands or from my book. Indeed, making one line out of the stanza a little longer or shorter. You can help give you wriggle room in your writing. Just make sure that the stanza overall flows well, and that every stanza follows the same pattern. In the discussion. Go ahead and post a stanza from a picture book or poem and tried to bold the stress syllables. This can be from a published book by someone else or from something you are working on. Take a look at the other stanzas in the discussion. Would you read those other stanzas with the same syllable stress, comment with your take. We did it. We are through the analyzing rhythm section. If you want some more practice, I have a few more examples of this in the project video. Next up, we're going to talk about analyzing Brian. And it's just going to feel like a walk in the park compared to rhythm 5. How to Analyze Rhyme Schemes: Here we are to talk about rhyme. No, we're good bit into our class about Rhyming, but I just can't underscore enough how important rhythm is. But okay, okay, fine. We can talk about rhyme. I guess that's important too. Here we go. We're going to start with some vocabulary just to keep everything clear. Most of our time in this class will be spent talking about end rhyme. And rhyme means the words at the end of the line, Rhyme, like trick or treat, bugs to eat. Internal rhyme is great too. That means words within one or more lines. Rhyme. Think Macbeth, Double, double toil and trouble, fire, burn and cauldron, bubble, trouble and bubble rhyme, but so does double. I'll, they really have to say about internal rhyme is the more of a better. You don't need a consistent pattern to use internal rhyme, you can just play with it. So how do we analyze and Rhymes? We're going to harken back to an analysis tool you might remember from English class, the past, and that is labeling rhyme schemes using the alphabet. The first line of each stanza is labeled with an a. The next line that doesn't rhyme gets a B. Back to her rhyming line, that lens and I have another word that doesn't rhyme down to C. Now we're rhyming with the BWI. Back to me. Alright, That just feels like a little bit of alphabet soup. So we're going to dive in and it will be much clearer when we look at an example. Let's look at trigger treat bug's feet. Again. I know. Thanks for bearing with me. The letters that go with each line are in parentheses. Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me lots of bugs to eat. So that's a, be a writer. This is pretty tricky. I just bullet myself, I guess today. It's pretty tricky rhyme scheme because three out of the four lines in the stanza have to run. Those three lines are all labeled with an a and the line that doesn't rhyme with anything is given a be. The lines in this scheme are short two, so you don't have a lot of wiggle room. I don't know why I did this to myself, but hey, it got made into a book, so I guess it worked out. Let's look at another example. Here are two stanzas from a favorite rhyming book of mine, dog and dogs by Karen Belmont, illustrated by David petro. This book is about a group of dogs running away. After I read this, go ahead and pause your video and see if you can label the rhyme scheme correctly. Note that the alphabet resets with each stanza, each group of lines. So you shouldn't get too far down. And if you're down at Z, then you're really in trouble. Go ahead and remove the lines. Lucky lady rata currently, no dogs. No, it's still too early. Creamy weaning meeting MOE Baba, BG, No, don't go on dog to Dong's three dogs for dog and dogs run out the door. Five dogs, 67 dogs. Dog and dogs run through the gate. I love that book. Here. The book is labeled, it is an AA, BB rhyme scheme. That's what we call rhyming couplets. So in these two stanzas, the first two lines rhyme with each other. In the second two lines rhyme with each other. I would hazard a guess here that the counting part of this book came first and set the rhythm and rhyme for the rest of the book. You can't really change the order of the numbers 1-10, but you can change the names of dogs to fit the same rhythm as those numbers. Names of characters are one element you can almost always change to make you're running books more flexible. But I know writers really get attached to the names of their characters and just try not to do that to yourself if you're trying to write I rhyming book because you might have to change the vans. Let's do one more example so we can get down to see. This stanza is from my book, hide and seek nuts to eat about squirrels hiding food for winter. I'm gonna read it and then you can pause and see if you can label the rhyme scheme. What a feast we eat until our belly is just my first. Then we skip the morning due to quench or maybe thirst. Go ahead and pause the video to label the rhyme. Alright, this is an a, B, C, B rhyme. So the be, words are burst and thirst, the only two lines that rhyme. I highly recommend a rhyme scheme like this because only two out of the four lines have to rhyme with anything. A and C are just free. You can end with whatever, whatever word you want. This can free you up as a writer significantly. And if your plot is a little bit more complex, I would really recommend doing something like this. Keep things like that in mind as you plan your discussion for this class. Go ahead and post a stanza of Rhyme and label it with the alphabet. This can be for a published book or a book you are working on. What do you think about the Schemes others have posted? Take a look at all the rhyme schemes available to you. You can always go to the library and see what other rhyming books are doing. If you ask a librarian, I'm sure they will be happy to point you to picture books that have been published recently. So you can see what newer books are doing right now. Next up, we'll be going into more detail about some of the best rhythm and rhyme schemes you can use for your picture book. 6. How to Pick Your Own Rhythm and Rhyme Scheme: All right, Now that you know how to analyze rhyme and rhythm, let's talk about how to pick your own rhyme and rhythm scheme. You can make it easier for yourself or you can make it hard for yourself. So let's talk about what works well for picture books. You have two main priorities when you are deciding on a rhyme and rhythm scheme for your book. One, you want the book to be wonderful for people to read aloud. You want the book to be fun to write. Now, fun doesn't necessarily mean easy, but you just have to find what works for you. As I discussed in the project video, you can always put your own spin on a nursery rhyme without any connection to the original, like Jennifer awards, mama duck, little den, which uses the rhythm of Mary Had a Little Lamb for a very different subject matter. But if you want to create your own rhyme and rhythm scheme, where do you start? First of all, you went lines that are short enough to be fun to read aloud, but long enough to give you space to work with. As a writer. You want a rhyme scheme that sounds great, but gives you a little flexibility. Going to dive into one scheme that is not great, and then give a couple of examples of schemes that do work. Let's circle back to iambic pentameter. Remember that is five items in a row. I am, I am, I am, I am, I am. This is a rhyme scheme you likely do not want to use for a picture book because the lines are quite long. Let's look at Shakespeare's Hamlet and just start with counting the syllables. Alright, to sleep, per chance to dream. I, there's the rub. So that's ten in the first lane. For, in this sleep of death, what dreams may come? Ten in the second line, that is much longer than most recent picture books. Iambic pentameter is going to be ten syllables long per line. So in order to fill out a line that is that long, what I find is that picture book writers end up adding unnecessary words that just don't fit well in a picture book. Should you use? There's no one right answer here, but I would personally aim for 5-8 syllables per line. If you want to geek out about terminology, that normally means you're writing in Demeter two metric feet per line. Perimeter. Theory, metric feet per line, or tetrameter, which is for metric feet per line. Again, you do not have to memorize those terms. I do have a glossary which will go with this class though if you want to look it up later. So generally, in a rhyming book, it is best to end each line with a stressed syllable. When words rhyme, you're more likely to stress them naturally, and it just makes for a stronger read aloud if the ends of your lines are stressed. So that means most picture books being written in a type of rhythm where the stress comes at the end of the foot. And that leads to iambic meter or anaplastic meter. We already talked about the unstressed, the thump of an IM is stressed just like the word sounds, just like with IM. So anapest, data, dumb, two unstressed syllables followed by a stressful Demeter, which is two metric feed them that add-on or anaplastic perimeter, which is three metric feet that are done are fairly popular for picture books. A famous example of anaplastic Demeter is Dr. Seuss's The cat. And here's an excerpt. Have no fears that the cat, I will not let you fall. I will hold you up high as I stand on a ball. Go ahead and pause the video and see if you can bold the stressed syllables. Alright, have no fear. Said the cat, I will not let you fall. I will hold you up high as I stand on a ball, that atom, that atom, over and over again. That is anaplastic demeanor. Know the rhyme scheme here. It uses the ABCB rhyme scheme that I love because only two of your lines have to rhyme. Falling ball rhyme, but cat and high don't have to rhyme with anything. Of course, in the book, The Cat in the Hat Cat rhymes with lots of things throughout the book though, you can still play even if you don't have a rhyme scheme that's forcing you to run Let's look at an example of mostly iambic meter from my book. Hide and seek. Not steep. What a feast we eat until our belly is just might burst. Then we set the morning due to quench our mighty thirsty. We have what feast, eat till Bell just burst. Then sit more. Do quench my thirst that are bolded because those are the stressed syllables. You can see here that every single line does not have the same exact rhythm. The first and third lines start with a stressed syllable, and the second and fourth lines start with an unstressed syllable. So it's not pure iambic meter. It doesn't really matter if your rhythm fits perfectly with a label. It just matters that your pattern is consistent throughout the whole book. Every single stands on this book has this exact same pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Your readers will definitely notice if the rhythm changes and it will make the book hard to read aloud. When I wrote Haydn's eaten that seat, I did not set out saying, hey, I'm gonna do this weird little rhythm and rhyme scheme where similar lines start with the stress and some of them don't. I just wrote and play it and revised. And this is the dominant rhythm and rhyme scheme that emerge. I have to sneak a filler word. I call it a filler word because it's not this. We're pros you just wouldn't need it. I just set it again. What do you think the filler word is in here? Alright, I love this word apparently because they can't stop saying it. It's just in our bellies, just might burst, adjust or so were very high there and, uh, manuscripts are okay. But do watch out to make sure you're not using too many filler words. Just for the sake of one of my subsequent I revise is actually to go through and search my manuscripts for words like Jets and make sure that I only have maybe two or three in a whole manuscripts. Different people end up finding different rhyme and rhythm schemes that feel natural to them. I tend to go for iambic meter because when I tried to write an anaplastic meter, I feel like I have way too many filler words and it just jams up the works. You have to play around and find what feels most natural for you. One interesting way approach, finding your rhyme and rhythm is to think of the most important stanza in your book. So do you have a part of your book that could be very meaningful or very hard rights. Often this isn't the first stanza because the first stanza can be a lot of setup. Sometimes this is the stanza where everything changes or the very last stanza of your book. So I would try to get the rhyme and rhythm down for that stanza. It might be the hardest to write. It might be the most important. So find what works for that stanza. And then you can work in all of the other easier stanzas into that rhythm. You might also try talking the book to yourself. So instead of trying to write down your picture book, you can just say it aloud or even sing it to yourself. You can record yourself and then play it back and just think about what sounds good, what comes out naturally in your literal voice, not just your written voice. You can also play and be a little flexible. For example, if you have a repeated refrain in your book, you might want to make it rhyme only with its self or rhyme with nothing. If you are trying to rhyme to the same word over and over again in your book, you are either going to have to repeat yourself when you don't really want too, which isn't going to sound great. Or you might have to limit the content of your book to the number of rhymes you can come up with for that one. And Ryan, I would avoid doing that to yourself if possible. Alright, I'm a little confused and this part can be a little confusing. So let's look at an example. The pop-out fish by Debra Thompson, illustrated by Dan Hannah. There is a repeated stanza. I have a pelt pelt fish with the face, so it's red. The dream where he's all over the place. Lobe, lobe. I loved reading that one to my kid. I mean, it was her favorite for a long time. That whole progression is repeated several times throughout the book. So you have face and pleased that rhyme with each other. But then you have blue lobe, which runs with nothing Can you imagine how limiting it would be? Is this ocher tried to come up with multiple things that rhyme with blood. Hub grabs slab. That would be so awkward and limiting. It's much better to just let blood stand-alone. I also loved the end of this book. It is a great example of repeating one thing through the whole book and then coming up with a fun twist at the end. So this is the last stanza of the pop-out fish. The kiss, kiss, fish with a kiss, kiss space for spreading cheery cherries all over the place. So much. Smooch, smooch. Do the same thing in my book. Call your mother. I repeat, call your mother after every stanza and it runs with nothing because what rhymes with mother anyway? It also include a line of dialogue in italics which rhymes with nothing. So here's an example. When you're up before the sun and declare of days begun, mama, mama, call your mother. We have the rhyming couplet with sun and begun, we have the italic line of dialogue. Then we have call your mother. And the dialogue and call your mother, don't rhyme with anything. And it allows the book to be a lot more free in what it covers. At the very end of the book. The mom in this picture that you see becomes a grandma. And she tells her now overwhelmed daughter, who is the baby in this page, that when she was overwhelmed as a new mom, she would do the same as you. She would call her mother too. So this is another example of setting up an expectation with rhyme and repetition and then switching the content to something surprising. It's a great tool for any book, not just a rhyming book. To conclude, it doesn't really matter what label you put on your rhythm and rhyme scheme. As long as throughout your book, it's consistent. Keep in mind your two main goals. Creating a good flow for the reader and making sure that you have done as the writer. You trapped ever revise, stay open-minded about changing your rhyme or rhythm scheme. If something isn't working for you, a different rhyme or rhythm scheme might fit better with a term or name you have to use often in your book. Or you might just feel that it's more natural for you. The discussion for this class, go ahead and post about the rhyme and rhythm schemes you have tried before. What feels most natural to you? What are you struggling with? Let's discuss what you think you might want to use on your own books. Next up, we're going to talk about the process of drafting rhyming picture books and some tips and tricks to make it easier for you. Hopefully 7. Drafting Rhyming Picture Books: Now you have lots of knowledge about what makes a great writing book. Let's talk about how you actually can sit down or stand up if you have a standing desk and right one. The process for drafting a rhyming book is going to be different than for drafting a prose picture book. Because rhyme and rhythm complicate things. Each writer is going to have their own approach to the writing process. But I wanted to share some basic methods that I use and that I know have been helpful for others for drafting. Sometimes the grime and rhythm scheme will show up first. It will in the project for this class because we're using a nursery rhyme. Sometimes the topic will show up first and you'll have to figure out a rhyme and rhythm scheme later. Walk through the process for two of my books to show you how I approach, drafting them for trick or treat bugs to eat. I knew I wanted to write a Halloween book, and I had the idea to write a book using the trick or treat, smell my feet rhyme about a spooky animal. So the rhythm and rhyme scheme came first. Maybe a list of spooky animals. I was drawn to the idea of reading about bats because I had been to Austin, texas and saw 1 million bats fly out from under Congress bridge. At sunset. It was amazing and it happened years before I ever wrote trick or treat folks to eat, but it stuck in my head. Also, bats eat bugs, which are short, simple words that fit well into my rhyme scheme, trick or treat. Bugs eat tributary, smelly feet. When I drafted trick or treat bugs to eat, I went ahead and just played with the rhyme and rhythm, about 30 stanzas before doing much research at all. I had the background from the Tory took in Austin when I solve those bats, but I didn't really Google anything. I talked to them saying to myself as I wrote to get a general sense of the rhythm and rhyme. When I draft, I like to make a rule that there are no bad ideas. I just let the ideas flow. We first take, I circled back, and that's when I went to Google and I did a lot of research. I wrote down names of bugs at bats, eat names of types of bats, as well as other interesting words like cave or echolocation. Hi To see, that's eat. I didn't have an existing rhyme and rhythm scheme. The idea came because one year squirrels ate all of my Halloween pumpkins. They actually do that every year. But that particular year, when the next fall rolled around, I found a pumpkin vine near a tree in my yard that I didn't plant. Those squirrels, eight my pumpkins, but then left some of the seeds to become new pumpkin vines. And I got to enjoy those as my fall decorations the next year. So that was my idea. When I first sat down to write about these squirrels really agonize about rhythm or rhyme. I just played and solid came out and I ended up with basic iambic meter. So the dum, dum, dum, dum. I dug into research about squirrels and listed a lot of foods that swirls eat, as well as fun words related to squirrels like pounds and Squeak. After harvesting these ideas, I wrote probably about 30 to 40 stanzas without worrying too much about making the rhythm and rhyme perfect. I just had fun sometimes reading firms, sometimes seeing the words aloud to hear the rhythm as the words came to me. It wasn't until I was more into revising this book that I narrowed down the exact rhyme and rhythm that I wanted to use. I couldn't make some of the stanzas work within that new rhyme and rhythm scheme. But because I had so many stanzas, I could just cut them. You really only need. I normally aim for at least ten stanzas and a final rhyming picture book, especially for my books that have nonfiction back matter at the end. I hope these two examples show you that there's no one way to write a rhyming picture book. You can start with a rhyme and rhythm scheme. Or you can just play with an idea and hope that the rhyme and rhythm emerge as the right. Let's talk about a few other methods you can use for drafting a rhyming book. First, you can talk out your book. So instead of writing it down, just talk through your ideas, record yourself and see if you like what you said. Sam is just so important for a rhyming book. You can also make an outline. Don't worry about the rhyme when you're outlining. Just write down what you want to write about, get that sorted out and then you can circle back. And Ryan, I also love to use a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary. I normally don't get to that until I revise, so I'll talk about that a little bit more later. But those can be great tools for helping you come up with ideas. As I've said, I also really like lists. I make lists of relevant words. So when I'm in the middle of the stanza, I don't have to sit there and think, oh, we were to Megan to use. I can just look at my list and hopefully I have some ideas right there. If I'm really lucky, they will run. My biggest suggestion for you would be to stay flexible as you draft. Be willing to change your rhythm and rhyme scheme. Be willing to change your topic or what happens in your story. Even. Don't make this too hard by being inflexible. You're playing and experimenting. You might even prefer to write a free verse poem without rhyme and rhythm and go back and add Rhyme later. Or you might be one of those people who has to have the rhyme and rhythm figured out before you even start writing. Either way is okay. Just play the discussion. Go ahead and post about your process for drafting rhyming picture books. You have any tips that I didn't mention? What do you struggle with? Next up, we're going to talk about the process of revising a rhyming picture book 8. Revising Rhyming Picture Books: You have your rhyming picture of a drafted. How do you revise it? When changing, just one word can mess up your entire rhyme and rhythm scheme. Let's talk about it. I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I approach revising. Then I'm going to share a revision checklist for rhyming picture books. Just like with drafting a picture book, there's no one right way to revise the picture bug. Overall, I feel you need a ton of flexibility to revise any book. You have to be willing to let go of what you thought that was going to be in service of making it the best book that it can be. It might end up looking different. You have to stay loose. I would also say that if you're pulling your hair out over one book, sometimes the best thing you can do is let go of that book for, at least for a while. Take what you've learned and apply it to a different book entirely. You might work on the original book again. Or maybe all of that work was just part of you learning to become a better writer. Try not to get too emotionally attached. Writing and revising picture books is all about playing and experimenting. And not every experiment is going to work. Sometimes books come back to you in surprising ways. My forthcoming book, call your mother was actually first a book that I gave up on four years sooner for having my baby. I wrote a book called What would Mommy do about all the times you need your mom, especially when you become a mom yourself. It just didn't sound quite right to me and my critique partners didn't love it and I didn't know how to fix it. So I set it aside and pretty much forgot about it for years. Then I just had the idea that I wanted to write a Mother's Day book. Calling your mother came out as me and that was about all the times you need your mom, especially when you become a mom, yourself. Familiar. But this time, the different wording and approach seemed right to me and my critique partners loved it and go to my agent. And so did the publisher familiarise. You just never know when a book idea is going to find its best form. It might take years. Remember that the beautiful published picture books you see on the shelf didn't come out perfectly on the first try. Those authors had to revise and revise and revise just like you. It's pretty normal to struggle when you're revising any book. And I think revising a rhyming picture book is even harder. Ideally, you should still be having at least a little fun. I tried to look at revising a rhyming book, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and just trying to find the right words to fit in that spot. But you're not alone. If you find, it's quite a challenge. Personally, I like to revise my own books before I send them to anyone. This gives me some peace of mind when I'm drafting, I can write whatever I want because if I don't like it later, no one else ever has to see it. Curving out that privacy for your drafting can be so invaluable. When I revise, I always read my book aloud. Then I'll get it again. Probably. Again. This is so important for picture books because they're going to be read aloud for children and they just have to sound good rhyming or not, but especially when they're running. Once it's been a lot of work on my own, I will send the book to my critique partners for feedback. Or maybe if all of my critique partners are busy, I will send the book to a freelance editor after I get feedback from them and I work on all of their suggestions, I, if I'm feeling good about the book, I will send it to my agent and she gives me more feedback and I work on her suggestions and sometimes she gives me more. And when we finally both feel good about the book, we send it out to editors. And guess what? If an editor likes the book and the publisher buys it, that editor, Ben has more feedback. And I do a round or a few rounds with an editor until we're both happy with that book. The sales team is happy with the book and the design team is happy with the book. So the revising never ends. Here is a checklist of what I look for when I revise a rhyming picture book, I answer these questions Multiple times per book. Every time I do a major revision to make sure I didn't break one part of the book while fixing another. And that does happen as revised. It's part of the process, it's normal. Alright, so does the content flow overall? Yes, picture books have to sound good, but they also have to make sense and tell a concise, compelling story. Next, does each line have the right number of syllables? Sometimes counting syllables helps me pinpoint if I've messed up the rhythm and it can be quicker and easier to count the syllables than to go through and bold all the stress syllables. Also go through and bold all the stress syllables too, to make sure that the right syllables are stressed. Next are my end rhymes in the right place. Especially if when I'm drafting or when I'm revising, I've changed the rhyme scheme around. Sometimes I find that I haven't done so consistently in each stanza and some of the enzymes might not be in the right place in the stanza. So that's something that I look for. Next, do the enzymes. Good. Emma, using any words that don't really run. I often let myself do that when I'm drafting just to keep the flow going. But I always try to catch that when I'm revising. Same with rhyming singular words. With plural words like dogs with log. I can do better than that. So can you next today, accidentally repeat any end rhymes? This is a really easy way to break your book while you're fixing one part of it because you might come up with an awesome end rhyme for bad stanza without realizing that you already use that word. Ones are more in the book as an Enron. It's okay to have words repeat to a certain extent, but I've really tried to avoid it for the end rhymes. They just think it's more fun and more compelling to not have an rhymes be repeated words unless there's a really good reason for it. Alright, next, or anywhere it's repeated too much in general. Obviously in a book about bats are squirrels, you're going to use the word bat and squirrel a lot. I always like to take a look just to make sure that my vocabulary is purposeful, that I haven't accidentally repeated any words. Next, can I cut out any filler words, like just maybe or so. We've discussed this earlier. Sometimes you need them, but I tried to keep them at a minimum. Does the book Sound good when I read it aloud to myself? And next, does the book Sound good when someone else reads it aloud? When you read your own book aloud to yourself, you are going to pronounce the words the way you know. They're supposed to sound in your mind. And a new reader won't know any of that and might pronounce things differently than you listen to hear if your words flow with another reader who doesn't know what it's supposed to sound like in your head. It can even be helpful to record this person reading your book so you can listen to where they got caught up on their first read. Well, that is how we find the problems. How do I fix them? I heavily use two tools at the source and a rhyming dictionary. Sometimes I find you can change around a line or even a whole stanza. And it makes the end rhyme different. When I have a different word that I need to come up with a rhyme for, where when I want to try a variety of different words, I use a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary. I often use multiple different versions of them that I find them line to suggest new words and new rhymes. You can use these tools when you're drafting too. But for me, I find that I draft quickly and it's not until I revise that I slowed down enough to look things up. Normally when one or two words aren't working in a rhyming picture book. And fortunately, that means rewriting the entire stanza. When I rewrite the stanza, I try not to stop at my first idea. I might write three or four different versions of that stanza and then pick the best one. If I can't pick, then I will ask my critique partners, or sometimes my agent or editor to pick. And we have a little fun making it a more collaborative process. When I'm working with a trouble spot, sometimes I do have to rewrite multiple stanzas. If I'm lucky, a tricky stanza can just be cut. And that's why I say rhyming books should be simple and flexible because it's so nice when you can just delete a stanza and not have to worry about it. Sometimes to make it work, I have to leave in a word or a line that I don't want 100% love. That's okay here and there, as long as there isn't a huge problem with the line You do sometimes have to include the lines that aren't your favorite into rhyming book because it can be impossible to make it perfect. How perfect does the rhyme and rhythm actually need to be? Can you use a slant or near rhyme like home and comb, or comb and tune. Can some of your lines have a slightly different rhythm? It depends. I'll talk a lot about what to avoid in the next lesson. But the closer to perfect your rhyme is the better. Agents and publishers have high standards for rhyming books. They see a lot of awful Ryan when I worked for literary agent and I read her queries, I saw a lot of that awful Ryan. You want to make sure these gatekeepers don't read one or two stanzas with less than perfect rhyme and make a flash judgment and reject your book. That would be sad. I would say that overall, if you're making exceptions, know that you're doing so purposefully. My book, everyone's sleepy, but the baby certainly uses slant rhyme like dog and yon, touch and hush, and eyes and buy, which is a plural and singular. However, I did not originally sell that book to the publisher as Reimann, the rhyme was added later with the editor because the language is so simple and spare. I think it works without perfect rhyme. If I do say so myself, when you're wondering just how perfect you have to be, asked whether your book is making exceptions and compromises in a way that still works for the book overall or to any parts of the book, clunk when you or someone else reads it allowed. Rhythm and rhyme is hard and you'll just find the right balance. Don't give up and creating an excellent book because it's a challenge. And John, keep tearing your hair out because you don't think your book is 110% perfect. We can live with 95% perfect. That is still an a. So how do you know you're done revising? Well, you're never really nearly done. You're just done for now. Even published books sometimes get new and updated edition. And this is why most experienced writers will never save a draft with final in the file name because it's not final. We know it's not final. I could do an entire class about how to know when you're done. There are two situations when you can feel ready to send your book out to the world. Whether you're querying agents and publishers or you are self-publishing. The first situation is when you're getting really good feedback from other people reading your book. Maybe nitpicking here and there. But overall, all good. If you have well-informed, savvy readers, that's a great sign. The book is ready to go. Maybe you can meet someone to trade drafts width, and the discussion for this class. You can also hire a freelance editor, shameless plug like me. If you went someone with a lot of experience critiquing picture books to weigh in. Situation is when you're getting conflicted feedback per meters. This is more likely to happen when you're trying to do something a little experimental, controversial, or just even more subjective than the norm. For example, I loved the book, I'm a Shark by Bob Chez. And my husband really didn't love it. It's a simple, silly book. No amount of my husband's feedback about the book not being funny enough or complex enough would change my feelings that it is silly and fun the way it is and shouldn't change at all ever. At a certain point. You need to know what your vision for our book is and forge ahead with that vision. If the book gets rejected, hopefully you have many market share books ready to send out. If not, get writing, it's just like Pringles. You can't have just one picture book discussion for this class. Post about your revision process for rhyming picture books. What tools do you use? What's helpful? How do you struggle? And are you looking to trade critiques on any of your books? Post about it and maybe you can find someone to trade with in the discussion. Next up, I will cover basic things to avoid when you are reading rhyming picture books 9. What to Avoid When Writing Rhyming Picture Books: We spent most of this class talking about what you should do when writing a rhyming book. Let's take a moment to talk about some simple don't do's, meaning. Some of the issues that make agents and editors grown because they get in the way of readers enjoying the book. Let's dive in. Each slide in this lesson is going to have something that you should avoid doing in a picture book on it. Don't add unnecessary content just for rhythm or Rhyme. Picture Books have to be so short. Kids have a gazillion distractions and parents don't want to have their bedtime reads take forever. Just look at this stock photo gamma and looks really tired. I know I'm tired. Bedtime. And I just want to yes, enjoy book but also not have it be really, really long because I need to go do the dishes and maybe have a tiny bit of time to myself at the end of the day, seen some rhyming picture book manuscripts go down some extreme tangents just to wind their way back to the main plot. Because they are playing with rhyme or because it's taking way longer to explain something and rhyme. That could have been very easily said in a normal sentence of prose. Who? My general rule is that I'm allowed to write as much as I went while I'm drafting. So I will go on those tangents and play and see where my rhyme takes me. When I'm revising, I make sure that I'm not adding extra lines and stanzas just to make the rhyme work. If you can't find a way to keep your rhyming picture book concise. Maybe that's a sign that you should try prose for that idea and give up on rhyming provocative. Sometimes it even helps to write an idea out and prose and then work it back into rhyme so you can figure out exactly what you're trying to say are exactly where the story is going and then see if you can get it in rhyme. Don't use weird forest syntax. Picture book writers end up sounding like Yoda with all kinds of awkward wording that is clearly only there. To get the rhyme and rhythm to work. Patients you must have writers keep working until your rhythm and rhyme. It sounds natural. To do this. You may have to give up on writing a certain stanza or even a certain book and try a totally new approach. Don't use filler words. It's tempting to add lots of filler like so Josh and very, to make our rhyme and more importantly in most cases or rhythm work. For example, my dear in a rhyming picture book is pretty much a red flag to agents and editors that you're adding terms of endearment to make your Rhyme and Rhythm work. So try to avoid phrases, especially phrases more than one word that are just Fuller's. Sometimes you do have to use a filler word here in there, but just try to keep it minimal. Don't end with why, just to rhyme. And here's a picture of one of my favorite words ending in why puppy. I mentioned before that lines and Rhyming books typically end with a stressed syllable because that makes for a better read aloud. And with an unstressed syllable, tend to just fade away as you read them aloud. However, there is a huge temptation to sacrifice rhythm for the sake of Rhyme. I'll often see a strong rhythm scheme emerging in a book ending each line was stressed syllables and then there's something like puppy Rhyming with guppy. Sorry. That's going to stick out a sore thumb when someone is reading that book aloud. Here's my puppy. He is telling you not to rhyme a plural word with a singular one. It only we could get away with us. But rhyming, say homes with from is really a no-go. If you really have to, You could probably get away with this once in a book. I do this at the very end of the Book shown here. Everyone's happy with the baby with sleepy closing eyes and bye, bye bye. But as I mentioned, that book was not originally sold as a rhyming book. Don't overuse the letter S. Part of the reason why it can really stand out when you have an S in one word in a rhyme and not the other is because be letter S really lingers when you're reading aloud. If you have the letter S too many times in a manuscript, you can start to sound like a snake when you're reading aloud. This is really a guideline and personal preference rather than a rule. But I would also avoid names like genes that have a lingering. There. I am sounding like a snake. Don't use a random word to make your rhyme work Might be tempting to say, suddenly bring a horse interior narrative because you need to rhyme, nay, with a way. Be careful. It is really fine to see where rhyme can take you as a writer and who doesn't want a horse in their book? I know, I do just look at my Art. I love horses. When you revising, makes sure that all your Rhyming words with the content of your work, make sure you're not jumping away from the voice you've established for this book. Using advanced or unusual vocabulary in a picture book is fine. But it distracting if you're obviously only using that word to make your rhyme work. Are your Rhyming words kid friendly? For example, rhyming cog with dog might technically work, but your little readers might wonder what a COG is and why it's in your story. Don't use words that are hard to rhyme or that are controversial to pronounce. What I mean by this is just their words that are commonly pronounced in more than one way. We talked about how pronunciation can impact rhythm and that is true for rhyme as well. Some examples of this include routes Rhyming with boot or out, ont, Rhyming with tante or can't, and leisure Rhyming with pleasure or seizure. I will say that if you use the word Can't before the word ant for an end rhyme, your readers will probably know what You mean and pronounce and to rhyme. But if aunt or aunt is first, who knows what could happen? Just to call out the word orange, good luck writing anything with that. I won't use it. Rapper Eminem says the word orange rhymes with storage porridge, George, and more. However, we have to remember that as writers, we don't have the same advantage as recording artists like eminem. Recording artists can contort the way or it sounds, make Rhyme and Rhythm work on their version of the song. And then that version becomes the only version. As writers, we had the challenge and really the whole of error of knowing that readers will bring their own pronunciation and flavor, regional or not. To our work. The good news is that you can carve out a little wiggle room when your readers know what to expect from your rhyme and rhythm scheme changed their pronunciation to fit with it. You can set those expectations by using an existing nursery rhyme. Or am I starting your book with several stanzas of extremely consistent rhyme and rhythm. So if you need to use a tricky word, we're really have any exception to the rules. Try not to do that in your first few stanzas. And that's all I got for this lesson. That's certainly not an exhaustive list of dogs, but rather a starting point of some red flags. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but just keep these notes in mind as a guideline in the discussion for this class. Share your experience with some of these dogs. Have you found exceptions and published picture books? Do you struggle with one of these concepts? Next, I will sum up this class and recap. The key takeaway is in our last lesson, hopefully, you will feel inspired to get Writing 10. In Conclusion: Time to Write Your Own Picture Books: Thank you so much for coming along with me to learn about reading rhyming picture books. Now, it's time for you to get reading. I am so he bird to see what you come up with for the project for this class. If you haven't already make sure that you watch that video. If you're feeling like, I don't know that I want to do this project. I promise you, it's really fun. You should try it. I have gotten a published book out of using an old nursery rhyme. So you just don't know what's going to happen for you until you give it a try. Let's do a quick recap just so that you can realize how much you've learned in this class. One, make sure you're picking the right topic. Keep it simple, flexible, and joyful to remember that rhythm is just as important as rhyme. Three, bold the stressed syllables to analyze your rhythm. For, use the alphabet to analyze rhymed. Five. Pick a rhyme and rhythm that meets your two goals of being fun to read aloud and fun for you to write. Six, play with rhyme and rhythm as you draft. That's my main advice for drafting. Just have fun and play with it. And seven, for revising. Be flexible and open-minded. Eight, don't force anything to make rhyme and rhythm work. That's pretty much the way to sum up what to avoid. You just don't want to force anything. We've covered a lot. If you were to remember anything from this class, it's that rhyme and rhythm should be fun for you to do. Yes, It's hard, yes, it's a challenge, but hopefully it's hardly a really engaging jigsaw puzzle or something like that should be fine. I hope I have. I heard you to play and experiment and that lots of lovely books will come from this class. In the discussion for this class, I would love to hear what your biggest takeaway was. What do you think will stick with you the most? I would also lead to keep in touch with you. It would be amazing if you left a review of this class. I'm always looking to learn and improve, and I'd love to be able to reach more students. Please feel free to connect with me and our discussion here or on social media. I'm at Tracy's see gold on Twitter and Instagram. And just write threads to, we'll see how long that lasts. Might date this video. I am Tracy, see gold author on Facebook. And if you would like to work with me as an editor and your picture books, that would be fun for me. And I offer freelance editing. I'd love to hear from you at Tracy see gold@gmail.com. I have a few more details about that on my website, Tracy siegel.com. I really hope to see your projects posted and feel free to reach out at anytime with questions. Who knows? Maybe your question will even inspire my next course. 11. Your Project: Creating Your Own Spin on a Nursery Rhyme: Hello, I'm excited to introduce the project for this class. Writing your own spin on a nursery rhyme. That's what I did with trick or treat bugs to eat. I wrote my own spin on the familiar Ryan, trick or treat. Smell my feet, give me something good to eat. I'm not the only one who uses this method. In this project video, we'll take a look at two different published picture books based on the rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb. To do this project, you will analyze published picture books based on nursery rhymes. Choose a nursery rhyme to adapt. Analyze the rhythm and rhyme scheme of that nursery rhyme, and use the nursery rhymes rhythm and rhyme scheme to write your own version on a different topic. I would suggest coming back to this video after you have finished the course, as we'll be discussing tools you'll use here in lessons through out the course. Let's start with the original nursery rhyme. Mary Had a Little Lamb. Put aside your inhibitions for a moment and pretend your kid on the playground singing the song. Here I go. Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb. Fleece was white as snow everywhere that Mary, when Mary, when Mary went everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go. Okay. It did it. You can do it too, especially if no one's listening. Let's look at the rhyme scheme. As we discussed in the rhyme lesson, we can use the alphabet to label this. Ryan. Go ahead and pause and see if you can label the rhyme scheme using the alphabet. Did you get it? This is an ABCB rhyme scheme. It's a great classic rhyme scheme because only two of the lines have to end on a rhyme, you have a lot of flexibility to work with. Now let's look at the ribosome, which is a little trickier. Go ahead and pause the video again to see if you can figure out which syllables to put emphasis on. You might want to both read and sing the rhyme allowed to help you. The nursery rhyme will guide you, Andrew readers in spots where the rhythm could have a few different interpretations. Did you bold the same syllables that I did. Let's talk about some tricky spots whose fleece could be a tad tricky as who's, might try to pull the stress in general, when in doubt, get the stress to the word that carries most meaning here. That's fleece, whose is just serving the function of saying whose fleece it is. And we already know is the Lamb squeeze. Your rhyming pitch book ends up stressing words that don't carry the most important meaning. It could end up feeling a little forced. The next tricky spot is width. And everywhere that Mary went, different people might pronounce this in different ways. Some folks might stress the Re part, like everywhere. However, if you sing the nursery rhyme, you're more clearly load into making everywhere into a three syllable word, not a four syllable word. Everywhere, not everywhere. When you're writing without the benefit of a strong nursery rhyme, watch out for situations like this when different pronunciation can change the rhythm, try to avoid that and you're Ryan. However, when you have a strong Guide to the rhythm, readers will have cues for how to pronounce the tricky parts. Okay, now let's look at how two different published books approach giving this rhyme a new take. Here's Mary had a little glam by Tammy's our, illustrated by Vanessa Brantley Newton. Mary Had a Little Lamb that grew into a lot. And everywhere that Mary went, she wasn't hard to spot. Take a pause here and see if you can bold the stress syllables and label the rhyme scheme. Surprise, surprise. It's the same as the original. You can see the ABCB rhyme scheme. And when we switch to next slide, you can look at them together and see that all of the stress syllables are in the same spot. All right, that one use a lot of the same words as the original branch out. We'll look at a book that strays more from the original nursery rhyme, but still uses this rhyme and rhythm scheme. Here's mama dug a little den By Jenifer Ward, illustrated by Steve Jenkins. Mama dug a little den beneath a fallen tree, an earthy home as soft as mosque and nursery for three. Take a pause and see if you can fold the stressed syllables And label the rhyme scheme. Surprise, surprise. Again, we have the same as the original. And here they are together. Let's talk about the few tricky spots. Everywhere is now an earthy home. Again, the stress is falling on the word with more meaning, Earth and not an. The word nursery is also a bit tricky as it can be pronounced with two syllables like nursery or with three, like nurse array. The established rhythm lets readers know to use three syllables and say nursery. I wanted to point out a trick you can use for your own rhyme and rhythm here. Pick character names that make your life easier. So if you're trying to match the rhyme of Mary, Had a Little Lamb, go the name that has the same rhythm, like Sally or Robbie, not Elizabeth. Mama in the US at least has the same rhythm is married. You can do this when you're making your own rhythm scheme to make sure your rhythm and the name of your characters get along well together. Or you can pick a rhythm that fits with the name. Let's say you're writing about a specific kind of animal, like a tiger. Make sure you pick a rhythm where the word tiger fits in easily. Or you're going to be having a lot of headaches. Now let's talk about your project. First, pick a nursery rhyme to use. You can use Mary Had a Little Lamb or trick or treat. Smile my feet, like we've discussed elsewhere in the class. Other popular options include are you sleeping brother John, or old McDonald had a farm. You can really use any nursery rhyme. Pick something that has been around for a long time so that it's in the public domain. That way, you don't have to worry about copyright if this project ends up becoming a book. If you're using a nursery rhyme we haven't discussed, go ahead and analyze the rhyme and rhythm scheme. Both the stressed syllables and label your rhyme scheme with the alphabet, just like we've done in this class. Then here comes the fun part. It's time to write your own spin. If you're having a hard time getting started, I have a few tricks for you. Try to set a timer for 5 min and make a no bad ideas role for those five-minutes, just write whatever comes to your mind. When the timer goes off, you can decide whether you came up with something you like or if you want to keep coming up with more ideas. You can also do what I did with trick or treat bugs to eat and use a holiday or season to give you ideas. So I chose an animal to go with trick or treat, smell my feet. You can also make a Halloween version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, or a summer fun version of brother John. If you're looking for even more examples, I love the book mother goes by Rachel Kohler, illustrated by Rollin Gary. Color has really fun new versions of several different nursery rhymes, and they're all spooky and just so much fun. When you're done, post your project so that classmates can see it and give you feedback. I'll pop in when I can. In addition to posting your own rhyme, let us know which nursery rhyme you are using. When you're giving feedback. Please be kind in constructive. We're all having fun and learning here. I can't wait to see those projects.