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Authors are no longer in short supply, which means editors have cottoned on to the fact that they needn't waste their time correcting and re-hashing manuscripts. So buy a book on grammar to teach you where to put the comma splice, what to do with your colon, and when to coordinate your conjunctions. You'll also need a non-concise dictionary and thesaurus of sufficient size to test the strength of your new shelves.
Note: Were you aware that the thesaurus suggestion for the word 'thesaurus' is 'word list'? 'Roget's Word List' doesn't have the same gravitas does it?
It's essential that your children's book uses the appropriate vocabulary. Put simply: the longer the child the longer the words you can use. There are school word lists (or is that thesauruses) recommended for each key stage, but any kid with a library card would laugh out loud if they saw them. I personally recommend the letter counting technique where you swap your readers' age range for the number of letters you are allowed to use in a word. Not forgetting to go large where possible. For example, if you are writing for 9 to 12-year-olds, why be 'competent' and score nine when you can be 'incompetent' and bag an extra two points.
Maximising words this way also forces young readers to reference a dictionary. That's two books they're reading for the price of one! Don't worry if kids find this frustrating and give up. It's no reflection on your writing. They're just short for their age.
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