How I Write Clips(@PerellClips):"Children genuinely are the best readers." Matt Haig on why writing children's books is the "purest kind of writing": "They are so close to their imaginations. You can set a novel in London and then have a unicorn walk down the street, and the child will be so willing to believe in that unicorn that they will go with the unicorn. If you do that in an adult novel, you would have to have an essay on quantum physics about how it could be possible. If I'm stuck writing a novel for adults, I try and think: what would be the children's story version of this?"

2026.09.06 20:45

"Children genuinely are the best readers." Matt Haig on why writing children's books is the "purest kind of writing": "They are so close to their imaginations. You can set a novel in London and then have a unicorn walk down the street, and the child will be so willing to believe in that unicorn that they will go with the unicorn. If you do that in an adult novel, you would have to have an essay on quantum physics about how it could be possible. If I'm stuck writing a novel for adults, I try and think: what would be the children's story version of this?"