Kids imbibe values very quickly. They learn that life is all about priorities. Their role models are all around them to watch and imitate. Do my parents prioritise us kids or our grandparents? Do they want us to study more or play more? Do they want us to be bookworms and grow up knowledgeble or do they prefer us to mingle with folk and be street smart?

What do I prioritise in my life? Career first and marriage later? Am I able to balance both - because anything in excess is wrong. I must learn to be passionate but not excessive in my tastes, living in moderation and prioritising so that I benefit and in the long run, society benefits.

Let’s illustrate for kids. For every age group, the style of illustrating changes - the way we draw a character, the use of colours - Some long shots, some close ups, some top views, some low angled for variety. Water colors, oil pastels or acrylics,No matter what medium we use our final goal is to connect with our audience.

While drawing, for picture books, we know that the illustrations tell half the story. Thw writer must leave some parts unsaid so the illustrator can show it in pictures. We don’t mention that the bear is brown, because its there in the pictures.

Then we marry the two - the pictures and the words to get a picture book that tells a story for kids. For older kids its chapter books with medium size text and black and white illustrations as kids now are able to handle more text and less pictures. A novel has no illustrations at all. So which age do we target now?

When I write, I must remember that kids don’t like big blocks of text unbroken by dialogue. I must eavesdrop often enough to get a feel for how folk talk. Old folk, young folk, country folk, town folk, men folk, women folk and kids all talk differently. I must tune my ears to listen in on conversations - people say things but mean something quite different.

Another thing that attracts kids is action! Kids are all about doing things, getting into scrapes and out again. They love breaking the rules adults have set for them and stretching the limits. I must begin with action or dialogue to hook the kid reader.

Most important, I must write with my senses so that I show and don’t tell kids how I feel. Am I hungry because I sniff something roasting on the fire? Does my skin prickle with gooseflesh because I hear a door creek? Do I taste the salt of the sea water when the tide sets in and washes away my sand castle?

I need to go down on all fours and look at things from a kids angle. That’s the secret of writing for kids - I must think and feel like a child.

I’m fascinated by folk with ideas - folk who recognise that these unique ideas have a place, and folk who have the guts to make it work. Mahatma Gandhi had an idea. He marched to collect a fistful of salt - but he did it with a silent army of folk and on a historic day- and he made history. Thomas Edison’s idea was to meet the needs of common folk through his inventions- making them important to everyday life and affordable - the light bulb, the phonograph- no one realised how many times he failed, because when he did succeed, he made history. Steve Woz had an idea to bring personal computing to the common folk by making it user friendly, and Steve Jobs saw the marketing potential in this idea. Together, the two of them made history.

Kids have the freshest ideas- they’re not hampered by experience. Look around you and celebrate anyone with an idea. All ideas have been tried before - its the unique angle- the slant that you take that makes all the difference.

A Mexican proverb teaches us four ways to handle a problem - Be a rock, doing nothing, saying nothing. Be a tree looking in all directions. Be a mountain lion, fierce and ready to fight. Or be an eagle that flies high and sees the problem as small.

In today’s fast moving world, let’s be effective communicators. Listening actively is just as important as saying what you mean. We talk endlessly on our mobiles, send a zillion e mails, but we can also communicate in silence.

Take a few minutes everyday to communicate with God, our Creator. Before your finger reaches to start up your computer, talk to God for a minute - His mobile in never engaged.Use God’s mobile to take pictures of the world He created and enjoy and love the environment. Try a new ring tone everyday that sings His praises. Communicate your happiness and positive attitude to everyone around you by being satisfied with what God has given you. I’m starting on it right now.

God loved Noah and planned to save him and his family even when He decided to destroy everyone to clean the world of sin.
God gave Noah very detailed plans about how to build an enormous boat. The ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep which is equal to 522 cars.

Inside this ark, God told Noah to put a male and a female of each kind of animal, then he and his wife and his sons and their wives should all get in. These would help start the new world that would come after the flood. Folks say Noah only needed to bring about 16,000 pairs of breeders, though others say that he needed about 4 million species. Feeding all those animals was tremendous work for one family. The ark was stuffed with dirty animals that were noisy because they didn’t enjoy being caged. Since a cow weighs half a ton, the animals alone weighed more than 1600 tons and their food added to that weight.

Then God sent a huge flood which wiped out every person on earth except Noah and his family who must have been scared stiff. It rained and poured for forty days! When the flood was over, Noah, and his family got out of the boat and began a new society that would listen more to God. Most ancient cultures have a story about a big flood. People claim they have found Noah’s ark and call themselves “arkeologists.”

God brought the ark to rest on the mountain. God gave us the rainbow as a reminder of His promise never to destroy the earth with water again . The light of God shines through the rain, causing the light to bend and reflect off the rain. The rain acts like a prism, splitting the white light into the 7 colors. Noah built an altar unto the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings. Most people would curse if God destroyed everything, but Noah was grateful that he and his family were spared. Talk about a positive attitude!