Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

I'm really struggling with some of the "rules" of writing right now. In the story I'm trying to get ready for our conference, one reader told me that Lion solves his problem too easily. That's fine. Maybe he does, but it's a creative, somewhat realistic solution to his problem. I did stick with the rule of threes and I had the MC solve his own problem.

What confuses me is that I can think of many books that have made publishers and authors lots of money that have less tension and less plot. Because it's been talked about so much lately, Punk Farm is the one I thought of first. I LOVE this book. I've owned it for over a year and we read it often. Punk Farm is being made into a movie, and the author is a very clever promoter. (Check out the Punk Farm video on his site).

HOWEVER, the book's big plot crisis? The animals might get caught practicing in the barn! How do they overcome the problem? They don't. They hold their concert anyway. The concert is Punk Farm's own version of Old MacDonald. On the final page, the farmer gets up in the morning and finds all the animals aslep in the barn. Yup. That would be the whole book.

I don't think that every picture book has to be some heavily-conflicted book with major drama and crisis. Sometimes, girls (I mean readers) just wanna have fun...even when the book covers a serious topic. What do you think?

(Oh, by the way, have you seen the fabulous video Punk Farm author, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, showed at the SCBWI conference?)