We can meet young readers’ real needs by meeting their felt needs. We can help our young readers to identify with our characters to solve their own problems. We can’t tell them though, we must show them. They will read and see for themselves. Please keep this in mind. It is so easy to preach at them, and then you have lost them.
Our young readers need to affirm their own experiences. They need to know that others have survived the everyday problems they are struggling with. Some need to learn not to take themselves so seriously. Others need to learn to be more accountable. Our main purpose in writing is to minister to young people.
Through our writing, we can show them there is hope and love. We can show them good biblical principles. Perhaps their faith can be strengthened, but like I said before, it is their decision, not ours. They must learn to own their own faith.
Perhaps, when you get to heaven, a child or teen will tap you on the shoulder and say, “Because of you, I am here.”