[menucha-vorst Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Hi Friends,

I was wondering if someone could help me figure out which genre my manuscript would fall under? (Goodness, is that even the way to say it?)
I wrote a story for children of parents with invisible/chronic illnesses.  It could be autoimmune, mental illness, or difficult pregnancy.   It appears that many such books are self published.
Does anyone know of agents or publishing houses that would be interested in such a story?

TIA

[Vijaya Posts: 6,982 Status: Offline BEAUTY WWW]

  I think any major publisher would like well-told stories children coping with parental illnesses. For instance, I read a YA, Irises, by Francisco Stork about two sisters who are coping with the terminal illness of their mother. The father dies suddenly so this is a real problem. Another YA, A Room on Lorelei Street, is about a girl who is leaving her alcoholic mother. There are also PBs and MGs with stories of children whose parents are suffering from a variety of ailments. And so, execution is everything. 

I suspect many are self-published because they're too much of a niche market. In my neurologist's office, I've seen magazines and books devoted to dementia and other very specific neurological problems like MS.

There's one publisher I know of--Magination Press--that specifically publishes books about kids dealing with various issues and maybe they also include the parents.

Oh, I think these are called "issue" books. I still think that any issue book, if done well, can speak to all because we all have different issues we're dealing with and books give a window into how one family copes. The universality of the situation actually comes from the specifics.

[HaroldU Posts: 871 Status: Offline WWW]

Vijaya, they may also be called "topic" books. But if the emphasis is on telling a good story, and not on teaching about the topic, you could also call them "realistic fiction." Laurie Halse Anderson's "The Impossible Knife of Memory," for example, is a YA novel in which the main character's father is struggling with PTSD. But I wouldn't call it a topic book.

[menucha-vorst Posts: 3 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.  This is a picture book and very much a topic book... although I did try to include any type of unpredictable illness.

[Debbie Vilardi Posts: 5,974 Status: Offline Language is so cool! WWW]

There are many picture books that are also topic books.  Sales potential depends on how broad the market is. An uncommon illness could make it very niche and hard to sell, an indefinite illness might work better (but sometimes specifics matter to a story). The rest is in how well written it is.