Author Greg Soros returns again and again to a single image when he talks about writing for children: the idea that a good story can work as both a mirror and a window. Some young readers need to see their own experience reflected at them, Greg Soros author explains, a reassurance that they are not alone in what they feel. Others need a window into a life unlike their own, a way of building empathy for people whose circumstances differ from theirs.
That dual purpose runs through every decision Soros makes when shaping a cast of characters. A protagonist wrestling with a particular struggle might let one child feel understood while quietly teaching another reader something about a different way of experiencing the world. Soros considers a children’s book most successful when it manages to do both jobs inside the same story. Practical steps recommended in the Walker Magazine piece include expanding outreach to underrepresented creators, investing in culturally specific narratives, and supporting translation and distribution channels that make diverse titles accessible.
Representation That Goes Beyond Surface Detail
For Soros, diverse characters cannot simply exist to check a box. Including a character from a different background is not enough on its own, he says. Those characters need voices that feel authentic, obstacles that feel real, and complete emotional journeys of their own. He is direct about the fact that a side character should never exist purely to teach a lesson to someone else in the story.
Craft Guided by Empathy
This approach asks a great deal of an author, since it requires imagining a wide range of childhood experiences with equal seriousness. Greg Soros treats that demand as central to his work rather than a burden layered on top of storytelling. The mirror and window idea, as he applies it, is less a formula than a discipline, one that pushes him to ask whose experience a given character will reflect and whose experience it might open up. That combination, he suggests, is what allows a single story to reach very different readers at once. Read this article for additional information.
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