Last night, I was reading a children's picture book. My son was asleep. I was reading it to see if it was something he would enjoy and I got wrapped up in it and found it repetitive. I struggled to not grab a red pen.
It's an adorable book with lovely illustrations. But it also carries the hallmark of GOOD children's literature. Repetition.
Picture books are intended to be read by readers to non or early readers. Repeating the same word or phrases again and again, while irritating to parents and editors the world over, is the keystone to early literacy. Yes, Little Lucy has memorized her favorite bedtime book, but please note that she can't recite it without looking at the pages.
My son is in kindergarten and he is learning Sight Words. These are the building blocks of English which are easier to just remember than to sound out every time you come across them. They are primarily small words of three or four letters. However, if the favorite book also contains a slew of adorable animals saying, "Hooray," in succession, Little Lucy will recognize that word again when she sees it elsewhere.
I try to get my clients to use a variety of words throughout their manuscripts. Sight words are one thing, but seeing the same noun in every sentence of a paragraph becomes tiresome. Not every person running along the beach used the same gait. Please make sure they don't all lope at different places in the text. Grab a thesaurus and make friends with it. Or "there's an app for that." Personally, I used Dictionary.com's app so I can toggle between the thesaurus and the dictionary functions. Like a painter trying to mix just the right hue, a writer should strive to find the correct word to convey (I have already used this word. It's annoying me, but I'm going to leave it just so you can understand my pain) the correct sense in their work.
You are an artist. Color your world precisely. Unless you're writing a children's book.
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