Greg Soros, speaking in a recent interview with The Future of Things, outlined a thoughtful approach to creating characters that resonate with young readers. Drawing on his experience in children’s media, Soros emphasized emotional honesty, simplicity of motive, and an attentiveness to the realities of childhood as the cornerstones of compelling character design.
Children’s books have long been understood as tools for building literacy. More recently, the field has expanded that definition. For Greg Soros, author with fifteen-plus years of experience writing for young audiences, the best stories now carry a second purpose: supporting the social and emotional skills children need to navigate relationships and manage their inner lives.
The key, Soros insists, is that this educational function must stay invisible. “The best approach doesn’t feel didactic,” he observes. “Children are learning, but they’re learning through narrative rather than instruction. The story comes first, always. The educational value emerges organically from characters facing genuine struggles and discovering solutions.”
Research and Collaboration as Craft Tools
Executing that approach takes more than good intentions. Greg Soros, author, treats research and professional consultation as core parts of his writing practice. He works with educators and child development specialists to ensure his stories genuinely serve young readers, not just gesture toward doing so.
This means understanding how children actually process emotions at different ages, what language resonates with specific groups, and which narrative structures make comprehension easier or harder. A story about managing anger reads differently to a six-year-old than to a ten-year-old, and those differences need to be built into the text from the start.
Characters Who Model Rather Than Preach
The character is where social-emotional learning lives in Soros’s work. Rather than giving protagonists speeches about kindness or fairness, he places them in situations where those values get tested. A character who chooses honesty at personal cost teaches something that a character who lectures about honesty never could. Soros shapes each protagonist around a central question: what does this character need to learn? That framing, which he describes as more important than simply defining what a character wants, ensures the internal arc of the story carries real weight. Young readers follow that arc without being aware they are absorbing lessons, which is precisely the point. When the story ends and the book closes, something has shifted in the reader quietly, durably, and on their own terms. See related link for more information.
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