Finding an academic program that caters to children's literature is hard. Many people consider children's literature no more sophisticated than its audience--an arena for those who cannot hack it either as writers or as teachers of adult literature. This author, however, found a new program--a "low residency program"--at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, that concentrated on writing for children. The program begins with a ten-day intensive residency where the students meet the faculty, classmates, editors, agents, published authors, and/or industry professionals. During the first year of the residency, students are expected to read and annotate 120 books on a required reading list, and to produce four packets of creative work, five to ten pages of critical work, and an annotated bibliography. The second year is filled with theses, both creative and critical. Atwood concludes that, although many writers succeed and even excel without the benefit of a formal degree program, this program enabled her to learn the elements of the craft and how to work within it, to construct and nurture important relationships with other writers, and to understand the rhythm of writing.