Writing for children means reading to children.

Out loud. In bookstores, libraries, and schools, in front of parents, teachers, and curious onlookers.

Afterwards, the children will ask questions. At least, their hovering adult charges will want them to. They’ll be encouraged — sometimes rather forcefully — to participate.

This can be a trial, both for the students and the author, but if you’re lucky, as I was last week at the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., you’ll get a lively and inquisitive bunch of 3rd graders like the ones I met from the John Eaton Elementary School.

The event was winding down. I’d hammed up a reading of my new picture book, The Mighty Lalouche. Sophie Blackall, the story’s brilliant illustrator, had just concluded a presentation on her artwork, an incredibly detailed and painstaking series of spreads in the Japanese tatebanko style, which took her two full years to complete.

The floor was opened for questions. With a bit of gentle encouragement, there were soon plenty of raised hands.

The first question was long and rambling. It was addressed to Sophie, who’d been sketching over her shoulder with a Sharpie during her talk. “I mean,” the boy said with an uneasy smile, pointing to the easel, “were you, uh, were the pictures that you drew there, hm, I mean, they’re not really… So were they rushed? Or is that, like, the best you can do?”

The other questions were somewhat less pointed. I was asked, for instance, what the editing process was like (productive, since revision is the key to polished prose!); whether the book had ever been called something different (yes, the first title was The Boxer Lalouche; we decided to change it to better reflect our hero’s peaceful nature); and why I’d picked Paris as the setting for the story (the name Lalouche, which popped into my head early in the writing, seemed to require that my humble postman be French).

Then I called on a shy little fellow who’d been patiently waiting his turn.

“Uh,” he said, “um, and, so why, the, uh, WHY DID YOU USE THE ‘B’-WORD IN THE STORY?”

I wondered: why was he suddenly shouting?

The ‘B’- word?

I froze. The story’s text flew before my eyes. Had we all missed something?

Now it was my turn to stammer. “Uh, I, um — what ‘B’-word would that be, exactly?”

“Booty!” he cried.

The children exploded with laughter.

I laughed, too. “Oh, that ‘B’-word,” I said. “Bootie.”

I went on to explain that French boxers in the late 19th century wore laced leather shoes that looked something like baby booties. I invented a derivation for the word “bootie” on the spot, claiming it was the diminutive of “boot,” just to drive home the point that we were talking here about feet, not derrieres.

“Sometimes completely different words sound exactly the same in English,” I said.

Of course, this wasn’t of much interest to the children. What really mattered was that one of them had said a naughty word — hilarious! — and managed to get away with it. Who was I to explain away such a great triumph?

When I got home, I gave myself a little refresher course on homophones, words with different meanings that are pronounced the same.

“Booty” and “bootie” are homophones.

“Left (the opposite of right)” and “left (the past tense of leave)” are homophones, too, but because they’re also spelled the same, we call them homonyms.

Homophones cause English speakers — even native ones — all sorts of trouble. My friends in the writing game see the pervasive misuse of “your” for “you’re,” and “its” for “it’s,” as evidence that the End Time is near.

Those all-too-common mistakes drive me crazy, too. But let’s not forget that these are words that sound virtually identical. You could make the case that the problem here isn’t a failure of education, but rather the failure of the English language — a linguistic mongrel if there ever was one — to differentiate meaning adequately through pronunciation.

“Bootie” is a perfect example, a word that’s crystal clear on the page, but a shape-shifter when spoken.

Are you talking about pirate treasure? Vintage athletic footwear? Baby slippers? The human rump?

And consider what happened when that little boy censored himself by using the euphemism, “the ‘B’-word.”

My mind went somewhere else completely, to another homophone, another “B”-word.

Admit it. Yours did, too.