Battle Cry Freedom

Last month I chatted about Marc Aronson's "New Knowledge" article which appears in the latest issue of The Horn Book (http://www.hbook.com/magazine/current.asp). It wasn't that I disputed his definition of New Nonfiction -- that it involves original research and new discoveries and sometimes leads to speculation on the subject that goes beyond the established, accepted opinions. I simply wanted to point out that this wasn't particularly new, that some folk had been doing this for many years, and that what was being labeled as new was in fact the result of a gradual evolution.*

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Marc responded in his School Library Journal blog, Nonfiction Matters (http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/nonfictionmatters/2011/03/page/2/), with a long and thoughtful explanation, then followed this with two additional posts that, among other things, further defined and defended New Knowledge. The posts are all worth reading and thinking about, as are the responses and Marc's replies to them. I understand, too, that Russell Freedman has more to add to the discussion that will appear in the next issue of Horn Book.*

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Here's the weird thing. Every time I read Marc's posts, the title of James McPherson's twenty-three year old book Battle Cry of Freedom popped into my head. Marc's entries certainly were a battle cry for speculative nonfiction as a force to lead us into the future. But I kept sensing that more might be going on here, that the freedom part of my memory response was vital. Then it came to me. Now I may be reaching here, reading too much into the passion of Marc's writing, and I apologize in advance if that's the case. I just had a feeling that at heart this was a plea to be taken seriously by the world beyond children's books, that Marc wanted his books and those of other New Knowledge practicioners to be seen as equal to and as worthy of serious discussion and respect as any adult nonfiction book. That he wants to break the chains that enslave us as "children's book" writers.*

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with this desire. We've all had those awkward and annoying moments when someone (well-meaning but clueless about how we actually put our books together) has asked when we'll write a real grown-up book; we've patiently tried to explain our research methods, the care that we take to develop themes, how we sweat bullets over the text -- but really we just want to scream. Or at least not have to always justify our craft.*

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And let's face it, being a part of the New Knowledge (New Nonfiction, Passionate Nonfiction, Speculative Nonfiction, or as Tanya Lee Stones says, "whatever we finally end up calling it") movement has appeal. There is a certain exhilartion and positive energy charge in announcing a new finding or interpretation, to being unique or the first to have a major scoop. My problem is that in the enthusiasm of the moment, some painful and damaging mistakes can be made. Take the case of Archaeoraptor Lianoningensis. *

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In October, 1999, National Geographic made a monumental announcement, followed by a prominent article in their magazine. They had the fossil remains of Archaeoraptor Lianoningensis, a chicken-sized dinosaur that presumably lived from 125 million to 140 million years ago that, National Geographic claimed, was the "missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds." Only it wasn't. It was an artfully glued together assembly of random fossils made by a Chinese farmer. The fraud was quickly exposed (in fact, several individuals had actually expressed doubts about the fossil months before the announcement), so the damage was limited to severly bruised reputations and the 80 grand paid out for the fake.*

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My point is that despite numerous impressive degrees and many years of scientific study, the experts at National Geographic allowed themselves to be duped. And why? Because, despite knowing about the reservations of others in the field, they were in a rush to publish their find, to be the first out with this amazing discovery. We know this because they refused to give a peer-reviewed journal adequate time to publish and gather responses from other experts. *

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My point isn't that original research, new discoveries, and speculation aren't important, good things. Nor do I want to imply that Marc or any of the authors he mentions in his article would recklessly publish anything they knew to be false or misleading. But, sadly, I think there are writers out there -- plenty of them -- who would. While visiting the Horn Book site to read Marc's article, you might also want to read Tanya Lee Stone's article, "A Fine, Fine Line: Truth in Nonfiction," where she rants (in the best possible way) against the use of invented dialogue and other made-up stuff in books that are passed off as nonfiction. I do not know what books Tanya was specifically talking about, but clearly the authors were comfortable with this sort of fraud, as were their editors and publishers. And while I might once again be reading too much into Tanya's words, I get the feeling that one or more of these books may have received strong reviews and might have even been considered for various awards and lists. In other words, some of the gatekeepers -- those professionals who stand between a book and its target audience -- had failed to do a good job.*

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Which brings us to the most important element of the discussion: our readers -- kids of varying ages and depths of learning and sophistication, who read (sometimes reluctantly, sometimes happily) and absorb the printed word as gospel. When a rogue book gets out (whether it's a willful act to grab attention or build drama in a text or an honest attempt to re-interpret the historical record) who is going to pick up the pieces? Is it fair to expect librarians and teachers to constantly patrol and explain these problem texts to scores of young readers? And in case you think any errors might be minor in nature, please remember that recent Virginia textbook where the author informed young readers that thousands of slaves happily signed on to defend the south and its traditions during the Civil War. That text (and its historical implications) was floating around in schools for weeks and months before the error was caught and the books recalled. There's no reason to assume something just as egregious couldn't happen in trade books. *

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So I guess my take on the New Nonfiction is that it's a welcome and challenging change, but one that needs to be approached with a degree of old-fashion caution, that instead of a revolutionary charge into the future, we need to take careful, evolutionary steps forward.