A Bit of Controversy

There’s been a bit of a brouhaha for a couple of weeks now, right after the Newbery award winner apparently gave nonfiction a little dig during her acceptance speech. Opinions have been flying all over the internet and Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray suggested that, if we so desired, we should post our thoughts this week. I couldn't resist.

Nonfiction is clearly not given the attention it deserves. That's why I created this blog. In terms of public promotion, it's given the nosebleed seats in libraries and the big chain bookstores. On the publishing side, it can be frustratingly difficult to find an agent or editor who is both interested and knowledgeable about nonfiction.

But truly, these are side issues. As writers for children, the most important question ought to be, “Do kids like nonfiction?” The answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” How do I know? As an ace nonfiction writer, I’ve done my research. And as any of us can tell you, the best thing source for information is head straight to a primary source. My information comes from the best source available—kids themselves. I spent part of this year as a substitute teacher in public elementary schools. I asked kids a lot of questions about what they read, observed as much as I could and, of course, took lots of notes. I'm confident my information is reliable and, oftentimes, amusingly quotable.

Here’s a bit of what I learned:

Yes, kids are reading nonfiction. I’ve seen them. They choose to read it in their classrooms and they choose to take it out of their school libraries. I've heard them talking about what they like to read and while everyone loves Harry, a majority also enjoy nonfiction.

When I asked one third grade class how many of them liked nonfiction one girl said, “Wait, is biography nonfiction?” I reassured her it was and many more hands shot up. This speaks to the awkwardness of the word "nonfiction", something we've discussed here before, an additional unnecessary negative on our side.

There are still many painfully boring nonfiction books in schools. This, as they say in the trade, is a fact. I was asked to read a book on dirt to a group of first graders which had all the creativity of a technical manual. I had to threaten to read more of a incredibly boring book on weather to the fourth grade class if they couldn’t keep quiet during our fun activity. Now, I know from personal experience there are many interesting books on nature, weather, and the environment that could captivate children and give them a solid understanding. But this is not the kind of book the teacher left to read to their class. And, as I snooped around a bit, these were not the kind of books that were easy to find an average class library. The over abundance of somewhat standard(ie boring)book club educational market type books in the classroom is yet another topic.

Kids think they are supposed to like everything, no matter the quality. When I was asked to read a biography on Thomas Alva Edison that started, “Thomas was born on (date) to his mother (first name) and father (first name). I mentioned I thought that was a really boring way to start. They were quite taken aback by my statement but then readily agreed. For the rest of the day, two girls kept coming over to me with creative ideas on how Edison’s story could have been told with more pizzazz.

The opportunity for kids to read nonfiction in the classroom is more limited than fiction. Kids were generally allowed to select from certain bins divided into reading levels for their scheduled reading time. There were far more fiction than nonfiction books in said bins.

Kids love to learn about things that really happened. They are constantly asking “Is that real? Is that true? Did that really happen?” When you are reading nonfiction to them and you can answer with an unequivocal “yes” they are truly delighted. In the same vein, they can sniff out a phony. When a teacher left a book about dinosaurs for me to read as part of their nonfiction unit, it didn’t take the kids long to realize that the talking mouse pretty much killed the authenticity factor. Disney has not successfully confused any of them on this issue.

Sometimes I would offer to read fictional books that I felt offered important information. I would always ask them why this story couldn’t be true. By the way, the answer to this question for THE SCRAMBLED STATES OF AMERICA by Laurie Keller is never that states can’t move but always that states don’t have eyeballs.

Many of the nonfiction books kids would choose on their own are not well suited to quiet independent reading time. When I broke the rules (shhhh) and let the kids pick any book in the classroom for reading time, that’s when the nonfiction really broke out. Kids like to huddle together over the nonfiction books, pointing out photographs to each other and reading interesting facts out loud. Several times some one who had not uttered a word all day came over to me to share something they read they thought was interesting (aka "cool" or "awesome").

My overall conclusion? Kids love well-written, creative, thoughtful nonfiction. Now what do we do about the adults?

Living History

It’s important, I think, for kids to read about people who lived to a ripe old age. They can get a sense of a journey instead of a need to achieve one goal. Some books try a bit too hard to turn a life story into a smooth, straight narrative of divine inspiration as a child into immediate success as an adult. The real intrigue lies in exploring how a person found their own curvy path, around many obstacles, to a full life well lived.

Many people who would make interesting subjects for biographies could be considered late bloomers. It’s not their childhoods that are necessarily so interesting but how they developed later on. Churchill, for example, did not become Prime Minister until he was 65 years old—a senior citizen. I once interviewed an artist named Harry Lieberman who didn’t start painting until he was 76 years old. For the next 27 years he was quite prolific. Recently, the New York Times had a fascinating article on a New Yorker by the name of Ruth Proskauer Smith, currently 100 years old, who upon retiring began taking a bus and train downtown every day to teach a course on the Supreme Court. What kid wouldn’t admire her?

Kids certainly do need role models. So it’s encouraging to see Indiana Jones still fighting the good fight well into his 60s. A youngin’ could learn a thing or two from a guy like that. And if they could read books about real life senior citizen super heroes, even better.

Historians, however, must face the harsh reality that the next best thing to a live super hero is a recently deceased one. As many researchers will tell you, obituaries make the most fascinating reading. Especially today, when an entire generation of people who lived through a remarkable period in American history are beginning to die off. The pages of the obituaries have recently been including all too many holocaust survivors, World War II veterans, and people who actually knew Franklin D. Roosevelt as their President.

As a writer grows older, it becomes easier to relate to how complex a person’s life can be and how rich the details that can be shared in a book. Pete Seeger, who himself turned 90 this year (and, I’m happy to say, is the subject of a forthcoming pb biography by an esteemed nonfiction writer), has a great "traditional" song that includes a line about perusing the obituaries.

"I get up each morning and dust off my wits
Open the paper and read the obits
If I'm not there, I know I'm not dead
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed"

Stretch Your Mind

In the front of the children’s room of a local library I was excited to see a new display with a sign “Stretch your mind with some new Nonfiction.” I immediately thought of Susan Goodman’s post about alternative phrases for nonfiction. "Stretch Your Mind" might be the most appealing one yet. The children’s librarian saw me looking at the books and rushed over to me to tell me they had lots of great new nonfiction and pointed me to the shelves. She’s my new favorite librarian.

Time to fess up. I can be very finicky about my nonfiction selections. I read a lot of nonfiction yet I can easily pass over (aka be very judgmental about)some things that look to me to be fictionalized accounts, mostly photos with little information, or 250 pages on a subject I never gave much thought to. This time I decided to go with the motto-- stretch my mind-- and try some books I might otherwise have past up.

One book I picked up had the first section dated 1678, accompanying paragraph written in the first person. I would normally drop such a book immediately or at least try to reshelve it properly in fiction. I must admit I actually wound up liking I, Vivaldi by Janice Shefelman.
After reading through the story of the young Vivaldi's life, I realized that fictionalizing some of the story of this 17th century composer's life may have been the only choice. The book does a great job of showing how someone can follow their passion even if other responsiblities sometimes get in the way. I love that the author recommends a specific recording of The Four Seasons, adding to the feel that the author and illustrator had a special connection to the music.

I don't usually go for any nf book with a commercial connection but I do enjoy facts so I tried Kermit's 501 Fun Facts and was pleasantly surprised.
The facts were interesting, varied and fairly specific given the small amount of space allotted to each one. I think this was way above the level for the average Sesame Street age viewer and no self-respecting fourth grader would be caught carrying around a Kermit book. Maybe they can go back to the old paper bag book covers for a while because any fact loving 4th or 5th grader would really enjoy this.

How Big Is It? is the kind of glossy, big photo nonfiction book that I usually pass over for a more erudite choice.

So when I pushed myself to read it I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually chock full of information, some of which I had been trying to find on my own. On one spread about airships, Hillman juxtaposes photographs of a modern 747 next to the Wright Brothers plane, next to the Hindenburg. When I was researching dirigibles, I spent hours trying to get the actual dimensions of these different airplanes so I could compare them to a dirigible. And now, there it was, in both words and photo, with the impact just as dramatic as I had imagined. As Steve Jenkins mentioned in his post, scale can be very important in helping a reader relate to a topic. This book uses that concept very successfully.

After having expanded my nonfiction horizons, I went home to face the book on World War II that had been sitting on my desk for weeks. I feared this would be a really dull read and had been avoiding it. When I finally picked up The Causes of World War II by Paul Dowswell, I couldn't put it down.
It was a very concise, well written account of what led up to the war, the major players,and the position of the many countries that entered the war. It answered many of the questions I had been struggling with in my research and I was sorry I hadn't read it sooner.

Lesson learned. Follow your friendly librarian to the nonfiction section. Inhale deeply. Stretch.

Rock Stars of the I.N.K. Variety

In his post entitled, History: What's the Point? Don Brown points out that many kids are bored when they study history in school because, basically, the presentation stinks. The world of children's nonfiction still has a long way to go in figuring out how to write and present information in a way that truly appeals to kids.

There are some bright spots to be sure. A couple of weeks ago I had the giddy- with- excitement treat of hearing a talk at the New York Public Library with two writers who are rock stars at making history interesting for kids.

Their names: James Cross Giblin and Russell Freedman.


That's Mr. Giblin on the left, Mr. Freedman on the right.

They don't look like rock stars at first glance? Well, apparently they've been friends since 1960 (they described each other as their oldest publishing friend) so they must have learned how to go incognito by now.

I thought I'd share some of what they talked about with the hope that we can all better understand how it is possible-- albeit time consuming, strenuous, and far from straightforward-- to make history a great read that can appeal to a wide variety of kids.


Here’s a bit of what they had to say. Questions were posed by John Peters of the Donnell Library Center of the New York Public Library.

How did you come to write about history?

JCG: When he started writing, he was already an editor. This gave him the luxury to write what he was interested in. He was a child of WWII and became interested in history that way.

RF: He was a history buff as a kid and read two books that taught him how interesting history could be.(The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Van Loon and This Believing World by Louis Browne). They both showed him the possibility of language and how well a nonfiction book could be written. He learned that it was impossible to tell the story without getting into the mind of characters (the beginning of his interest in biography). In addition, he learned that history lends itself to a narrative thread.

How do you approach biography?

JCG: He believes it always starts with character: getting to know them, what they did, etc. Out of that comes the narrative line. Then you find the character’s action line, in a similar way to a playwright.
RF: His philosophy: writing biography is like being married. He usually spends a year or longer on a book. He consciously chooses not to live with someone he thinks is despicable so he likes all the people he writes about.
JCG: He doesn’t mind writing about people he doesn’t like (for example, Adolph Hitler). He finds these kind of people complicated, sometimes contradictory, and thus good subjects for biography.

How do you approach your writing?

JCG: To begin researching, he reads as much as he can. He outlines a lot, overall and then chapter by chapter. He’s a very slow writer. Every sentence and paragraph must sound right before he goes on. Usually this produces one major draft,then touch ups, and then he's finished.

RF: He spends 3 or 4 months reading and researching before attempting to start writing. His first draft includes everything he can think of. He usually writes six or seven drafts. He feels a book is never really finished. He never achieves the ideal image of the book he had in mind when he started.

How did you become involved with photo biography?

JCG: RF claims JCG first mentioned the term to him years ago. RF then said the first subject should be Lincoln because he was the first President to be photographed. RF: He believes photos are an enhancement. The language must evoke the world and the person or else you are lost.


Best rock star advice in a nutshell for writers of history for kids:

When asked how they make their writing appropriate for children, RF responded, "You don't simplify, you distill."



A few examples of their work that has led to their well deserved rock star status:

James Cross Giblin:
The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler
Good Brother, Bad Brother.The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth
The Many Rides of Paul Revere

Russell Freedman:
Lincoln: A Photobiography
Eleanor Roosevelt
Who Was First? Discovering the Americas

When a Subject Finds You and He's Smoking a Big Cigar

My daughter and I were having one of our usual conversations about the sorry state of her school’s social studies curriculum. She was frustrated that, by 9th grade, they had yet to touch on the 20th century and it didn’t look like this year would be any different.

“I mentioned something about Winston Churchill to my friend J,” she said, “and she didn’t know who he was.”

She'd never heard of Churchill? Never heard his inspirational speeches, spoken with a lisp, of never surrendering to the Nazis? Never seen pictures of him in his blue coveralls, smoking his omnipresent cigar, giving his V for Victory sign? My mind started racing over our trip to England, the Churchill biographies I had read as a result, and the pages I had marked just recently when reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s NO ORDINARY TIME. After a long pause I said, “I just might have to do something about that.” My daughter gave me a big smile. She knew I had just met my next project.

Churchill had captured my attention a few years ago when I had convinced my family that a visit to the Cabinet War Rooms, where Churchill and his staff hunkered down during WWII, was a worthwhile way to spend our last morning in London. As they waved goodbye to their cousins who were off on a more lighthearted tour of Buckingham Palace, I tried to reassure them that they wouldn’t be disappointed. Luckily, I was right.

The self-guided tour was fascinating and we were all pulled right in. We learned a bit about the Blitz, how they made use of the different colored telephones, and how they charted everything out with paper and pins in the map room. It was a morning well spent, topped off by some chocolate cigars from the gift shop.

Is it possible to draw a kid into a book in the same way as that hands on experience? I think so.

In the official brochure of the Imperial War Museum, the photo of Churchill’s bedroom looks like this:



When I visited, I snapped a few photos, despite the darkness. The photo I took of Churchill's bedroom gives a slightly different view.

Notice anything in the bottom of my photo? Yes, I would definitely want the chamber pot included. Not only is it a visual kids would love but it reveals a lot about the time, place and circumstances. They were in a bunker because those were real bombs flying above; the closest bathroom was a up a floor or two. It would make a good contrast to talking about the conditions that FDR lived under at the same time and a great way to talk about the situation in Britain and the United States.

If done with the right approach, I'm confident kids would be interested. Books on Franklin D. Roosevelt certainly do well. What about a book that explores their relationship? But then why is there only one book on Churchill in the children’s section of my local library? Is it a gold mine waiting to be explored or a subject purposefully passed over? And there is the ever-present curriculum problem. If it is not a subject kids will study in school, the editors don’t think it will sell. Does this always need to be the first consideration regardless of a writer's knowledge or enthusiasm for a subject? More on this in another post.

Friday Fun: Join the Big Sell

There has been the beginnings of an interesting discussion this week on the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's chat board. Apparently the already undersized NF sections in bookstores are shrinking rapidly. Word is, no one is interested in these subjects, least of all those boring ol' historical topics.

I'm convinced we here at I.N.K. have the charm, wit, and good looks to do what has never before been successfully attempted. That's right-- we can recommend the near perfect NF selection for any NF neophyte. Yes, it's the NF blog handsell.

Examples? Yes, of course.

You say you really enjoyed the terrific humor and insights of the recent Newbery honor winner THE WEDNESDAY WARS? Well, let me tell you, if you liked those rats, you'll be blown away by Oh, Rats! The Story of Rats and People by Al Marrin. It's rats through the ages, reproducing and thriving, even in a court of law.

Are you the more sensitive type who usually enjoys a tender tearjerker like Jenny Downham's BEFORE I DIE about a girl's battle with incurable cancer? We NF people do diseases--and lots of them. Why not give ace NF writer James Cross Giblin's When Plague Strikes. The Black Death, Smallpox, AIDS a try? Mr. Giblin does not disappoint in his ability to totally immerse his readers in infection, illness and disease.

Please chime in with your best blog handsell.

In Celebration of Black History Month

Schools are usually closed on Martin Luther King, Jr. day. February is Black History Month but many kids are off for a whole week. Luckily there are some well-written books and related resources to take up the slack. One book can easily lead to another; read about the people who took a stand, scan the photos and artwork to get a feel for what it was like to be there and try to understand the culture of the time.

To more fully understand the Civil Rights movement, it helps to know your rights.

There are an overwhelming number of books on MLK,Jr. Where to start? A handful do a terrific job of giving an overview of the significance and impact of his his life.

Recognize his strength of character as a regular person who relied on a strong set of beliefs and those he admired to guide him in his philosophy of nonviolence.

He was not a lone voice. There were many who came before him
who had fought against discrimination and in support of equal rights for black Americans. And there were many, many others who fought along with him. People you might have heard of, like Rosa Parks, and others whose stories are still being told. Among those who did their part to fight for equality were singers, postmen, baseball players, schoolteachers and future Supreme Court Justices.


Dr. King's path was not an easy one to follow. Those who later practiced nonviolence on Freedom Rides got beaten and bloodied for their efforts.

The struggle was taken up on many fronts, including in the public schools. Read some first person accounts and histories of what it was like for kids who dreamed of freedom and fought to be allowed to go to a decent school.

Part of the difficulty came in simply making their voices heard. Most Americans were just living their ordinary lives. The culture of the 1950s and 60s was alive with people writing books, painting and a new kind of music called rock and roll.

Read the books, look at the art, and listen to the music of the time period. They are an important part of history.


Hear the beauty of Dr. King's oratory and the power of his words.

I.N.K.

The world of nonfiction for kids is alive and thriving.

Here we will meet the writers whose words are presenting nonfiction in a whole new way. Vicki Cobb, Sneed Collard, Steven Jenkins, Sue Macy, David Schwartz and many others will contribute their thoughts on nonfiction.

Discover books that show how nonfiction writers are some of the best storytellers around.

Learn how these writers practice their craft: research techniques, fact gathering and detective work. Check out how they find unusual tidbits, make the facts interesting and write something kids will love to read.

Explore how photos and illustrations are integrated with the text to explain an artists vision of the world.

Consider what subjects are flooding the market and what still needs a voice.

Rethink nonfiction for kids.