A Celebration of the Arts

As I look back over the last five years of posts by I.N.K. bloggers, I’ve discovered what I suspected all along, which is that this group has covered in our books for young readers an astonishing variety of non-fiction subjects, ranging from biographies of the famous to the obscure to great and small moments in history, from science and math, to inventions, food, and the environment to the wild and wacky. The list is endless. Along with these books we’ve shared our back stories, challenges, classroom activities, some pet peeves and we’ve recommended lists of excellent non-fiction books by other authors. Today, in celebration of us, since the work I do concentrates on the arts, I’d like to offer an I.N.K. blogger feast of books that do the same in dance, music, and visual arts. Since I haven’t read all of them, I’ve  researched reviews and descriptions on Amazon.com and will include some excerpts here.

The Young Musician’s Survival Guide: Tips from Teens and Pros

by Amy Nathan

Learning to play an instrument can be fun and, at times, frustrating. This lively, accessible book helps young people cope with the difficulties involved in learning a new instrument and remaining dedicated to playing and practicing. In this revised and expanded edition, Amy Nathan has updated the book to address today's more technologically-minded young musician. Expanded sections cover the various ways students can use technology to assist in mastering an instrument and in making practice time more productive, from using the Internet to download pieces to be learned and playing along with downloaded tunes to practicing with computer-based practice programs, CDs, and videos/DVDs of musical performances. The book's updated Resource Guide suggests where to get additional help, both online and off.

Meet the Dancers: From Ballet, Broadway and Beyond

By Amy Nathan

Lots of kids enjoy dancing, but what motivates them to push past the sore muscles, early-morning technique classes, and crazy schedule required to become a professional dancer? In this book, dancers from many backgrounds talk about their different paths to success in ballet, modern, jazz, Broadway, and hiphop.

They also share advice and helpful tips, such as:  
 practice interpreting the music and the mood of a movement, even when you’re doing a standard warm-up exercise
• try to be in the front row at auditions so you can see what’s going on and so the judges know you’re eager to be seen

Clara Schumann Piano Virtuoso

By Susanna Reich

A piano prodigy, Clara Schumann made her professional debut at the age of nine and had embarked on her first European concert tour by the time she was twelve. Clara charmed audiences with her soulful playing throughout her life. Music was a constant source of inspiration and support for this strong and resilient woman. After the death of her husband, Robert Schumann, Clara continued her brilliant career and supported their eight children. Clara Schumann's extraordinary story is supplemented with her letters and diary entries, some of which have never before been published in English. Gorgeous portraits and photographs show the members of Clara's famous musical community and Clara herself from age eight to seventy-six. Index, chronology.

Painting the Wild Frontier: The Art and Adventures of George Catlin

By Susanna Reich

George Catlin is one of America’s best-known painters, famous for his iconic portraits of Native Americans. He spent much of his life in the wilderness, sketching and painting as he traveled. A solo trek across 500 miles of uncharted prairie, an expedition to the Andes, harrowing encounters with grizzly bears and panthers, and tours of the royal palaces of Europe were among his many adventures. In an era when territorial expansion resulted in the near annihilation of many indigenous cultures, George Catlin dedicated himself to meeting and writing about the native peoples of the western hemisphere. With his “Indian Gallery” of paintings and artifacts, he toured the United States and Europe, stirring up controversy and creating a sensation.
Award-winning author Susanna Reich combines excerpts from Catlin’s letters and notes with vivid depictions of his far-flung travels. Generously illustrated with archival prints and photos and Catlin’s own magnificent paintings, here is a rollicking, accessible biography that weaves meticulously researched history into a fascinating frontier and jungle adventure story.

Jose! Born to Dance: The Story of Jose Limon

By Susanna Reich

José was a boy with a song in his heart and a dance in his step. Born in Mexico in 1908, he came into the world kicking like a steer, and grew up to love to draw, play the piano, and dream. José's dreaming took him to faraway places. He dreamed of bullfighters and the sounds of the cancan dancers that he saw with his father. Dance lit a fire in José's soul.
With his heart to guide him, José left his family and went to New York to dance. He learned to flow and float and fly through space with steps like a Mexican breeze. When José danced, his spirit soared. From New York to lands afar, José Limón became known as the man who gave the world his own kind of dance.
¡OLÉ! ¡OLÉ! ¡OLÉ!
Susanna Reich's lyrical text and Raúl Colón's shimmering artwork tell the story of a boy who was determined to make a difference in the world, and did. José! Born to Dance will inspire picture book readers to follow their hearts and live their dreams.

Sandy’s Circus: A Story about Alexander Calder

By Tanya Lee Stone and Boris Kulikov

As a boy, Alexander (Sandy) Calder was always fiddling with odds and ends, making objects for friends. When he got older and became an artist, his fiddling led him to create wire sculptures. One day, Sandy made a lion. Next came a lion cage. Before he knew it, he had an entire circus and was traveling between Paris and New York performing a brand-new kind of art for amazed audiences. This is the story of Sandy’s Circus, as told by Tanya Lee Stone with Boris Kulikov’s spectacular and innovative illustrations. Calder’s original circus is on permanent display at the Whitney Museum in New York City.

A Look at Cubism

By Sneed Collard

Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. The Cubist painters rejected the inherited concept that art should copy nature, or that they should adopt the traditional techniques of perspective. Picasso and Braque, the pioneers of Cubist painting are highlighted in this title, as well as the evolution of the Cubist art form. This title will allow students to distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text.

A Listen to Patriotic Music

By Sneed Collard

Patriotic music helps us feel pride for our country. The songs bring a unity and sense of togetherness to the people who live there. Written for many different reasons, and sung everywhere from baseball games to presidential elections, this title lists examples of some of our country's most cherished patriotic songs and information on the people and events that inspired them. This title will allow students to explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

Books by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr Eccentric Genius

Age Level: 7 - 11 | Grade Level: 2 - 6

When George Ohr's trove of pottery was discovered in 1967, years after his death, his true genius was discovered with it. The world could finally see how unique this artist really was! Born in 1856 in Biloxi, Mississippi, George grew up to the sounds of the civil war and political unrest. When he was 22, his boyhood friend introduced him to the pottery wheel. The lost young man suddenly found his calling.

"When I found the potter's wheel I felt it all over like a duck in water." 
He started creating strangely crafted pots and vases, expressing his creativity and personality through the ceramic sculptures. Eventually he had thousands at his fingertips. He took them to fairs and art shows, but nobody was buying these odd figures from this bizarre man. Eventually he retired, but not without hiding hundreds of his ceramics. Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, authors of the award winning Ballet for Martha,  approach this colorful biography with a gentle and curious hand.

Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring (Illustrated by Brian Floca)

Martha Graham : trailblazing choreographer, Aaron Copland : distinguished American composer, and Isamu Noguchi : artist, sculptor, craftsman  Award-winning authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan tell the story behind the scenes of the collaboration that created APPALACHIAN SPRING, from its inception through the score’s composition to Martha’s intense rehearsal process. The authors’ collaborator is two-time Sibert Honor winner Brian Floca, whose vivid watercolors bring both the process and the performance to life.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through The Gates and Beyond

In 1981 two artists -- Christo and Jeanne-Claude -- proposed an installation in New York’s Central Park that would span twenty-three miles. They received a 185-page response from the Parks Department that could have been summed up in one single word: “no.” But they persisted. This biography of contemporary artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude is a story of the power of collaboration, and vision, and of the creation of the spectacular Gates and other renowned artworks.Christo and Jeanne-Claude is a 2003 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Action Jackson (Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker)

One late spring morning the American artist Jackson Pollock began work on the canvas that would ultimately come to be known as Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist).
Award-winning authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan use this moment as the departure point for a unique picture book about a great painter and the way in which he worked. Their lyrical text, drawn from Pollock's own comments and those made by members of his immediate circle, is perfectly complemented by vibrant watercolors by Robert Andrew Parker that honor his spirit of the artist without imitating his paintings.

Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist

 Vincent Van Gogh: Portrait of an Artist was named a Robert F. Sibert Honor book by the ALA. This is the enthralling biography of the nineteenth-century Dutch painter known for pioneering new techniques and styles in masterpieces such as Starry Night and Vase with Sunflowers. The book cites detailed primary sources and includes a glossary of artists and terms, a biographical time line, notes, a bibliography, and locations of museums that display Van Gogh’s work. It also features a sixteen-page insert with family photographs and full-color reproductions of many of Van Gogh’s paintings. Vincent Van Gogh was named an ALA Notable Book and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades 6–8, Historical/Social Studies) in Appendix B.

Andy Warhol: Prince of POP

The Campbell’s Soup Cans. The Marilyns. The Electric Chairs. The Flowers. The work created by Andy Warhol elevated everyday images to art, ensuring Warhol a fame that has far outlasted the 15 minutes he predicted for everyone else. His very name is synonymous with the 1960s American art movement known as Pop.
But Warhol’s oeuvre was the sum of many parts. He not only produced iconic art that blended high and popular culture; he also made controversial films, starring his entourage of the beautiful and outrageous; he launched Interview, a slick magazine that continues to sell today; and he reveled in leading the vanguard of New York’s hipster lifestyle. The Factory, Warhol’s studio and den of social happenings, was the place to be.
Who would have predicted that this eccentric boy, the Pittsburgh-bred son of Eastern European immigrants, would catapult himself into media superstardom? Warhol’s rise, from poverty to wealth, from obscurity to status as a Pop icon, is an absorbing tale—one in which the American dream of fame and fortune is played out in all of its success and its excess. No artist of the late 20th century took the pulse of his time—and ours—better than Andy Warhol.

Goodbye from Tanya Lee Stone

This is my last post on I.N.K.. It has been a wonderful community of writers and I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with some of the teachers, librarians, and other readers here. Thank you so much for your attention and time.

 

As I say when I am doing school visits, if I leave with you remembering just 2 things about our visit together, remember this: What If? are the two most powerful words in your writing arsenal (and in life, for that matter). And always, always, always have an emotional connection to what you are writing. If you are interested in what you are writing, your writing will be interesting.

 

Thank you I.N.K.ers and readers!

You can always find me at www.tanyastone.com

What Jim Murphy Said

It's 7:30 am on the day of my monthly INK contribution and I have just done something for the first time in all the years I've been blogging for INK--I deleted the post I published here several hours ago.

I have been conflicted about writing about the CCSS, which is our theme for this month, since I started to draft my blog entry. That's because I've been conflicted about CCSS since it became a thing. Sure, it's great that awareness of interesting nonfiction is increasing. But teachers and librarians have been using nonfiction in brilliant ways long before committees started presuming they knew better. Wait, let me rephrase that. You see, I started out as an editor in elementary textbook publishing and I learned nearly 30 years ago that standards committees can suck the creativity out of learning, and that education standards are continually changing.

Great teachers are great teachers.

And no, I don't think about curriculum objectives and standards when I decide to write a book about something. (This is a real question I have been asked in many a conference setting.) And I never want to. If my books fit the standards and people find that useful, that is fine by me. Heck, I've even had guides written (thank you brilliant librarians who have helped me do that) so that people can connect my books to the CCSS if they so choose. But that is not a driving force for me as a writer. Passion is. Every time. If the topic is something I can't let go of, if it makes me crazy, or joyful, or outraged, or fascinated, and I just can't wait to immerse myself in the research, to pull it apart and turn it on its head, and make the best sense of it I can as I figure out the world right along with the rest of my fellow humans--that's when I know I want to write a book.

When I visit schools and talk to kids, I always make this point. If they are interested in something, their writing will be interesting. If they are passionate about something, their readers will be engaged. It's not about curriculum objectives. I leave that to the experts.

What was the post I deleted? It was basically about hating the label "informational text." And I do. Because that label steals all the passion from what I spend my life doing. I don't mind reposting that thought. But I deleted the post because I feared it came off as too snarky on a subject respected colleagues (on and off this blog) are writing about with grace.

So I re-read some of this month's CCSS posts and was impressed with all of them. There is valuable information here, which I do not want to tarnish. My original post had called my dear friend Deborah Heiligman's George Clooney and raised her a Robert Downey, Jr., and that part I'll keep! But it was Jim Murphy's post that I nodded my head to at every single sentence and said, yes, that's what I meant. What Jim said. What Jim Murphy said.

INK's Theme This Month is Life-Changing Nonfiction

I might have been born reading. I was that kid struggling to walk while carrying a tower of books out of the library like so much firewood, stacked in my outstretched arms so high I had to peer around the side to see where I was going. The kid under the blanket with the flashlight, thinking I was putting one over on my parents who were, in actuality, too smart to stop a kid from reading past her bedtime. The kid under a tree, bike propped against its trunk, book bag on the ground with well-worn titles tumbling out, waiting to be re-read. The girl who spent many after-school hours with her mother in the library, as she happened to be the elementary school librarian.

Images of book covers are fixed in my mind’s eye, a slide show of exciting childhood companions. If I was living inside M.T. Anderson’s FEED, perhaps I could output a retinal scan of those cover memories and attach them here to show you, but alas, I cannot, nor did a World Cat search produce satisfying results. A lot of those books were fiction. But more of them were not. Not fiction. Otherwise known as nonfiction, even though that label never made intuitive sense to me as a kid, and still doesn’t.

They were books about the Jamestown flood, the Donner party, elephant hunting in Africa, and the chemistry of a lemon. Some of those books—such as THE LAST FREE BIRD—were written by my father, an education professor who also authored a bunch of children’s science books in the 60s and 70s. I don’t recall that as being something I was particularly impressed with; rather it was a matter of fact. One of the things he did. And by extension, something that was simply possible for a person to do.

When you grow up around books and by extension, discussions of books, you become a literary person. When you are asked to bring a new word to the dinner table, or a topic to the breakfast table—and both of those meals are had together with conversation, you become a literary person. I didn’t conceptualize any of that as life changing. But it most certainly was.

Summer Reading: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Kinetic Learning Pairings

School’s out for summer! Many summer reading lists combine nonfiction and fiction reading recommendations. It was exciting to see Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb: The Race to Build, another INK contributor, on the list from my son’s English teacher.

Since summer’s here and it’s time to play, I thought that it would be fun to add other senses to the mix and a little play. A few years ago I taught a class at the Games for Education Conference at the Chicago Toy and Game fair. The class was titled Play and Creativity in the Classroom.  Here’s what I wrote about the class on the INK blog titled Play in Classroom with several nonfiction book recommendations. Why not add a little kinetic learning to the summer reading schedule?

A teacher friend is taking her children on an extended vacation to New England this summer. They are reading fiction and nonfiction books in preparation. When she mentioned that they were creating KWL charts to go along with the reading, I was curious. Many teachers reading this will know about KWL charts, but my friend explained, “It is a 3 column chart- list what they KNOW, list what the WANT to know, and then after reading list what they LEARNED. It is a great way to assess prior misconceptions as well as knowledge, see if they learned anything from their reading, and can be a basis for further research for unanswered questions.” Here’s a link that explains how to make KWLcharts.

Kind of wish I had made a KWL chart before our recent London and Paris trip. After we were back home, while recuperating from jetlag, I tried to remember what my preconceived impressions of Paris were. For example, my mind had a different vision of what Notre Dame was like. Being there right in front of Notre Dame was rather surreal.

Everywhere we went on our vacation, I would point out what we were seeing to my children. I think they became a little tired of me by the end of our trip. Last Christmas, I bought the family a puzzle of the London Underground and a puzzle of a map of Paris. I do this because of my childhood.  Growing up, we would go almost every other summer to Germany for a month to visit Oma. Most of what I remember was my little brother and I creating a dividing line in the back seat of my uncle’s Mercedes and constantly tapping my mom on the arm while she spoke in German to all my relatives. We went to some cool places, but I have no idea where I was, why the place was significant, or how it related to European history.  

Here’s a few nonfiction and fiction reading ideas for the summer with some added senses, kinetic learning, and play.
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steven Sheinkin
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
Modern Marvels - The Manhattan Project (History Channel)

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
King of the Mound - My Summer with Satchel Paige by Wes Tooke
Watch a baseball game or go to a game.
Major League Baseball Scrabble
Eat a hot dog, peanuts and Cracker Jacks

Football Hero: A Football Genius Novel by Tim Green
Sports Illustrated Kids 1st and 10: Top 10 Lists of Everything in Football by Sports Illustrated For Kids Jukem Football Card Game by Jukem
Play football in the backyard

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier or Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes
The American Revolution for Kids: A History with 21 Activities (For Kids series) by Janis Herbert
City Doodles: Boston by Chris Sabatino
Educational Trivia Card Game - Professor Noggin's American Revolution by Professor Noggin

Chicago History for Kids: Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activities (For Kids series) by Owen Hurd
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
City Doodles: Chicago by Anna M. Lewis
Chicago-Opoly by Late for the Sky
Build a Skyscaper model

Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter's World: An Unofficial Guide by George Beahm
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson
Eat Harry Potter Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans by Jelly Belly
(This list could be endless.)

Sandy's Circus: A Story About Alexander Calder by Tanya Lee Stone (author), Boris Kulikov (Illustrator)
The Calder Game by Blue Balliett(Author) , Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
Make a Mobile
Go to an art museum

For Younger Readers:
The First Teddy Bear by Helen Kay (Author) , Susan Detwiler (Illustrator)
Made in the USA - Teddy Bears by Tanya Lee Stone
The Teddy Bears' Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy (Author) , Michael Hague (illustrator)
Baby Bear Counters by Learning Resources
Gather all your teddy bears and have a tea party
Play the song Teddy Bear’s Picnic

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein
New York City by David F. Marx
New York for Kids: 25 Big Apple Sites to Color (Dover Coloring Books) by Patricia J. Wynne
50-Piece Double 2-Sided Jigsaw Puzzle - New York City by Pigment and Hue

This list is just a jumping off point to get everyone thinking about all the possibilities. I had to stop somewhere or I’d be still writing this blog post. Please add your recommendations to the comments and I’ll add it to the list. On my website, I will add a hand-out form when I’m done compiling.

Here’s to a happy summer with lots of reading and playing.

A Guilty Confession and a PSA for INK

Sex and the City: Carrie and her friends are having their usual breakfast gathering, going over the issues of the day when Carrie makes a reference to something she wrote in one of her columns. This is followed by a lengthy awkward silence. One by one, she points her raised eyebrow at Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte for an explanation, as each confesses her own guilty reason why she has not, in actual fact, been reading her best friend’s column.

Present Day. Present Company: Hello, my name is Tanya, INK fellow and regular contributor, and I don’t always read our column.

Now that that guilty confession is out of the way, let me just say, that changes today.

There is a lot of content out there, friends—and content is a word we nonfiction writers are learning to loathe, what with the current trend to label most of what we do “content” or “informational.” A lot of content + too much to do + not enough time to do it = (hangs head) INK not always making my reading list.

What a mistake. Here’s the PSA part.

Bottom line: If you are a person who loves reading, writing, teaching, and/or helping readers find interesting nonfiction for kids (a.k.a. INK), make INK a frequent place to come calling.

Why? There are a ton of incredible, fascinating blog posts here! I am in awe of what I have learned just in the past hour by scrolling through the posts of my esteemed colleagues. And funny! Insightful, witty, interesting, and off-the-beaten-path. Check it out.

Highlights from this past month: ways to think about alternatives to e-books, what “writing like a boy” might mean, intelligent design in science classrooms, and more!

From this past year: meaningful uses of backmatter, how an illustrator tackles creating a pb about an artist, why books pub on Tuesdays, nostalgic childhood stories directly relevant to an author’s current process, and more!

From years past: photo research, ethics, responsibility to our readers, visual storytelling, movies made from books, and more!

Wow. I have always known that this was the place to be. It’s why I’ve been here all these years. But seeing it in black and white brings it into clear focus. Thank you, all you INK writers, for contributing to this wealth of fascination. I’m yours, now and forever. Carrie Bradshaw won’t need to raise her eyebrow in my direction ever again.

The Next Big Thing: Nonfiction Edition

For my INK blog this month, I am doing something a tiny bit different, although all the content is still nonfiction, and it is in honor of my new picture book about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in America, which came out this Tuesday. But I digress. What is the Next Big Thing? It is an author blog tour. What’s a blog tour? A blog tour gives those on the tour a chance to meet different authors by way of their blogs. The Next Big Thing began in Australia. Each week a different author answers specific questions about his or her upcoming book. The answers are posted on author’s blogs. Then we get to tag another author. On and on it goes.

The tour came to me from Manhattan. I was tagged by my friend Elizabeth Winthrop. She was tagged by her friend Eric Kimmel. I’ll tell you whom I’m tagging at the end.

Now for the questions.

What is the title of your next book?
Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? It is the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman doctor in America.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I have done, and do, a lot of research on women’s history—especially in America. Elizabeth Blackwell’s story was one I came upon again and again. It was also one of those stories I tried to sell more than once but met with some resistance because Blackwell’s name is not instantly recognizable. I felt that was exactly why there should be a book about her!

What genre does your book fall under?
Most definitely picture book.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Keira Knightley would make a fabulous Elizabeth Blackwell, who was also British—although she is too tall in real life. But Knightley captures the spark and fire of Elizabeth well. Blackwell was a petite blonde, studious and serious, but a real risk-taker.

Who is publishing your book?
Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt and Company (Macmillan Kids Books)

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I never know how to answer this question! With picture books, especially, I tend to write a draft and stick it in a drawer for quite a long time, then pull it back out and work on it again, and repeat. A few years inevitably pass in this way.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Elizabeth Blackwell inspired me to write this book! There are older books about her, but it was time to get younger kids excited and let them know who this trailblazer was.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
I love Blackwell’s fire. The details I discovered about her toughness as a kid were a delight to find and kids will, I think, really be able to relate to some of the things she did as a child. Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? hit bookshelves this past Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier.

For the next Next Big Thing, I am tagging the amazing and talented Deborah Heiligman. Her answers will be up soon.

Courage Has No Color is out 1/22!

I don’t often post about my books, but I am very excited that Courage Has No Color will launch on Tuesday, January 22nd! This is a story I started way, way back in 2003. It took ten years for me to figure out the best form for the story and accurately put all the pieces together.

This is the true story of a very little-known group of men who should be as familiar to us as any other groundbreaking group of pioneers. Led by Walter Morris, these WWII soldiers who were serving guard duty in the Army became the first black paratroopers in World War II. They also integrated the Army many months before integration was ordered AND helped fight an attack by the Japanese on the American West. Yes, you read that right.

There are a lot of personal reasons why this book has become close to my heart—23 reasons, in fact—all 17 men and 6 officers who became the first to blaze this trail. Walter Morris is at the top of that list, a man I have grown to love and am proud to call my friend. He will be 92 next week, and the minute the box of freshly bound books hit my stoop, I packed one up for him. It is beyond thrilling—after talking with him for ten years—to be able to put his own story into his hands, complete with the more than 100 photographs it took me a few years to gather. Black-and-white-and-sepia-toned needles in a myriad of haystacks. Finding them was a whole other story. Thank goodness for helpful archivists in obscure locations and engines like Zabasearch, without which I could not have found scattered relatives of soldiers who passed on long ago.

This is my second book with Candlewick, and I am so fortunate to have an amazing team to work with there. I am also happy to be able to share the brand new book trailer. The young man you will hear doing the voice-over won 2nd place in the National Poetry Out Loud contest last year, and happens to be local to me. It was wonderful to bring him in for the project.

The wonderful and beloved Ashley Bryan also became an important part of this book. He first read the picture book version in 2003 and we had poignant conversations over the years on the subjects of war and discrimination and art and joy. He read the manuscript of what became this book about a year ago and wrote the Foreword. Incredibly, he also shared his own artwork that he made during the war, when he was a stevedore in the Army. A few of those pieces now grace the pages of Courage Has No Color.

Thank you for indulging me today, as I do some blatant self-promotion, but it’s not all that often you get to shout from the rooftops that a new book baby is born! Oh, and there will be a Reading Guide for this title soon, which will include suggestions for use with Common Core.

What is this thing we call Creative Nonfiction?

I teach, therefore, I question. Introduction to Writing Creative Nonfiction. Tuesdays and Fridays from 11:00-12:15. I teach, therefore, I question.

I question, and encourage my students to question—everything about the process of writing. Why we do it, how we do it, what it is we do when we do it.

We are making a list, as they learn, of what creative nonfiction actually means. It is simpler to make a list of what it is not.

It is creative writing in which nothing is made up.
It is creative writing in which NOTHING is made up.
It is creative writing in which NOTHING is MADE UP.

Can there be dialogue? Yes—but only if it is not made up.
Can there be metaphor? Simile? Yes, and yes.
Can we employ fiction techniques. Yes. Please.

Just don’t make stuff up. If there is something in quotation marks, know where it came from. Don’t put words in anyone’s mouth. If you did that to me, I would be ticked off. Wouldn’t you?

Do you disagree with any of this? PLEASE: discuss.

The Creative Core

 CandaceFleming, author of Amelia Lost, and many other great books calls it the “vital idea.”

I’ve heard other nonfiction writers use terms like inciting incident, emotional trigger, creative spark, moment of inception, central mantra. I like to call it the creative core.

What is it?

It’s the heart of a great nonfiction manuscript.

It’s what a specific author brings to a topic, to a manuscript that no one else can.

It’s why a topic chooses an author, not the other way around.

It’s the result of an aha moment, and the source of passionate writing.

It’s what connects a topic, any topic, to a universal theme that everyone can relate to.

And according to nonfiction author Heather Montgomery, it’s what makes the best nonfiction books timeless.

Sound like magic? Well, it kind of is.

A nonfiction book’s creative core originates deep inside its author. Maybe it traces back to a powerful childhood memory. It might be the result of a deep-seeded desire, hope, belief, or disappointment. Here are some examples.

 Tanya Lee Stone wrote Sandy’s Circus because, as a child, Alexander Calder, was the only artist she immediately understood in a way that her father and sister seemed to understand all artists. Calder was her link to a secret knowledge that made her feel more closely connected to her family.

 DeborahHeiligman’s “nonfiction novel” Charles & Emma is so compelling because everything about who she is as a person drove her to write a book “in service to the love story” between Darwin and his wife. It's a book that only she could write.

Next year, I have a book coming out that traces back to the walks my father, brother, and I took through the woods near our home when I was young. The knowledge my brother and I learned on those meandering journeys and the closeness it made us feel to my father had a strong impact on both our lives. In many ways, I’ve been writing No Monkeys, No Chocolate since I was 8 years old.

How can a writer go about identifying the creative core of a work in progress? He or she must think deeply and ask questions that may have difficult or uncomfortable answers:

--What really prompted the writer to choose his or her topic. Was there an event--an inciting incident?

--Is there a connection to the writer's own life that needs to be examined?

--Does the author need to acknowledge a disappointment or betrayal in order to move on?
--Was there an aha moment filled with joy that the author can't wait to share?

Journaling can be an invaluable tool during this process. Writing about the moment of inception can help writers stay connected to it and the emotions it triggers.

Whether fiction or nonfiction, the best writing comes from a place of vulnerability. We write because we have something we need to say.

Learning Through Story

As teacher friends ask for suggestions to add to their reading lists, this seems like a good time to re-post this past favorite:

In a recent thought-provoking Washington Post article, journalist and author Joy Hakim wrote the following: “As they [education historians] document the tale, it was decades ago that we gave up teaching history as an idea-centered discipline played out by a succession of characters—heroes and villains—whose actions led to results that can be analyzed. That kind of story-based history is engaging. We replaced it with litanies of facts.”

She was talking about the state of textbooks, as well as the lack of integration of standard curriculum with the stories of science and social studies that, without, leave gaping holes in education. That’s where we nonfiction writers today come in.

As depressing and infuriating as much of Hakim’s article was to me, I also felt myself saying “but we do that—those stories are being written!” And so, with the intention of offering a tiny bit of assistance to all those who teach and/or otherwise influence the education of young minds, I decided to begin compiling a recommended reading list of stories for older readers—true stories; i.e., nonfiction (or veritas, truthiness or True Dat!)—that will surely supplement and complement and enhance the experience of anyone taking social studies and science classes using textbooks.

Please—I mean this—please, add to this beginning of a list. Let’s make it grow. I will incorporate your comments and update the list accordingly. Next time, I’ll make a picture book list!

History and Science Through Story:

Armstrong, Jennifer. The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History

Aronson, Marc and Budhos, Marina. Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science

Aronson, Marc. Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler’s Shadow

Burns, Loree Griffin. Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion

Cobb, Vicki. What's the Big Idea?: Amazing Science Questions for the Curious Kid.

Colman, Penny. Where the Action Was: Women War Correspondents in World War II

Deem, James. Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and Rediscovery of the Past

Delano, Marfe Ferguson. Earth in the Hot Seat: Bulletins from a Warming World

Freedman, Russell. Who Was First?: Discovering the Americas

Giblin, James Cross. The Many Rides of Paul Revere

Hakim, Joy. The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way

Harness, Cheryl. The Ground-Breaking, Chance-Taking Life of George Washington Carver and Science and Invention in America

Heiligman, Deborah. Charles & Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Hoose, Phillip. Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Jackson, Ellen and Bishop Nic. Mysterious Universe: Supernovae, Dark Energy and Black Holes

Jackson, Donna M. The Wildlife Detectives: How Forensic Scientists Fight Crimes Against Nature

Murphy, Jim. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

Nelson, Kadir. We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

Partridge, Elizabeth. Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary

Sis, Peter. The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain

Stone, Tanya Lee. Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream

Thimmesh, Catherine. Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 On the Moon

Walker, Sally. Written In Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

Weatherford, Carole Boston. Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom

Wrapping It Up

There is a time to begin finishing every book. Sometimes it feels as though that phase may never come. But it does. And there is work to be done. Careful, meticulous, try-not-to-miss-any-detail kind of work. That is what I am doing now for my forthcoming COURAGE HAS NO COLOR. The process for a nonfiction book includes a lot of details that may surprise some people. Here are some of the things I do as the author to tie up any loose ends as we head into this final phase:

Make sure I have ordered every photo at a high-enough resolution to reproduce well in the book (tricky with archival WWII photos, and I do this with the help of the brill designer on the book).

Write the photo credits, making sure to check them against the most final layouts so all page references are credit, and cross-reference them against my photo source charts that I create.

Tally up my photo costs and make sure I haven’t gone over budget. And if I have, come up with a solution as to how to deal with this issue.

Compile all the source notes for any quote in the book. (This is a biggie—I think the source notes in Courage are ten manuscript pages, single spaced!)

Make sure that the Bibliography I created while writing the book is complete and up-to-date (i.e. I haven’t forgotten to include any books or articles or documentaries I may have used in the last few months).

Check all the captions I have written against the information in the text to make sure I haven’t inadvertently contradicted myself with any facts; in other words, check and re-check my research. Do this process again, checking any official information I may or may not have received with each photo. Note: sometimes my research turns up errors in official information and I get to correct it--very satisfying!

Re-read the acknowledgments and make sure I haven’t left any out. These omissions generally fall into two categories—people who have contributed something in the last stretch of the process so it’s new information and people who deserve such a big thank-you I assumed they were already in there!

Go over the layout issues with my editor and designer for tweaking of things like half and full title page, dedication, headers or footers, and any back matter issues that arise.

And last but not least—read through the text again in hopes of catching a glaring typo that has been hiding in plain sight this whole time! (Note: I just found one of those, so this is a really important step.)

All of these things actually come before I will have a chance to carefully read the final layouts—these steps are to ensure that everything MAKES it into the final layouts! There is a certain satisfaction that comes from tying up all the loose ends and seeing a manuscript transform into a BOOK.

The Internet--A Researcher's Friend

When I do school visits and talk about how I research and write my books, inevitably the conversation turns to Internet research. Kids want to know if I use the Internet. I usually turn the question around on them. How do you think I use the Internet? Google, they say. That’s a search engine, I tell them. In what way do you think I use the search engine? Through a series of questions that usually allow me to steer them away from Wikipedia and do a basic how-to-use-the-Internet safely and productively, we get there. My most recent school visit was right around the time I had been dazzled by solving a problem that would have been a monumental task pre-Internet.

I was going over final art for my forthcoming picture book about Elizabeth Blackwell and there was one detail in one of Marjorie Priceman’s pieces that I wanted to make sure we had gotten right. It was an illustration of her graduation and she was not wearing her bonnet. I needed to quickly double-check and make sure we hadn’t missed this detail and that her bare head was a-ok, so I went online and in TWO minutes I found a primary source document proving that she was not wearing her bonnet that day. All was well! That could have taken weeks pre-Internet.

The Internet has become an invaluable tool for the research process in my books in many ways. The ability to locate experts in various fields and share information is mind-boggling. I’ll never forget the first time I realized that this was not just a tool that could make certain things easier, it was a tool that could make certain things possible! At the time, I was charged with writing a wildlife series in which the film for the original books was published in China. Translation: the film we were working with consisted of complete photographic layouts of 32 page books, with Chinese text that we were going to ignore. Instead, my challenge was to properly identify the contents of the photographs, figure out the theme of each spread, and write new text to go with it. Given my wildlife and science education background, this was do-able. EXCEPT when I got to a book about alligators and crocodiles. These photos all looked alike to me. What to do? I got on the Internet and began to search for the world experts on alligators and crocs. And I found one. There was a scientist in Darwin, Australia who specialized in Crocodilians—otherwise known as alligators, crocodiles, and caimans. (Who knew?) He was happy to identify the photos for me. So I scanned all of the spreads and emailed them to him. One by one, he told me exactly what I was looking at and I was able to write the text. Pre-Internet—not really possible. How would I even begun to have found him??

In my forthcoming book, Courage Has No Color, the photo research was painstakingly slow. It is a story about WWII veterans and the images of them were few to begin with and fewer to survive the decades. I don’t know if I could have found most of what I did without the Internet. In some instances, it was tracking down small military archives; in others, it was a matter of being a detective and finding obscure phone numbers of distant relatives. Zabasearch came in handy!

The bulk of my research in general is done sans Internet with the usual suspects—library materials, documentaries, oral histories, interviews, etc.. But this ever-expanding body of material available by researching on line is staggering and has opened up new avenues of discovery. Thanks, Al Gore! ;-)

Visual Storytelling—Part Two

Back in October, I posted about the beginning of my visual storytelling process for my next book, COURAGE HAS NO COLOR. This book is about a group of people who should be as well known as the Tuskegee Airmen, but are fairly unknown. The Triple Nickles were the first black paratroopers in WWII and proved to the military that black men could be paratroopers. Their story is a fascinating and complex one, and tracking down photos for this book has been the hardest of any book I have written. It has taken several years of playing detective and unearthing photos one by one from varied and far-flung sources. Now I am at the other end of the process—not nearly the end, but getting closer. I have inventoried all the photographs I collected and have decided to use, chapter by chapter, and keyed the manuscript with the numbers I assigned them. What does keying mean? It means I go through each chapter and note which image I want to use and the text it should be placed nearest.

Then I go back through my inventory and see if there are photos that matter to me that I haven’t found a place for yet and I take another pass. This may mean replacing one I think has more storytelling potential than something else if I can’t fit them both. It’s a tricky balance as you physically can’t fit too many images on a spread without overwhelming the design—or the designer!
I then go through the next pass for a different visual feature—pull-out quotes. This means I am looking through my own text with an eye toward the reader who will be skimming the pages to get a sense of what this book is about—which lines or quotes do I want to highlight that will lead my reader through the story. Again, there will potentially be more than the designer can fit, so I have to choose with intention and know they won’t all make it in. There will be another pass, and another, and another, so I’ll be able to make changes, but this is the big first important sweep that begins to transform a manuscript into a book.

Meanwhile, my talented designer is working on sample pages with the images I have sent. Is there a font we want to use that will help convey the time of the book, or the emotion in it? How do we make things flow? How will we fit everything in? And, of course, a hundred other design concerns and questions I know nothing about—I will simply get to see what her handiwork and vision produces!

What we are all doing at this stage is looking at the book from a visual perspective. We want to know that we are assisting the readers for that moment when they will inevitably browse through to see if they even want to read this book. Are we making an impact? Is it clear what this book is about? Have we set the right tone? Do they want to turn the page? As we head into this phase of production, it is always astonishing and wonderful to me how many minute details there are to consider, and how much they impact the final product. I’m excited!

Real Revision

Tanya Lee Stone. Susan Goodman. Jim Murphy. Kelly Fineman. You know these folks. They’re regular contributors to this blog.

They’re also four of the thirty or so authors featured in Real Revision by award-winning children’s book author Kate Messner. The book is such a gem that you’ll definitely want your very own copy.

Real Revision is published by Stenhouse Publisher, which caters to educators, so this book is written specifically for teachers. That makes it great for all you educators out there. But I know plenty of writers also read this blog. This book is a MUST READ for you, too.

Some chapters focus on fiction-specific revision strategies, but the lion share of the book is useful to nonfiction writers as well. Here are few of my favorite quotations from nonfiction writers.

Kelly Fineman on why she takes time away from a manuscript between writing the rough draft and delving into the revisions:

“It could be as little as half an hour or as long as a year, but I need to have established some sort of distance from it in order to read it at least somewhat objectively and not like a doting author.”

Loree Griffin Burns on the importance of reading widely and carefully considering the structure of nonfiction writing:

“I pay close attention to the structure of the books I am reading all the time, and I compare and contrast them to the structure I’m working with. This is always helpful to me because it gives me confidence . . .or in some cases, helps me see why my own structure is not working.”

Susan Goodman on striking the right balance between sharing information and engaging readers while writing Life on the Ice:

“. . . I was trying to fit in so many facts that I had lost sight of what my book was all about—the excitement on exploration . . . So I sat down at my computer with an imaginary nine-year-old kid beside me. And I simply told that kid an adventure story—one where scientists were the explorers.”

Jim Murphy on finding the proper voice and storytelling technique for his Newbery Honor book The Great Fire.

“I read newspapers and personal recollections of the Chicago fire until I had absorbed the pace and language of the era. . . . I didn’t try to duplicate voices from the past, but I knew I had a faint echo of them in my style.”

Tanya Lee Stone on the importance of sensory details:

“. . . if I interview someone, I will note very specific things about the way they speak, move, dress, smell, etc. These details come in handy when writing a scene that needs to capture the real essence of a person.”

And these great bits or advice are just the tip of the iceberg. Trust me. This is a book you won’t want to miss.

An Invitation to Comment: Gathering Nonfiction E-Book Data/Opinions from YOU!

Saving OP books, giving new life to in-print but barely moving books, or adding a layered, multi-dimensional platform to a healthy title—these are just three of the common reasons publishers, editors, and authors are discussing the world of electronic books as it applies to nonfiction. Most of us have e-book clauses in our contracts, but as the e-world is rapidly changing, so our rights, which has authors and publishers clamoring to figure out the best ways to proceed.

At least for right now, there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer and it can be very book-specific when it comes to nonfiction. In contrast, I have plenty of fiction writer friends who are successfully getting their e-book rights back (generally from OP or almost-OP books) and publishing in this format on their own—for 100% of the profits, minus expenses. But when photo rights and book designs factor so heavily into the final product of a nonfiction book, things are much trickier. If the e-rights for photos have not already been secured for an older NF book, it is not necessarily feasible from a time or money standpoint to track them down again. I certainly make sure I have e-rights for photos now, but that wasn’t the case a few years back.

Read this recent INK post from Jim Murphy for his perspective on one aspect of this issue. And Marc Aronson has tackled this topic in his SLJ blog, Nonfiction Matters, here and here. I think it would be worthwhile as well as illuminating to have NF writers and publishers, as well as readers, teachers, and librarians share some of their thoughts and insights, to see what some of the varied experiences are. I am also quite interested in hearing from people about what they think the future will hold.

Please weigh in with your comments!

Visual Storytelling

I am currently in the thick of telling a story visually. What do I mean by that? The text of Courage Has No Color is nearly done, and now it is time for me to choose the images that will add additional layers of meaning to that text. It is not at all as simple as choosing photographs to illustrate something I have said. That is what I used to think I was doing when gathering images and writing captions. But I have learned over the years that it is much, much more than that. It is an opportunity to tell MORE of the story. To elaborate, both with an image and with its caption, upon an aspect of the story that did not necessarily belong smack dab in the middle of the text. It can be distracting to the narrative to go off on an interesting-yet-not-crucial point. That is one of the many powerful uses of visual storytelling.

For example, if I wanted to show how television had a powerful impact on how we saw women in society in the 1950s, but didn’t want to veer off my beaten track with a lengthy description, I can (and did, in Almost Astronauts) show this quite effectively using images from Father Knows Best, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and I Love Lucy. Looking at photographs also stirs ideas in me about what the images do NOT show as well as what they do show. This classic photo may conjure heroic images of America’s fearless astronauts to most people, but what I saw in this photo when collecting images for Almost Astronauts was what was NOT represented. The road not taken. The opportunity missed. The women in my story whose tale needs to be told.

It is the same for my newest book (Courage Has No Color) about the Triple Nickles. I continue to see what is—and sometimes more tellingly what is not—in the hundreds of photos I am looking through. I don’t just look at them; I listen to them. They speak to me. What are the images saying? What pops out at me that needs attention; that needs a voice? What more of the story is lurking in these photos, waiting for me to tease out and add to the overall narrative in the form of images?

This is my job, and I love it so, so much. I believe it is this love that makes my hands stop on one photo rather than another and take a closer look. What will I find? I can’t wait to find out!

Follow that Trail

My phone rang last month and a smokejumper was on the other end. “I’m jumping this week, lots of blazes, but I got your message and I’ll find a way into that safe for you even if we have to crack it open.”

I had been waiting for this call for weeks. It all started with a cold call to a guy named Steve who knew a lot about the history of smokejumping—including the period of time when the paratroopers I am writing about worked for the Forest Service as smokejumpers. This guy was an absolute wealth of information, and he ended up sending me interview transcripts and knowing just whom I should talk to.

One of the guys Steve sent me to was Wayne. Wayne was equally enthusiastic and genuinely excited to talk with me. With Wayne I hit the photographic jackpot—almost. He told me an incredible story that resulted in a big orange carrot dangling in front of my nose.

One day, as he was busy manning the jump station, a man came up to him, handed him a manila envelope, said there were priceless pictures inside the Forest Service should have, and walked away. When Wayne had a chance to look at them, he knew immediately what they were, and stashed them in the safe in his office for, you guessed it, safekeeping.

Time went by and Wayne retired. The photos, he realized when we were talking, must still be in that safe—which no one had opened for years. “Call Dan (his successor) and tell him Wayne said to find the combination to that old safe and get those photos for you.”

Okay—I had a location, information, and a plan. The first time I called Dan he was out on a jump. The second time, too. I left a message that must have sounded crazy, to the effect of ‘you don’t know me, but the guy who worked in your office before you left some photos in a safe and he wants you to get them for me.” I didn’t know if I would ever hear from him.

It took a while, what with Dan being kind of tied up smokejumping into blazing forest fires, but he did call me back. He also promised that he would find the combination of the safe in his office. A week later came the bad news that no one seemed to know where that combination was, and the safe was so old and tough it was looking like it would be a big job to break into it by force. Still, he told me not to worry. He’d get the job done. Firefighters are like that.

Not long after, Dan had more news for me. They still hadn’t located the combination, but he had discovered the photos had been digitally scanned at some point. A CD was on its way to me! Some time after that, a package arrived in the mail. On that CD were a few old images I had seen before, but instead of the old blurry, many-photocopied, hard-to-reproduce versions I kept finding, these were crisp and clear and bright. Better still, there were a few images I had never seen before. Jackpot!

These are the kinds of detective trails that need to be found and followed for just a handful of photographs that will end up in my forthcoming book, Courage Has No Color.

There are many more photo stories where that came from. Sometimes these chases turn out to be of the wild goose variety; sometimes they are sheer gold.

Thank you Steve, Wayne, and Dan!

Passion and Sympatico

This is the month that we choose our favorite posts. I love this one because it symbolizes a friendship that developed through being a nonfiction writer.

ORIGINAL POST: I will open with an anecdote that, I promise, is on point. On May 18, I spoke with a writer friend who, quite unprompted and out of the blue, said, “You have to meet Deb Heiligman, you two would really love each other.” I thought that an interesting comment as Deb and I had recently connected via Facebook and had been instant chatting with a chummy ease. The very next day I logged on to INK and literally had to read the first two paragraphs of Deb’s blog entry twice. I could have written those two paragraphs, verbatim. Truly.

And so, in the spirit of nonfiction togetherness, I will see Deb’s Thoreau quote (scroll down to May 19) and raise her a Blaise Pascal. I had long and incorrectly attributed that “I would have written a shorter letter but I did not have the time” quote to Voltaire, but it seems that this quote actually comes from one of the Provincial Letters of Pascal, which definitely influenced the thinking of Voltaire and possibly also Thoreau. I say possibly, because we have no specific knowledge that Thoreau read Pascal’s Letters, and even though Pascal pre-dates Thoreau by approximately 200 years, it is perfectly within the realm of reason for two writers to think and write similar things without being aware they are doing so. Sympatico, yes?!

The other thing I related to in Deborah's post was the anecdote about aspiring to write for adults. I have likewise been frequently challenged, and indeed it is almost always put forth as a challenge, as if we are merely on the beginning stepping stones of the path that must surely lead to writing for adults. A friend of mine battles this heckle by saying, “Can you imagine asking your pediatrician if she aspires to take care of adults!” That’s the comeback I keep in my arsenal and fling forth whenever necessary.

Now, to the topic at hand. I recently did a school visit during which a teacher asked me, in front of an audience of 140 students, if I think the sale of nonfiction books will start to suffer since anyone can find out anything on the Internet. Ah, I thought, rubbing my hands together, what a great setup for a teaching moment!

Educators one and all, we don’t really think that an Internet search on a topic can replace the book, do we? No, I didn’t think so (and I’ll give that teacher the benefit of the doubt that he was leading me to the promised land via the last question of the day). On the Internet, to be sure, one can learn a little bit about a lot of things. But it takes the skill and craft and research and patience and love of a writer dedicated to learning every possible piece of a story to put it together with context and meaning in a way that kids will find engaging.

And why do we do it? I think it’s because we are compelled to. We are driven to find out why, what was the motivation, what else was going on behind the scenes, who else was involved, how else could this be viewed, and what does it all mean as we try to make sense of this vast world and hand our small part in it over to kids. It’s a passion. If you're interested in reading more about this quirky brand of passion and the desire to put the pieces of the puzzle together that nonfiction authors share, I've delved into both ideas in more detail in two recent articles, one for SLJ and one for VOYA. Both pieces laud a variety of authors and their brilliant nonfiction books that craft stories from the many facts spinning all around us, and they are gifts to young readers.

Take that, Internet.

And Deb, we are ON for coffee!
(NEW) We've come a long way, baby! ;-)

The Truthiness Tour—the Movies; Again

I don’t mean to beat this topic into the ground; really, I don’t. It’s just that I keep thinking about the difference between nonfiction books and movies “based on” nonfiction, and my perspective keep broadening. Part of that has to do with the fact that one of my friends is a very successful screenplay writer, and hearing his perspectives about movies “based on” the lives of real people has got me thinking in new directions.

For anyone who reads my blog entries, it won’t come as any surprise that I am usually treading the purist line of nonfiction. Don’t make anything up, ever. But this “based on” the lives of real people issue in the movies is complex. Some of it even has to do with rights. For example, I recently learned from my friend that there are varying degrees of situations in which a writer either needs to, or does not need to, secure a person’s life rights. If it’s a public figure, and it is long enough ago, it is considered public domain. But the length of time does not necessarily matter if it is a private figure (such as a specific hero or heroine in a story who is not well known). Interesting, right?

Now I find myself thinking about all kinds of distracting things while watching films such as The Aviator, The Conspirator, The King’s Speech, The Blind Side, and the list goes on. Wikipedia tags The Blind Side as “semi-biographical,” in fact. I didn’t even know that was a category! If all the facts about the family in The Blind Side were known, would the story have come across in the same way? Maybe, maybe not.

I wrote a lot about the Fine, Fine Line of truth in nonfiction books in my recent Horn Book article. But in the movies, that line seems not to be so fine at all…and people seem fine with it. I wonder why that is?

My filmmaker friend believes it may be because the truth isn’t dramatic enough for a blockbuster movie. I argue with him about this, of course, but his points have at least made me not be as stubbornly rooted (momentarily). For example, I said to him, why did The King’s Speech need to make Churchill appear against King Edward’s relationship with Wallis Simpson when in fact Churchill was fine with it? More dramatic, my friend said. Perhaps, I replied. But why not just leave that bit out and leave well enough alone, I pushed. He ventured a guess about people being hesitant to expose the flaws of giants such as Churchill, which might have been distracting to the main thrust of the film. Again, that may be. But why twist history?

I have some more thinking to do about this, it seems. My opinions hold fast when it comes to truth in nonfiction books, but perhaps this movie thing is too slippery for me. Or just slippery enough. I certainly enjoy watching these “based on” movies, but I can’t help feeling duped once I discover which facts have been altered to fit the script. Where do you stand?