Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep by Elizabeth Partridge

Since I was a teenager, I’ve been haunted by the Vietnam War. During high school and college, I was passionately against the war. I hated the suffering, death, and destruction the war brought. My heart broke for the Vietnamese, for the Americans sent to fight, and for our torn, divided country.

After the war, protestors and returning vets didn’t mix. Veterans came home, let their hair grow long, and tried to blend in. I heard a few stories, but only scraps. I wondered, how had the young Americans fared when they came back home? I explored the idea by writing a historical fiction novel, Dogtag Summer (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2011). I filled my mind with research and set up a difficult premise: what happens when a Vietnam veteran adopts an Amerasian girl from Vietnam and their PTSD is suddenly triggered and tears the family apart?

With historical fiction, I needed to know the history of the period. I needed to have a realistic setting and characters who would act within the bounds of the past. But I was free to make up the characters and plot out their lives. 

I finished the manuscript and told my husband even if I never wrote another word I’d be happy.

That lasted for a few days.

The Vietnam War tapped on my shoulder again. The Americans who served, the real ones, what was it like for them to fight in the war? To be trained to kill, to fight, to lose friends in battle? This time I wanted to write narrative nonfiction—also called creative or literary nonfiction—to tell a true story, using real people. No making anything up. No weather, no dialog, no clothing, no thoughts. Nothing. It took me six years.

I began by doing a deep dive, reading much more about the war. Gradually, I focused on what really interested me, looking especially at primary source materials: oral histories, recordings, photographs, and documents. Then I set out to find veterans to interview from different parts of the country and from different ethnic groups to see how race played out in their experiences.

For Boots on the Ground: America’s War in Vietnam (Viking Books for Young Readers, 2018), I interviewed six men who had fought in the war, a nurse, and a refugee, then wove their interview chapters with alternating chapters on presidents and protestors. In every chapter, I added photographs. I love this place as a writer: up close, my nose pressed against the glass. Words, direct from people who were there, and photographs resonate with information and emotion.

Just as I was finishing the book, Susan Campbell Bartoletti asked me if I would contribute to the anthology she and Marc Aronson were editing, 1968: Today’s Authors Explore a year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change (Candlewick Press, 2018). Something, she said, about 1968 that really has stuck with you.

I said no. Thanks, but just . . . No. I was done with 1968 and the war and the protests. I’d already written a prologue for Boots on the Ground where I recounted several of my experiences in high school and as an adult, and what lead to my urgent need to write a nonfiction book on the war.

But Susan is very persuasive, and she knows me really well. You could, she said casually, write something memoir-style. Maybe a prose poem.

I’d never written a long prose poem. And Susan knows I love a good challenge.

A prose poem about my life would be memoir writing, which some people consider to be a subgenre of narrative nonfiction, but others consider it to stand alongside narrative nonfiction, its own genre of nonfiction. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is a terrific example of a young adult prose poem.

Memoir writing is more subjective than narrative nonfiction, told directly from the author’s perspective. It’s more raw, more supple, more intense. It’s all true—at least from the author’s perspective. Often in memoirs there is dialog. It’s unlikely they were the exact words spoken, but they are true to the spirit of the conversation.

I found, in the boiled-down prose poem I wrote, “Nightly News,” the essence of my own anguished feelings during the war. And by writing in all three genres, I’ve finally explored everything I needed to say about the Vietnam War.

Sorting out these different genres can be challenging. To clarify what genre you are reading or writing, or to help your students, ask a few questions. Is it a real time and place, but the characters are from the writer’s imagination? That’s historical fiction. Are the characters real people, but they say and do things the writer made up? Still historical fiction. Real people, real times, real places with nothing made up? Narrative nonfiction. Told from the point of view of the writer about their own life, the way they remember it happening? Memoir.

Each one is strong and powerful. Each one is a wonderful challenge. Enjoy!

Elizabeth Partridge's books for young adults include Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange, John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth, and Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Get Weary. She is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Michael L. Printz Honor, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award. This Land was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie was a National Book Award finalist, and Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam has been longlisted for the National Book Award.

Expository Nonfiction: Display It in Classroom Libraries and Read It Aloud

For the next few weeks, educator Marlene Correia and I will be discussing two infographics we created to help get teachers excited about using more great expository nonfiction children’s books in the classroom. On Fridays, we’ll focus on 5 Ways to Share Expository Nonfiction with Students.

Since today is the beginning of this Friday series, we’ll start at the top of the infographic. Displaying expository nonfiction more prominently in your classroom might seem like a small step, but it can have a BIG impact. Here are a few tips:

—Feel free to borrow books from other teachers and the school or public library to enrich your book displays.

—At the beginning of the year, rotate the books you display once a week. During Week 1, feature fiction titles. For Week 2, display narrative nonfiction (such as picture book biographies). And for Week 3, feature expository nonfiction. If you repeat this pattern a few times, students will begin to get a sense of the different kinds of books available to them. They will also get the message that you value all types books equally.

—As the year progresses, display text sets that are related to your current science or social studies unit. Include both fiction and nonfiction titles to appeal to a broader range of students.

Perfect Pairs: Using Fiction and Nonfiction Picture Books to Teach Life Science, K-2 and Perfect Pairs: Using Fiction and Nonfiction Picture Books to Teach Life Science, Grades 3-5, which I co-wrote with veteran educator Nancy Chelsey, can help you identify high quality science-themed picture books that align with the Next Generation Science Standards. You can also look at the annual lists of recommended books from the National Science Teachers Association and the National Council for the Social Studies.

—When your class seems ready, allow teams of students to create their own text sets for display. The books the teams select must have something in common—a theme or concept, a text structure, a writing style, the voice (lively or lyrical) etc. Encourage students to be creative in their choices and then summarize their thinking on an index card. The teams may enjoy asking the rest of the class to guess what the books in their text set have in common.

Displaying expository nonfiction books prominently in your classroom is an important first step in showing students that you honor these books. But to really bring that point home, be sure to feature these books as read alouds too.

One of the best ways to incorporate a rich assortment of read alouds into your classroom routine is #classroombookaday, an idea developed by Wisconsin educator Jillian Heise (@heisereads). It involves taking 10-15 minutes a day to read aloud and briefly discuss a picture book.

Jillian recommends displaying the book covers on a wall or bulletin board, so it’s easy to refer back to them later in the year. For example, students can make thematic connections between titles. They can also compare craft moves employed by authors and artistic techniques employed by the illustrators.

 

Jillian also maintains a vibrant Facebook group where educators discuss logistics and make book recommendations.

And here are some tips that you might find useful as you develop strategies for sharing expository nonfiction titles as read alouds.

Expository Nonfiction: Some Students Prefer It!

Last fall, I wrote a series of blog posts with one goal in mind: To raise awareness about research into children’s nonfiction reading preferences. Why? Because the results are surprising.

In recent years, narrative nonfiction has been basking in the limelight. It receives more starred reviews, garners more awards, and ends up on more classroom and library bookshelves than expository nonfiction  because gatekeepers—the adults who make up the children’s literature community—tend to have a natural love of stories and storytelling. That’s why they chose jobs as librarians, literacy coaches, reading specialists, editors, book reviewers, etc. rather than accountants or engineers.

To prove my point, here are the results of a survey I conducted at a summer conference for educators.

 

These results are supported by an analysis of American Library Association’s Youth Media Award winners since 2001 (when the Sibert Award for Informational Books was first given).  

 

But a growing body of research shows that many children think differently. They prefer reading books with an expository writing style.

 

Rather than craving an emotional connection with the central figure in a book, these info-kids read with a purpose—to understand the world and how it works. They’re captivated by fact-filled books that include patterns, analogies, concepts, and calculations. For these students, expository nonfiction is the gateway to literacy.

But that’s not all we can glean from the research. It turns out that expository nonfiction also builds content knowledge, leads to success in school, and prepares students for those dreaded standardized tests.

To explore these topics in greater detail, I’ve teamed up with Marlene Correia, director of curriculum and assessment for the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District of Lakeville, MA and past-president of the Massachusetts Reading Association. Over the last few months, we’ve created two handy dandy infographics.

The first one (shown above) highlights 5 Reasons to Share Expository Nonfiction with Students. The first reason—Some Students Prefer It! —is what I blogged about in depth last fall and is summarized with the visuals above.

Over the next few weeks, Marlene and I will be discussing the other four points—one per week—in greater detail on Wednesdays.

On Fridays, we’ll share ideas related to our second infographic 5 Ways to Share Expository Nonfiction with Students. Here’s a sneak peek.

We hope you’ll come back on Friday to find out more.

Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep by Barb Rosenstock

The question I get asked most at school visits is, “Why do you write biography?” Early on, that question caught me off-guard—the “why” of it never occurred to me.

Barb and Grandpa Stan

To know why I write biography, you’d have to have met my grandpa, Stan. He was the kind of Chicago character who spent his life connecting people to jobs, tickets, schools, charities, and each other. He understood where people came from, and where they wanted to go. He knew how to keep a confidence and when to reveal. He connected people through stories—hilarious, tragic, or tender. He told people’s stories better than anyone I have ever met.

I loved listening to his stories, and I was a voracious reader as a kid; but “author” was a job for fancy people in New York or Paris. As an adult, I worked in corporate marketing, had a family, and read a good deal to my sons. They too tended to like stories about people—explorers, inventors, and athletes. Although there has always been great children’s nonfiction, most of the biographies I read to my sons (going back about fifteen years) disappointed me.

None of them sounded like my grandpa’s stories. Few of them seemed connected to real kids’ struggles or larger themes. They were essentially illustrated encyclopedia entries. So instead of reading the books as they were written, I used what I’d learned from my grandpa to turn the facts into stories my sons would love. At some point, I transitioned to writing.

At a school visit

When I visit schools as an author, I find that most teachers and students make false assumptions about the process of writing biography. First off, they assume I have some “file of famous folks” in a desk drawer. They believe I go to the list, choose a person, do some research, and plug facts about the subject into some sort of formula. But biography isn’t a formula (birth+3 facts¸death =fame). It’s a way of thinking about art or science or sports or any topic through the lens of understanding who did what, why, and how.

Why do teachers and students have these misconceptions? Because that’s how students often write reports in school. But that’s not how professional writers work.

For me, the process of choosing a subject is much more complex and deeply rooted in who I am. In fact, I don’t typically start with a person at all. I begin with an idea or a memory or an experience that has personal meaning to me. Here are the personal connections that launched a few of my titles:

Fearless: The Story of Fearless Driver Louise Smith: I built go-karts as a girl.

Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library: In 8^th grade, I wandered off on a field trip to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson’s home).

The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art: Until I was 8 years old, I thought numbers had personalities.

Blue Grass Boy: The Story of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass Music: A friend’s grandfather played mandolin at her birthday party. 

Otis & Will Discover the Deep: The Record-setting Dive of the Bathysphere: As a child, I was fascinated by a TV cartoon called Diver Dan.

As you can see, my topic choices are influenced by what I want and need to write about. The biography subjects are just the way I present an idea I’m passionate about.

That’s why no two biographies are the same. Even when two (or more) authors write about the same person, each one brings something different, something unique to the process. A finely-crafted biography offers much more than a Wikipedia entry because, at its heart, is an idea the author has carried deep inside (sometimes for years). The author combines that idea with accurate research to craft a creative product that contains parts of the author’s story within the subject’s.

I write biography, not because of who my subjects were, but because of who I am. I wish each child in every classroom the same opportunity to discover their own interests, backgrounds, and experiences—to use their own stories to connect to others.

Barb Rosenstock loves true stories best. She’s the author of award-wining nonfiction and historical fiction picture books including the 2015 Caldecott Honor title The Noisy Paint Box, illustrated by Mary Grandpré. 2018 titles include: Blue Grass Boy with Edwin Fotheringham, The Secret Kingdom with Claire Nivola, Otis & Will Discover the Deep with Katherine Roy and Through the Window with Mary Grandpré. She lives near Chicago with her family and two big poodles.

Rethinking Your Book Collection

Take a moment to evaluate your classroom or library book collection. Do you have enough nonfiction titles? Experts recommend a 50-50 mix of fiction and nonfiction.

How diverse is your nonfiction section? Does it include a healthy selection of expository nonfiction? Experts recommend that at least 66 percent all nonfiction titles should have an expository writing style that explains, describes, or informs rather than a narrative writing style that tells a true story or conveys an experience.

(Why is it important to have more expository nonfiction? Because narrative nonfiction  appeals to the same group of readers who love fiction. Libraries need plenty of books for the 42 percent of students who prefer expository nonfiction.)

Sadly, studies evaluating U.S. classroom libraries show that only 17 to 22 percent of all titles are nonfiction, and that only 7 to 9 percent have an expository writing style.

While similar statistics aren’t available for school libraries, according to 2016 report from the National Education Association, only 61.9 percent of elementary schools have a full-time state-certified librarian/media specialist. As a result, it’s likely that many school libraries do not have a well-balanced, up-to-date collection. 

In recent years, children’s book publishers have published many wonderful picture book biographies with a narrative writing style. Because they’ve received starred reviews and won awards, they have ended up on bookshelves across America. Some students love these books, but others don’t. So to re-balance your collection in a way that makes sense in terms of student reading preferences and how the books can best be used in a school setting, I’d like to suggest striving for the percentages included in this table:

(This table assumes that your school has a makerspace with plenty of active nonfiction. If this is not the case, aim to add a bit more active nonfiction to your collection.)

 

What Is Literary Nonfiction?

Over the summer, I shared the Nonfiction Family Tree at conferences for writers and educators, and one question came up again and again: “What is literary nonfiction?”

And the answers is . . . it depends who you ask.

According to children’s (and adult) book publishers, there are two broad categories of the nonfiction market:

1. commercial nonfiction, which has mass appeal. These books sell well in mass market outlets (like Target and Walmart) and bookstores with a bit of crossover to schools and libraries.

2. literary nonfiction, which wins awards and is considered higher-quality writing. These books sell primarily to schools and libraries with some crossover to bookstores and occasionally mass market outlets.

When educators use the term “literary nonfiction,” they are (understandably) thinking more about craft moves than sales potential. According to The Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum (Heinemann, 2016), literary nonfiction is “a nonfiction text that employs literary techniques, such as figurative language, to present information in engaging ways.”  

Because nearly all current state ELA standards are heavily modeled after the Common Core State Standards (even in states that never adopted CCSS), it’s worth looking at that document too. It focuses more on types or forms of writing and lists the following as examples of literary nonfiction:

—some personal essays and speeches

—most biographies/autobiographies

—memoirs

—narrative nonfiction

—some poetry

—some informational picture books

(It’s interesting that CCSS differentiates life stories (biographies and autobiographies) from narrative nonfiction. In the children’s literature community, picture book biographies are generally considered quintessential examples of narrative nonfiction because they tell the story of a person’s life.)

As I was creating the Nonfiction Family Tree (which focuses on children’s nonfiction books exclusively and doesn’t include essays, speeches, letters, journals, textbooks, brochures, catalogs, etc.), one of my goals was to help publishers and educators learn to speak a common language, so that publishers can better understand the kinds of nonfiction books that ALL students want and need.

So my use of “literary nonfiction” accommodates all the definitions. It includes finely-crafted texts that tend to win awards, sell best to schools and libraries, and make ideal mentor texts. It may be narrative nonfiction, including many kinds of life stories (biographies/autobiographies/memoirs); poetry; or expository/informational books with a strong voice, innovative format and text structure, and rich, engaging language.

My other goals in creating the Nonfiction Family Tree were to showcase how diverse expository nonfiction is and emphasize how important it is to develop school and classroom libraries that include a diverse array of nonfiction books from all five categories. I’ll share more specifics about that on Friday.

Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep by Melissa Stewart

Last year, award-winning children’s book author Laura Purdie Salas wrote this wonderful post for Celebrate Science. I especially love this quotation:

 

“. . . there’s a common, crushing misconception that fiction is creative writing drawn from the depths of a writer’s soul, while nonfiction is simply a recitation of facts that any basic robot could spit out. The reality is very different. I think my personality, my beliefs, and my experiences are deeply embedded in the books I end up writing.”

When I posted a link to Laura’s essay on Twitter, the response was incredible. Dozens of nonfiction creators replied, “Me too!” Because I wanted to hear and share their stories, I’ve invited thirty-three award-winning children’s book authors and author-illustrators to post here on Mondays throughout the year.

Again and again, what you’ll hear is that crafting nonfiction involves much more than just cobbling together a bunch of facts. The books we choose to write and the perspectives we choose to explore are often closely linked to who we are as people and our experiences in the world. Nonfiction writers—all writers—have to dig deep. If we don’t, our writing will fall flat, and no one will want to read it.

Our passion for a project, our author purpose, is what drives us to dedicate years of our lives to a single manuscript. It spurs us on despite the obstacles and setbacks, and of course, through the inevitable criticism and rejections.

Today, I’m going to begin the series with the story behind Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers: Celebrating Animal Underdogs (illus. Stephanie Laberis, Peachtree, 2018)—a book that began on a chilly December morning in 2013.

I’d been thinking about and researching animal superlatives (biggest, strongest, fastest)—and then anti-superlatives (smallest, slowest, weakest)—for a long time, but I didn’t really have a vision for the book I wanted to create.

But, as I lay in bed, waiting for the alarm to go off, these words popped into my mind:

“Everyone loves elephants. They’re so big and strong.

Everyone respects cheetahs. They’re so fast and fierce.

But this book isn’t about them. It’s about the unsung underdogs of the animal world. Don’t you think it’s time someone finally paid attention to them?”

I jumped out of bed, ran to my desk, and scrawled those lines in my notebook. I couldn’t believe it. In one flash of inspiration, I had the book’s beginning and its hook and its voice. It felt like a gift from the universe, and it was.

But it came with a catch.

As I typed the words into a computer file later that morning, I realized that a dark part of my subconscious was rearing its ugly head. That creative hook, that unique perspective hadn’t come out of nowhere. They were born out of the severe bullying I’d endured as a child. Writing this book would mean revisiting some painful memories, and that scared me.

So I shut the computer file, and I didn’t open it again for 6 months. By that time, I had made peace with the part of my past that would drive the creation of this book. And I got to work . . . because that’s what writers do.

It’s hard to believe that the description of a western fence lizard’s hunting strategy could be autobiographical, but it is. I was a clumsy, uncoordinated, unathletic kid, so that little lizard is kind of my hero.

See how its “weakness” is actually the secret of its survival success? I think that’s an important message for kids because we all have our weaknesses, and I don’t think there’s a kid in the world who hasn’t felt like an underdog at some point.

In the end, Pipsqueaks is a book about animal adaptations and about celebrating the traits that make us different and unique. It’s my way of offering hope to children who are being bullied right now.