Who could resist an invitation like this:
3 July 1872
Dear Mr Thayer,
Come be a brave good cousin, and face our heats and solitudes on Friday eve… and we will give you a cup of tea, and piece of a moon and all the possibilities of Saturday….
Your friend, R. W. Emerson
This sweet, quirky invitation was one of the first things I read as I began researching the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. And as soon as I read it, I thought, ‘I’ve got to write this book!’
Not that I knew what ‘this book’ was, of course—not at first. (It was only after months of reading and thinking and writing that
A Home For Mr. Emerson began to take shape.)
But from the start, I was inspired by this man who believed that each of us can create the life we dream of living.
Emerson, that was a life centered on friendship and home.
In his study, brimming with books and journals, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote many letters to friends far and near. Come to my home in Concord, he invited them. Come on the four o’clock train.
I love how Edwin Fotheringham’s illustration invites readers into Emerson’s home AND into a book about his life.
And this invitation sums up in a nutshell my sense of what a picture book biography is meant to do: to invite young readers into a new life, to meet someone they might like to know better.
If you think about it, all nonfiction for kids is an invitation. Here’s something interesting, a nonfiction book says. Here’s something you might like to know about. Come on in.
I’ve been lucky these past few years to work in concert with the other authors on INK, issuing invitations to kids—offering them through our books a “piece of a moon and all the possibilities of Saturday.”
And I’ve loved getting to know the readers of this blog, folks just as passionate about nonfiction as I am.
This is my last post on INK, brainchild of the amazing
Linda Salzman. The past five years have been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you, all.
This summer, part of my job was helping some 4thand 5th graders hone their skills at writing persuasive essays. This essay form is often seen on standardized tests and is the style kids tend to hate the most. The format must be strictly followed and the rules can be intimidating. There must be five full paragraphs: Introduction, Reason 1, Reason 2, Reason 3, and Conclusion. Yes, each essay must state three reasons and you have to write a full paragraph elaborating on each reason.
Boy, kids really hate this. Can’t you hear the whining now about how they can only think of two reasons? Even though the essays are usually about “kid friendly” topics, they’re not the kind of subjects kinds enjoy pondering, especially when faced with the pressure of writing five paragraphs in 30 or 40 minutes. Honestly their feelings about whether there should be vending machines in school or all students should wear uniforms is usually rather limited and their fear about if they will have enough to write seemingly never ending.
So instead of rote practicing, I used non fiction books to get them thinking. After we talked about the life experiences of a certain bird in New York City, my students had a much better understanding of perspective and point of view. And once we put those things together, their essays really started to flow.
I chose I.N.K. books about a bird named Pale Male, a hawk who chose to build a nest on a swank 5th Avenue Apartment building near Central Park in NYC. This was fascinating to city bird watchers because Hawks were rare in the area but it became a full blown news story when the ritzy apartment building removed the hawk’s nest because of the resulting mess in front of the building and the constant peeking eyes of the bird watchers with large telescopes in Central Park.
There are at least three good non fiction children’s books that I know of about Pale Male. The story and illustrations are a great way to introduce the concept of perspective. The hawks fly high above Central Park and the buildings, giving them a perspective to search for their prey, see the natural beauty of the city, and keep away from the crowds. In the trees or lower on the ground, they can be vulnerable to large groups of crows or people touching their nests. These books also open up a conversation about perspective’s cousin, point of view: what did the hawks want and need, how did the bird watchers want to help them, and how was this the same or different from how the people living in the apartment building thought about birds nesting there?
I ‘ve also found it effective to read two of these books and compare and contrast. What points of the story did each writer focus on? What were some details that were included by one writer but left out by the other? Are there any facts that were absolutely necessary in order to tell the story?
These discussions translated easily and naturally to the persuasive essay form. The kids began to understand that students will often see an issue differently than a teacher or parent or the Principal based on their point of view. They could expand their reasoning when seen from another point of view and based on whom they were trying to convince. Is the letter to a friend or relative? Lets talk about how you could have fun and do things together. If the letter is to the Principal, you can focus on reasons such as safety, health, learning, and community.
From my perspective, using non fiction is tremendously effective in helping kids expand their own way of seeing things and how others see things. This enables them to feel much more confident about their reasoning and, ultimately, helps them express that more naturally in their writing.
OR: What I did over my summer vacation.
I was asked to teach a Reading and Writing class for students in grades 3-7. This was at a summer academy renowned for it’s college test prep for high school kids. They wanted to start a junior version of their program for upper elementary and middle school kids; in other words, grab them early. As my only teaching material I was given a typical workbook with vocabulary lists and lots of crossword puzzles and word searches to supposedly make the rote memorization of words removed from all meaningful context fun, fun, fun.
Luckily I realized that no one was actually checking up on me and, thus, I could probably devise my own syllabus. I set to work, and quite a lot of work it was, to plan on using one nonfiction book for each day of class for eight weeks. Using the workbook would have been a lot easier but I just couldn’t make myself do it. So I worked quite hard to come up with an interesting group of books and worthwhile lesson plans built around each one. I certainly did not make a salary commensurate with the amount of time and effort I put in. But I did have a sense of satisfaction that I had saved these kids from a meaningless summer. At the end of the eight weeks, my tired and burnt out self believed we had all learned quite a lot from my classes.
As an example of what I did, I want to talk about one of my favorite non fiction picture books: My Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say. Even though this book won a Caldecott Medal for its illustrations, it’s the power of its few, well-chosen words that gets me every time.
The vocabulary is richer than one might think at first glance. I could easily come up with a vocab list that was appropriate and meaningful to ten year olds. Examples from the text: astonished, enormous, marveled, scattered, longing. We talked about enormous for a while. Was the feeling the writer evoked much different than if he had just used the word big? We all agreed the difference was itself enormous. We also considered the author’s somewhat unusual descriptions like “the lonely seacoast.” “How can a seacoast be lonely?” I asked. There were many interesting answers to that as well.
This non fiction picture book also has a plethora of themes for many more avenues of discussion: immigration, discrimination, family relationships, types of transportation and clothing, World War II, internment camps, etc. In terms of writing, we talked about writing in the first person. Some readers figure it out from the beginning, but for those who don’t it’s a joyful surprise when they understand the relationship between the writer and the story.
When I have tutored kids at previous times using this book, I have paired it with Susan Kuklin’s How My Family Lives in America.
This book presents three kids from three different cultures describing their everyday first or second generation family life on a daily basis. I ask the students to write about their personal family life in America, specifically focusing on how they feel the mix or pull of two different cultures. It’s a theme from Say’s book that has resonated with every single kid so far.
When one of the student’s parents complained to the director that the books I was reading with the kids were “too easy” I didn’t worry too much because I knew she was wrong. Some of the kids asked to read “thick books” because that’s what they were used to and identified as being at a higher level. But I stuck with my thin non fiction picture books and kept pointing out the nuances that made them more complex than they appeared by the size of their pages. In the end, I think they proved to be lean, mean excellent learning tool machines.
This summer I am working with kids in three different capacities and managing to use I.N.K. books as a teaching tool with all of them. My students currently range from age eight to eighteen and I am successfully using a mix of the same books with all of them. (More on this in September). It's interesting for me to revisit this post I wrote back in October when I first muddled my way to start using non fiction books in a classroom environment.
A few weeks ago I was talking to a group of Korean parents about the education system in America. The topic started to stray, as things tend to do, towards books and reading. I asked how many parents read to their children. No hands were raised.
I began pushing them harder on the importance of reading to the youngest children as often as possible. No one seemed very interested in my point of view. One father started explaining how he used WII games to relate to his children and encouraged them to explore their curiosity. He mentioned how he played guitar hero with his two children and now one of them was taking guitar lessons. Nice, but not really my point.
Fast forward a few weeks later. Someone brought in a Korean newspaper that listed the top 200 colleges in the world according to said paper. They were very intrigued that my daughter is currently attending their so-called number eight. “I would like advice on how my children can attend such a prestigious university,” the guitar hero-loving Dad said to me. “How can I prepare them for admission to this university?” he asked.
Hmm. We’ve already been over this, I thought to myself, smiling ever so politely. Didn’t I mention the importance of reading to your kids? What kinds of reading passages will you find on the all required standardized test including the SATs? Mostly nonfiction. What is the most important piece of writing a student will do before college? A 500 word non fiction piece about themselves commonly called the college essay.
I wanted to report back about my efforts to use non fiction texts with adult English Language Learners. Our attempts to use the latest technology were a total failure. Nonetheless, I figured out a way to do what I really wanted to do in the first place: use actual books.
I went to my library and found that I could indeed request multiple copies of books, as if for a local book group, if I gave them a couple of weeks notice. I also realized that asking my students to try to borrow a copy of a book was an excellent way of introducing them to their local library, practice their English a bit, and learn how to borrow a book.
I used a few different nf picture books and they were largely successful. One book that everyone enjoyed was, “Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds” by Paula Yoo. I think this worked for several reasons. It was at a reading level that was comfortable for the class, the subject matter of Korean-American was interesting to the students, and there were multiple themes to explore including discrimination, work-ethic, the history of the Olympics, and heroes. I even asked them to guess what the title meant. One of my third grade students had reasoned it out really well, but no such luck in this class. Go ahead and guess in the comments if you are up to the challenge!
I was surprised at how much these same students enjoyed Barbara Cooney’s, “Eleanor.” Although the language was a bit difficult for them, they muddled through, asked questions and really got an understanding of Eleanor Roosevelt’s early life. There was much to discuss here from her mother using the insult of “granny” to her lineage and family relationship with Teddy Roosevelt. We had an interesting discussion on respecting elders, family affection, and even alcoholism.
I’m keeping track of the books I’ve used and have already added a few possibilities to the list. Two of my students told me that they’ve enjoyed the books and have learned a lot. One went to the Museum of Modern Art to see some Matisse paintings we had read about. Mission accomplished; one reader at a time.
I’ve heard writers question the value of providing teacherguides for their books. Those who have tackled writing one themselves havelikened it to writing those old books reports we were forced to produce back inthe day. Other writers hire professionals to write their guides for them,almost always having to pay for them out of their own pocket. Still others havebeen known to accept whatever the publisher is willing to provide, without anypower to change them. I’ve never contemplated the value for the writer to providea guide until recently when I’ve found myself searching or guides to help meprepare my lesson plans. Now I ‘d like to voice my opinion on these guides—yes,yes, yes!
After a few weeks of cursory internet searching, it’s clearto me that not all teacher guides are created equal. The one’s on thepublisher’s sites tend to be the worst, meaning less expansive, including onlya few questions on the specific book and none on the topic as a whole. Fromwhat I’ve seen so far, those who hire “professionals” to write for them are ofa mixed bag—some excellent, some sounding like they copy and pasted questionsfrom previous curriculum guides.
But, boy oh boy, some of these things are really well done.I’ve found some gems that are well written, well thought out, and even, I mighteven say, thought provoking. One particular favorite was a full18 pages longand had it’s own table of contents! It talked about how this particular bookcould be used successfully in ever subject matter from science to art, itprovided projects to do in an hour and those to pursue if you had time over afew weeks. I immediately noted down several books suggested to read toaccompany their book and headed to the library to check them out.
I don’t know if this kind of guide sells books but itdefinitely provides a potential reader/ teacher with a reason to choose to readit with their students. It can be quite a challenge to know which book tochoose to discuss a broad topic when you only have time to read one book. Thewell written guides offer ideas on the directions a teacher can go in and, whenso many of the options are intriguing, it makes it an easy decision to choosethat particular book.
The more I think about it, the more these guides might bethe first place to start for one’s own writing. Visualizing how your book mightbe used by a teacher, what themes could be picked out and what activities couldgrow out of the ideas the book focuses on. Writing with these ideas in mind,perhaps the final product will have that magic marketing appeal that allpublishers are looking for. This couldwork if we don’t spend a lot of time fussing over the guide as a procrastinationtool to writing the manuscript. On second thought, I’d better stick withreading them rather than writing them for now.
The school year has finally come to an end and it seems fitting that I’m sitting here trying to find the right words, yet again. In many ways, it was a year filled with wondering about words—pondering over their meanings, finding just the right one, waiting to hear the one word that will change everything.
Teaching ESL students this year, I had to constantly think and double think about word choices and the power of which word we choose. “I’ll go for a walk alone” has a much different feeling to it than “I’ll go for a walk by myself.” While both might be correct for a given situation, the former implies a sense of solitude, and perhaps isolation, than the latter doesn’t. Does the subtle difference really matter? Is it even clearly evident? How far should one go in trying to explore the differences and when is it OK to just say, “either one is fine”?
Here’s another interesting example that came up in class. “My daughter is afraid of the darkness,” one student wrote. I edited it to “my daughter is afraid of the dark.” But when do we use darkness, she asked. Can you believe the best example I could come up with on the spur of the moment was Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” I might not have explained it well but perhaps I initiated a new Bruce fan.
I also spent an abundance of time this school year reading college essays and editing with a fine toothcomb. It turns out, the most important skill a teenager can have when applying to college is having a way with words in nonfiction. You have to be able to write about yourself and express a sense of who you are, preferably in 500 words or less. These words not only matter, they can literally change the direction of your life. Any college wannabes who had previously enjoyed a good nonfiction biography or memoir, certainly had a leg up in understanding how to create a mood, feeling, and image of the writer with their own words.
Most of all, we waited with my daughter to hear the words about her future. Although some of the letters said, “I’m sorry to tell you” there were also a couple of “big envelopes” that said “We’re happy to inform you” in our mailbox. But the wait for the one word from the one place she wanted to hear from continued. In the end, it was an email from an admissions officer that said, “you definitely still have a chance” that made me feel the full power of one’s choice of words. I knew “definitely” was not bandied about lightly and thus that one word filled us with hope. Two weeks later, I was thrilled but no longer that surprised when my daughter happily received the one letter she had been hoping for that began, “Congratulations!”
Know any kids interested in exploring words this summer? My supremely talented friend is running an amazing on line workshop called PLAY ON WORDS for kids ages 10-17 and it includes writing memoirs! And I will continue to help students find the right words to display their awesomeness in college admissions essays, so if you know any rising seniors that need help with this all important nonfiction writing, please send me an email (see address in the sidebar).
It’s hard not to think about Japan. The people, of course, but also the culture that became warmly infused into my life when my family lived their for half a year when I was a kid.
It will be a long time before the Japanese people can resume their peaceful, everyday pleasures of slurping their soup, folding a piece of paper into an elegant animal, or admiring the beauty of a bunch of rocks placed just so.
Crisis has a way of drawing people together, as does simply getting to know each other. Today I’d like to mention a few books that can help kids appreciate the multi faceted Japanese culture.
Japan: Over 40 Activities to Experience Japan—Past and Present by Debbi Michiko Florence
The ABC”s of Origami. Paper Folding for Children by Claude Sarasas. Beautiful illustrations, easy to follow instructions.
Honda. The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars by Mark Weston. Interesting biography of Soichiro Honda. Now I want a Honda motorcycle.
Old Japan. The Hands-on Approach to History by Andrew Haslam and Clare Doran. Carp streamers, kabuki theater, laquered bento boxes—fun.
Cooking the Japanese Way by Reiko Weston Miso soup, sukiyaki, and green tea—yum.
G
ames People Play! Japan. By Philip Brooks Pachinko Machines, Sumo wrestlers, and Japanese Doll Festival all in one book.
A few months ago, some research led from a whim to a tangent to a total irrelevancy until I found myself at the reserve desk of my library picking up eight books I had just requested on Mary Lincoln. “Oh, someone’s got a research paper due, I see” the librarian said to me. I smiled and I nodded. What could I say? Certainly not the truth—just obsessed.
How do writers find ideas? Well, sometimes they find you. And sometimes they won’t leave you alone. And sometimes, the subject begins to manifest itself in everything in your life and your family members can become a wee bit concerned.
For example, when you realize that your daughter is the same height as Mary Lincoln and her boyfriend is the exact same height as Abraham Lincoln and you think this is the most splendid coincidence ever. You then suggest, completely seriously, that it would be magnificent to locate a large hoop skirt and a stovepipe hat for them to wear. You don’t understand why they don’t look more enthusiastic.
Or you start watching the film version of an excellent theatrical performance by Julie Harris as Mary Lincoln. While viewing, family members stop by and become interested in the movie and watch for a bit. But you keep interrupting, figuring out what Mary is about to say, because you’ve already read most of her letters and you know what line must come next.
As you read more, you take a lot of notes. But you feel obligated to write out “Abraham” and never “Abe” having now read multiple times and feeling confident in the truth of the fact that Mr. Lincoln, and certainly not Mary, could never abide by that nickname. You wonder if “A.Lincoln” would be all right for note taking purposes.
People find some of your references to Mary amusing but certainly not all of them. They don’t seem as certain as you do that everything that happened between Mary and Mr. Lincoln is interesting or relevant to understanding how we think and feel about life in general. They think, perhaps, you might be seeing into things too much.
Then one night, you’re in a noisy pizza place with a TV on behind you and suddenly your daughter freezes up and looks like she’s seen a ghost. You turn around just in time to see them.
It's not a talking gecko. It's all about Mary. As with all good non fiction, you just can't make this stuff up.
When it comes to the joy of browsing, adults have it a lot easier. You know what I mean. Those precious times during the day you squeeze in reading what you want to, not what you have to: scanning the newspaper over the morning cup of coffee, perusing the school newsletter while waiting to pick up the kids, even checking out a months old ragged copy of People magazine while waiting in the dentist’s office (although I certainly wouldn’t know this from personal experience).
Kids, on the other hand, are told what to read. “Half an hour a night from your leveled reader. Yes, it must be that book. Yes, you must write post it notes to summarize what you read.” Read from the assigned book? Annotate? Yuck. All right then, do your assigned reading and then read for pleasure. Given how overscheduled kids are these days, not likely.
But kids love to browse. It’s a big reason they love nonfiction. Flip through a NF book and just enjoy looking at the photographs, quickly scan the captions, and then check out the box of interesting stuff next to it.
That’s a big part of what has made world record books, almanacs, fun encyclopedias, and books of lists among others, so popular in recent years. Read the parts you like, skip what you don’t. Seek out what interests you and turn a few pages. Start in the middle and work backwards—it’s all good.
Recently, more typical narrative nonfiction has been experimenting with changing up the standard format to tremendous success. Scrapbook designs like Candace Fleming’s
The Lincolns. A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary appeals to the browser in all of us.
Although it definitely has a chronological narrative throughout, the scrapbook style layout of information encourages reading the pieces that appeal to the reader. When the reader feels the freedom to pick and choose, the heft of the 156 pages no longer seems so overwhelming. A young reader is likely to not only enjoy this kind of read but retain certain bits of information that might have otherwise been lost.
So let's flush the format. Let's boldly allow kids to read what they want to. Let's actually let them choose. And publishers, lets change things up a bit and stop worrying about how one defines the parts of a picture book and look instead to what makes an interesting book. But you’d better start pre-ordering. Nonfiction will be in demand as never before.
As you can tell by reading Tanya’s post, she and the other INK THINK TANK ERS are all hard at work trying to spread the word that nonfiction books should be an essential teaching tool to transform teaching within the curriculum.
So while they tackle that behemoth, I’d like to point out that there are other ways that nonfiction can be useful. Truth is, non fiction been shown to be highly effective in giving children something to read that they find interesting. Kids can actually learn about something that is not a subject they are required to study in school. Yep, nonfiction just for the fun of it: imagine.
Below is a list of some nonfiction books I have read to a variety of elementary school classes. These had nothing to do with what we were studying on a given day. Some are historical; several of them mention underwear (a fabulous extra bonus). I read them as an extra treat, just for pure reading enjoyment. And the kids loved them. You can even try this at home.
Eleanor by Barbara Cooney
George Washington’s Teeth by Deborah Chandra
Leonardo’s Horse by Jean Fritz
New York, New York. The Big Apple from A to Z by Laura Krauss Melmed
Odd Boy Out. Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown
Strong Man. The Story of Charles Atlas by Meghan McCarthy
The Book of Time Outs by Deb Lucke
The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley
When I Grow Up. A Young Person’s Guide to Interesting and Unusual Occupations. by Jessica Loy
Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull
You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer! By Shana Corey
I can think of lots more. I'm sure others can too. If anyone would like more suggestions, just let us know.
This post is a repeat from November 2008. The issues remain quite up to date--
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
The situation is frightening. Teachers are being laid off, libraries are losing their state funding and choices are being made (in the great state of Texas and elsewhere) that negates the importance of reading, learning, and thinking to our society as a whole. The harsh budget cuts have been telling. In my town, for example, while the sports teams remain intact, the high school library does not. The school librarian has been laid off and they are removing the library books from the building. This is the decision made by the board of education in the name of doing what is best for their highly touted school with the motto, “A Tradition of Excellence.”
The overall outlook is indeed so grim that I was happy to have the chance to refocus my thoughts on my small little corner of the planet—a fifth grade classroom with eighteen 10 and 11 year old children. I was in charge of the classroom for two weeks; I concentrated on doing my best to get them thinking and stretching their minds in that short amount of time. I piled up my favorite nonfiction from my collection and then I went to the library and borrowed even more. I chose mostly books I had read by authors I admire. I knew they were quality books and I knew my students would enjoy them. Now I just had to figure out how to convince them.
At first, I selected a book for each student that I hoped would generally match both their reading level and their interests. I told them when they finished that book, they could come up and make their next selection from the heaping piles that I had placed on the desks. Then we engaged in a conversation about how to choose a book and going beyond the overwhelmingly favorite method of judging a book by its cover. Our motto become front, back, blurb, pictures, captions.
Well, I certainly got my share of begging, pleading, deep sighs, and eye rolling when I handed out the books. I gave the history buff a book on Barbarians and the girl who never stops drawing Jan Greenberg’s book on Vincent Van Gogh. OK, so far. But I got a long argument from one boy about how he already knew enough about Edison and wasn’t much interested in reading a whole book about him and I got the death glare from the girly girl when I handed her a book called, “Bull’s Eye” by Sue Macy with the picture of a girl with a gun on the cover. “You’ll like it. I promise,” I said as she sulked back to her seat.
Over the next two weeks we talked a lot about main idea, interesting facts, and nonfiction in general. We made a big chart to post the books they had read. They wrote the main idea down on post it notes and gave the book a rating. I’m happy to report that every book (except one about Pirates) got a good or great rating from the fifth grade readers. When I asked them to share something about the books they had read, hands were raised enthusiastically to be the first to share. Kathleen Krull’s “The Boy Who Invented TV” was a favorite among many. From Marfe Ferguson Delano’s book “Earth In the Hot Seat” one girl quoted statistics about how many cans of soda the average American drank in a lifetime and we were all duly grossed out. One boy was so enraptured by Jim Murphy’s “Truce” that I actually had to ask him to stop talking after a while and let someone else have a turn.
There were some great moments of book sharing and enjoyment. The Edison know it all wound up loving the book and explaining to everyone Edison’s role in the early days of movie making. The artsy girl read only the Van Gogh book for two weeks. On the last day she told me she had almost finished it last night but her Dad had made her turn the lights off and go to bed. And, yes, girly girl stood up proudly to share her new found love and appreciation for Annie Oakley. She even gave a great mock demonstration on how Annie used a mirror to shoot over her shoulder and behind her.
I loved to hear and read what the kids thought of their books. But more than that, I loved to watch them come over to the pi
I was really excited to be involved from the beginning with our Reading Club unit on social issues. I think discussing the variety of race, ethnic, language, physical, emotional and social differences among kids is critical for elementary school children. And I believe I knew an effective way to introduce these issues.
I had been waiting to fit in some of my favorite nonfiction books into a lesson and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I mean, who has more social issues than famous people? There are many excellent picture book biographies that talk about the struggles well-known people went through as children. As usual, it's better than the stuff people make up.
So I brought in some of my favorite biographies to share with the students. I introduced each book by talking about some of the social issues faced by the boy or girl in the book and then gave their name and what they had accomplished with their lives. It was a very successful strategy to get the kids thinking about these famous people as ordinary kids who all struggled with something. First I read Odd Boy Out by Don Brown, about a young boy named Albert Einstein. He had so many social issues we had a long list before we were halfway through the story. They were excited to see books about people they had heard of like Vincent Van Gogh and Teddy Roosevelt and intrigued by others I introduced to them with names like Dizzy Gillespe and Woody Guthrie.
They asked if we could read one more book. Taking a quick group vote we chose Eleanor by Barbara Cooney. After reading the moving biography of Eleanor Roosevelt's difficult childhood, I could tell the kids and I had a shared respect for her.
The next day I was pleased to hear students speak thoughtfully on both Albert and Eleanor when Mr. B continued the discussion on social issues. Reading about real people had opened the discussion to discrimination and prejudices on a more personal level. In other words, it had started them thinking. Mission accomplished.
I’ve been an apprentice in a fifth grade classroom for three weeks now. So far, there has not been a nonfiction book in sight. I don’t anticipate the next three weeks will be any different. As my understanding of the demanding schedule and curriculum requirements imposed by the district increases, so does my sense of the problem.
The students are currently completing a unit on realistic fiction. That means they are reading realistic fiction in their reading groups, writing their own realistic fiction stories in writing workshop and borrowing realistic fiction during their weekly visit to the school library. In other words, immersion as an educational approach.
While I can certainly see the value in this, I’m naturally drawn to what this leaves out. The school day is jam-packed and there is rarely any time for kids to just pull out a book and read. Half an hour of reading for homework is standard but, yet again, free choice within the boundaries of the literary unit. Is the average kid going to pick up a different kind of book during the week and do additional reading? I think we all know the answer to that.
Reaching for a good book of one’s choice. It’s so very personal and essential to foster a love of reading. We all know that kids love nonfiction and that, if given the choice, a kid will often choose it over fiction. Right now, in fifth grade, kids are getting their daily dose of nonfiction by studying reading comprehension passages for standardized tests. It seems like it’s come to this. Do we try, once again, to overhaul the imperfect system? How many voices can be heard? Difficult questions, to say the least. While we mull them over, I’m going to start small. But I’m definitely going to start. I don’t think I could teach any other way. I’ll report back.
The blog has started to bring me attention in unexpected ways. People have started to acknowledge the blog with awards and have been asking to interview me about how I successfully created the blog.
The question is confusing to me perhaps because of the simplicity of the answer. I had an idea and worked at it. I took a lot of rejection. I cried and tried a little harder. I kept working. That’s it. Nobody else was really interested in this idea at the beginning. But I was, so I gave up other things and worked at it. Now other people are finding it intriguing and inspirational as I did from the very beginning. But back then I was all alone.
This reminds me a lot of when my kids were little. I did things a little differently. I didn’t let them watch Disney movies when they were two years old, I didn’t buy them barbies or toy guns which all of their friends had. But I bought a lot of books. By the time they got to kindergarten, both kids could read very well. Parents asked me in astonishment what I had done. “I read to them, ” I said. No one had ever been interested in my child rearing approach before. I was the lone voice at playgroup in objecting to Cinderella. Now they wanted me to offer advice.
The lone voice has stuck with me over the years. Just last week I was sitting in an education class designed to train student teachers. The instructor was screaming at us in an angry, aggressive manner while explaining to us that it is essential that we remain professional at all times. Apparently I was the only one to see the irony in this situation or at least the only one to speak out about it.
Writing nonfiction has brought up many of these same issues over the last few years. I’ve felt like I have had a strong sense of what I wanted to accomplish, even if it hasn’t been done before. Yet while most of my rejections begin with “your writing is strong” it’s the inevitable “but” that follows that I haven’t been able to shake. I envisioned being outstanding in the field, but I now must admit to feeling only like I’m out standing in the field. I haven’t given up, not completely, although I have found myself on an extended hiatus over the last few months. I wonder if my new adventure in a classroom will bring any insight to my writing life. I’m anxious to incorporate nonfiction on a daily basis and see how I can play around with the curriculum. I’m fighting the urge to look up lesson plans on the Internet for some of my favorite nonfiction. I know the best thing I can do is to figure it out for myself.
I spent the last two weeks observing and eventually participating in a middle school social studies classroom. I worried, well in advance of course, that I wouldn’t know what was going on. I knew that I had to teach my own lesson at the end and I already felt inadequately prepared and clearly lacking in the requisite knowledge base. I grumbled at the thought of reading chapters of the dry textbook just to catch up.
Much to my surprise, there was no textbook in sight in the sixth grade social studies classroom. Mr. G. used videos, websites, handouts, and graphic organizers for his unit study on the Bill of Rights. The students got into small groups and each discussed a Supreme Court case which focused on a specific issue protected by the 4th or 5th amendment. Later in the week, students compared how their rights were different in school and out in the real world. Introduction of concept, comparisons, discussion—just as it should be. No one was asking for a textbook.
Even though I was never a boy scout, I always like to feel prepared. So I thought about the best way to bone up on my rights. Luckily I remembered Kathleen Krull’s book, A Kid’s Guide to America’s Bill of Rights. Curfews, Censorship and the 100-pound Giant. I had read it before but I reread it again over dinner during the first week. Concise, funny, and packed full of information, it was exactly what I needed.
So I couldn’t resist. I had to share. I brought the book in to show Mr. G and suggested it would be a great read for some of his students who wanted to know more. It turns out Mr. G. himself wanted to know more. He was enthusiastic and asked to borrow it; he said he’d read it during his free period. He taught the same class six times a day. I was skeptical that he’d really give up his free period to read more about the same topic. Indeed he did and he said he found some great stuff to incorporate into his lessons.
My lesson turned out to be on the basic setup of a courtroom. Easy peasy for this law school graduate. No review required. But, still, if anyone knows a good book on the subject, I’d like to read it. Because once you try to explain something to someone else, you naturally want to learn more yourself. And then to pass it on.
I’m taking an education class for people studying to become teachers. Assignment Task #1: bring to class six examples of award winning children’s books based around a theme. If I overlooked the part about the annotated bibliography, using APA format exclusively, and checking the rubric for possible point deductions, I could say this assignment was a no brainer. I headed straight to nonfiction, of course, and chose some of my favorite multicultural biographies without having to think twice.
Of the 22 or so students in the class, I was the only person who had chosen nonfiction books. Almost everyone chose the same themes: animals and family. I’ll admit that these topics are extremely popular with the elementary school crowd. But animals and family without nonfiction? How many times can a kid read about a duck that talks or a pig that flies without wanting some real information?
As any reader of this blog will know, there are a wide variety of quality nonfiction books on all aspects of these topics. But, as Levar Burton would say, don’t take my word for it. Go over to to the INK THINK TANK website to check out the database by subject.
I did notice that everyone in my group really enjoyed my selections. They thought my approach was innovative and they wanted me to present on behalf of our group OK, perhaps they just wanted me to get stuck representing, but at least they were encouraging. After mentioning my selection on MLK, Jr., one student started an interesting conversation on whether schools should be closed for the Martin Luther King day holiday. Another guy asked to borrow my book on the Negro Leagues.
I think I was making some progress. Perhaps even had a convert or two. Teach the teachers well. Even the newbies want to get off on the right foot. The students are sure to follow.
As Tanya mentioned in her August post, summer vacation for a nonfiction writer can be a goldmine of new topic ideas. New subject ideas ooze out of every art exhibit, bus ride, and brief conversation with a stranger. This summer was a little bit different. During our super special family trip to Italy, my senses were all thoroughly engaged but my thoughts went beyond my own writing. As I watched my kids explore a world they had become well educated about, it confirmed my belief in the delicious variety of subjects that could possibly appeal to kids.
My kids both study Latin and thus Roman history. They were especially excited to visit Rome and Pompeii, to see the actual historical sites that their excellent Latin teacher had discussed so engagingly over the years. It was fun to watch them read snippets of Latin on the old Roman walls and even on the sewer covers (there are Latin mottos on sewer covers? Who knew). It was the kids who had to explain to the rest of us non-Latin scholars the sordid details of what went on inside the Coliseum and why the Arch of Constantine was so significant.
The information they had retained was substantial. With that level of knowledge came both the interest to learn more and to share with others. Their excitement in explaining about famous events that had occurred right where we were walking was contagious. The Circus Maximus wasn’t really much to look at—a large field of dirt and grass in need of watering. But these kids could tell a great story about the chariot races that used to take place there and, despite the heat, we all gladly stood around for awhile so we could imagine what it must have been like.
Our trip wasn’t one big history lesson. The Latin scholars were also downright gleeful about the different flavors of gelato, the Pope lollipops, and the male body parts with wings souvenirs prominently on display at the Pompeii gift shops. So their answer to the question, “what was the favorite thing you saw on the trip” still came as a surprise. Even more of a surprise, they both had the same answer.
Their reply: the Appian Way. What’s the Appian Way? A road. Yep, just a road. Well, it was the main thoroughfare of ancient Rome, parts of which still exist today. And we went on it. My kids could hardly contain themselves. Because they were taught well. They understood its significance and the thrill of touching history was palpable.
Good teaching, like good books, can get to that place where kids can understand the importance of history. This happens easily when the focus isn’t on what they need to be learning but on how many different things can be fascinating to know about if you’re just willing to give it a chance. Children’s books need to take that road more often. We would certainly all be heading in the right direction.
At my last meeting with my writer buddy, all too long ago now, we began an interesting discussing on the nature and meaning of the hero in American society. She was exploring the idea through the endearing superhero loving main character of her middle grade novel. I was trying to understand why every time I started research on a new subject, I found heroic qualities in the most unexpected places.
Sports heroism is easy enough to relate to. It’s not difficult to admire the guy who scores the winning basket at the buzzer, hits the home run in the bottom of the ninth, or sends the champion down for the count with a swift left hook. Yet once you’ve spent some time getting to know these people, you quickly realize it’s their more human qualities that make them so appealing. Joe Louis was a dominating heavyweight boxer, but he was a champ to me for looking beyond the media’s portrayal of his opponent, Max Schmeling, as a symbol of Nazism and seeing a decent, hardworking athlete and friend. Hank Greenberg hit many amazing home runs for the Detroit Tigers but it was his willingness to stand proudly as a Jewish ballplayer in the 1940s that made him such a powerful guy.
Still, hero should not be confused with fabulous all around person who you’d like as a family member. It turns out a fair share of American heroes are some of the worst fathers you’d ever want to meet. Joe Louis was once at an event and didn’t even recognize his own son. One of Hank Greenberg’s sons stopped talking to him altogether after years of a strained, distant relationship. Even Jackie Robinson had such a difficult relationship with his son that he blamed himself for his drug addiction and early death in a car accident.
After researching all of these sports heroes, I turned to more historical figures. From what I already new, I wasn’t convinced I’d be interested in their heroic qualities. But then I remembered the common weakness I had found in so many strong men and I decided to start there. Thus my greatest discovery while researching became uncovering a popular, war-loving, powerful man of the 20th century who turned out to be one of the most loving father’s I’ve ever read about.
His name was Teddy Roosevelt. I read hundreds of the many thousands of letters he wrote to his children. His letters to his “bunnies” as he called his six children were sweet, funny, and endearingly personal. This was a man who knew his children and enjoyed being with them. Teddy was not the best athlete ever but he was an ace at pillow fighting and hide and go seek. Yes, he also happened to be the President of the United States but as Teddy himself once said, “compared to this home life, everything else was of very small importance from the standpoint of happiness.”
I had discovered a side to a man that kids had undoubtedly never read about. And I felt confident I could show them a fundamentally important reason to admire this famous hero. Research mission complete. Until the next subject.
This week we celebrate our one-year blogaversary! Presents are nice, of course, but what we’d really like are your constructive comments. Please leave a comment this week telling us what you like, what you’d like to see more of, how often you read the blog and how you use it.
In our second year, we’d like to push our boundaries even further. Our main objective is to foster more discussion. We will try to add more diversity to the voices you read here and hope that you, our readers, will join in. To this end, if you are a teacher, homeschooler, librarian, editor, parent, etc. who might be interested in writing a guest blog please send me an email at the address listed in the sidebar. We won’t make any promises but we’re open to hearing from people from all corners of the nonfiction for kids community.
I want to thank all of our I.N.K. bloggers for a fascinating year of blogging. I’ve had a sneak peek at February and March and I can say confidently that there are many more interesting things to come. Stay tuned.
It is a day worthy of grand celebration. Lets party the interesting nonfiction for kids way!
First of all, we’ll need some party hats. Paper Plate Crafts by Laura Check can show us how to make party hats using only paper plates. For example, you can never go wrong with a chicken hat. Note—I’m not certain the chicken hat is from this book; just another example of how creative you can be with a paper plate.
Food? Of course, we’ll let the kids cook some up themselves. Mollie Katzen’s Honest Pretzels should be all we need to get them set up on their own. With 64 concise, easy to follow recipes there are more than a fair share of snacks and desserts just as it should be.
OK, now what should we do? Lets play some games! Forget the Wii, we want games like when we were kids, with just a concrete sidewalk and perhaps a new pink spaldeen to amuse ourselves. Jack Maguire's Hopscotch, Hangman, Hot Potato, and Ha Ha Ha is an essential addition to fun party planning magnificence. From Red Rover to Marbles the games are all here. They don't all have the same names that I used to call them but I found some version of every schoolyard game I looked up.
John Lithgow is our kind of party guy. Lets invite him and have him bring a copy of his book,A Lithgow Palooza. 101 Ways to Entertain and Inspire Your Kids. We’ve paloozed quite a few times at my house. From charades to one man bands to poetry slams, it’s all great fun. And he even has sidebars that list “Good Books.” Now that’s thinking like an I.N.K. partier.
The best kids party game I've ever found is from a book called, I Saw a Purple Cow by Ann Cole, Carolyn Haas, Faith Bushnell, and Betty Weinberger. The game is called Cats and Dogs. We’ve played this game at my kids parties for years. It’s now considered mandatory by all of their friends.
Here are the instructions directly from I Saw A Purple Cow.
You need: wrapped candy, peanuts or pennies; 2 small paper bags or juice cans (one marked “Cats,” the other “Dogs”)
1. Hide the candy, or nuts or pennies around the room or yard before the guests arrive. (*We usually use plastic easter eggs. They're easy to find and can be purchased cheaply in large quantities.*)
2. Divide everybody into 2 teams: the Cats and the Dogs. Have the Dogs practice saying “woof woof” and the cats “meow meow”
3. Choose a captain for each team and give him his “team bag.”
4. At the “go” signal, everyone hunts for the hidden objects. When a player finds one, instead of picking it up, he must meow if he is a Cat or bark if he is a Dog, until his captain comes to put the candy into the “team bag.”
5. When all the goodies have been found, count them: the team with the most wins. The captains then divide the winnings among their teammates.
If you’ve never been to a party where all the guests are barking and meowing at once, you’ve really got to try it.
I Saw a Purple Cow has many other wonderful games, crafts and ways to explore the natural world. I love this book so much that when I saw a copy of it in the remainder bin at a library sale, I had to rescue it even though I already owned my own copy.
In the party spirit, I’ll send my library copy of Purple Cow to any I.N.K. reader who will use it well. Just leave a comment. If there is more than one person interested, we’ll have to think of a game to pick the winner.
Party on.
*Edited to add--looks like we'll be playing a party game! Please check next Tuesday, January 27th. I'll come up with a game and pick a winner. More party participants welcome until then.
True conversation overheard at dinner one night in suburban NYC.
Teen H.S. student: “I have to go finish my homework. I still have twenty pages to read in my history textbook. It’s the most boring piece of crap ever.”
Teen’s father, graduate of top academic high school in NYC: “Oh, you must be using the same textbooks we did.”
Teen’s younger brother: “Well, my history textbook still calls Russia the USSR.”
(names have been withheld to protect blogger from family's wrath)
What's with the boring, outdated nonfiction?
If we hope to successfully analyze how we can make nonfiction more appealing, our first step needs to be acknowledging what nonfiction kids are actually reading. Most school age children read nonfiction every night. It's true. They do their homework(usually) and they read their textbooks. The sad reality is this is often their only form of nonfiction reading and, it can be argued, a primary reason they don’t pursue nonfiction further.
As the above conversation references, we need to seriously consider textbooks as well as school and library editions-- forms of nonfiction that dominate the school environment --because this is how children are exposed to nonfiction. It starts early in kindergarten and first grade, where the classrooms offer less expensive, paperback library nonfiction. Then it’s on to textbooks which have been known to actually cause a child to loose interest in a subject. No matter how creative nonfiction writers get, the truth is that kids first and predominant exposure to nonfiction has not had any significant improvements in the last thirty years. Or is it longer?
I read an interesting article recently about a watchdog organization devoted to trying to help journalists approach their topics from a position of knowledge and understanding. Its goal is to find ways for journalist to become more educated on the subject matters they cover so that their articles have the depth and understanding of someone who is actually involved in education, the environment, politics or whatever subject they are writing about.
Perhaps children’s publishing could benefit from a similar approach. There is currently a lot of “we only do literary fiction” or “we publish solely for the library market” kind of isolating talk and behavior. Kids don’t break down their reading habits in this way; it doesn’t serve them well that the professionals do. If nonfiction is going to really push through the old barriers, we have to look at the bigger picture. If we understand what they read, required and otherwise, from an early age then perhaps we can understanding how to keep them interested as they grow older.
Kids today are still going to spend a lot of time texting and instant messaging. But it still might be possible to engage them with a new, improved old school kind of text.
On this Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, it’s hard not to think about Tradition. Queue Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof. Traditions and nonfiction go hand in hand. Sharing stories of our ancestors, learning more about our culture, our rules of law and how they differ are all part of nonfiction at its best: the sharing of knowledge and the exchange of ideas.
At my kids summer camp there is a fabulous storyteller named Chuck Stead who for years has kept all of the kids and adults alike riveted with his true stories of his childhood. Chuck’s stories are engaging and funny but they are also based in fact.
This summer of 2008 he told a story about his summer of 1964 in the Ramapo Mountains of New York. He was about 11 or 12 and the Beatles were on American radio for the first time. His sister had her first dance party and a girl whispered in his ear that she liked him. Heads from the very young to the very old were nodding and smiling in recognition. It was a great story we could all related to and enjoy on some level. The first thing my son said when it was finished was, “Do you think that was really true?” He wanted it to be true; knowing it was, at least at its core, made it that much better.
“For real?” is a common kid/teenager question because they really want to know. They like to know what the rules are and, if possible, why, so they can analyze them for themselves. One of my manuscripts focuses on this idea from the perspective of the American legal system. It’s a funny kid friendly explanation of contract law, believe it or not, how people can make deals and what the rules are to make them legal (still available to any interested editor, by the way). My son is absolutely fascinated by this. It was important to him to understand the rules. He memorized many of the overall points and then used his newfound knowledge to begin brokering solid deals over the school lunch table. Scholar of legal theory or part time hustler? Both have a strong tradition.
Being well read has definitely served my kids when it comes to dealing with their diverse group of friends. They've wanted to understand more about the headdress of their Sikh friends, the strict school their Japanese friends attend all day on Saturday, and just how much curry their Sri Lankan friend thinks is a "not too spicy" amount. Questions and curiosities about other people’s traditions are often more easily answered by turning to nonfiction books. Sometimes questions have seemed too personal to ask, but they felt comfortable reading the books I brought home about religions around the world and the cultures of kids in different countries. At least it's a good start. We still have been known to guess wrong about who will eat the pork dumplings.
So tonight, grab a crispy slice of apple and dip it in some honey. Share a family story—yours, mine, and ours.
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Terrific post, Linda. It seems obvious to us that the first problem a writer has is having something to say. You can't shove a piece of paper in front of a kid and say, "Write something" let alone asking them to "write something persuasive." The initial reaction to the blank page is a blank mind and then panic can set in, especially if it's for a test. In order to have something to say, one must be informed. This appears to be the missing link in many of the approaches to writing instruction. Even professional writers begin projects by reading and reading widely. Why is this missing from so much writing instruction?
enlightening!
I think it is much easier for children to understand writer's craft when they explore more than one text. It is a very abstract notion, and it is difficult for them to "see" the moves the author is making. But if they look at several books on a topic, they can clearly see the different choices that each author makes in terms of point-of-view, mood, organization, etc., as well as what is included and excluded across the texts. Linda, if you are interested, I can email you a PDF of an article I wrote in 2009 on using the Pale Male books in order to explore critical literacy in nonfiction books. We can compare and contrast techniques!
Sure, Mary Ann, that sounds great! [email protected]
I would love a copy of the article Mary Ann! I will be working with a group of teachers through the Boise State Writing Projet this summer who will be focusing on this issue. Hopenim not overstepping by asking! [email protected]