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Creative Nonfiction
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From: Ellen Loughran <ellen.loughran>
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 06:40:37 -0400
This is an interesting topic. In nonfiction for children and young adults - creative or not, I expect the author to give the same literary respect that would be afforded to adults. I want young readers to experience accuracy in factual matters, dialogue that can be documented, and a text that may benefit from source notes but that doesn't need background notes. Also, explanatory notes at the back of a book would explain sources, writing or the author's point of view.
There is a trend in publishing nonfiction books for children that I find disturbing. I think this tendency is related to the interpretation of the phrase "creative nonfiction". It occurs when there is an entertaining "nonfiction" text, with the nut of the information about the topic at the end of the book in the form of a background note. Since the meat of nonfiction is information, that information should be in the body of the text. I wish authors and editors who feel that extensive information needs to be provided in notes at the end of a nonfiction book would ask themselves two questions. Do they think that the children who read the body of the text will be able to read the background notes? Is the information presented in the background notes important enough to be published for this age level? If the answers to either question is yes, then that information should be integrated into the text, not relegated to an area which may very well be skipped.
I must also weigh in on the side of the footnote/sourcenote advocates. I am a footnote freak. Two of my favorite adult books from the 1990's, one fiction and one nonfiction, had copious footnotes. Susan Faludi's
"Backlash" was the most intensely footnoted non-scholarly work I have every read; while, in Randall Kenan's "Let the Dead Bury their Dead", the author not only invents a town with all its diversity of characters, but an entire "faux" historical documentation for the town. I loved both. I think that footnotes or sourcenotes (not background notes) can be unobtrusive, placed at the end of the book for the delectation of all of those who enjoy them. Such notes may not appeal to all, but to some of us they add dimension and amusement to an already pleasurable experience.
Ellen Loughran
Received on Wed 10 Apr 2002 05:40:37 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 06:40:37 -0400
This is an interesting topic. In nonfiction for children and young adults - creative or not, I expect the author to give the same literary respect that would be afforded to adults. I want young readers to experience accuracy in factual matters, dialogue that can be documented, and a text that may benefit from source notes but that doesn't need background notes. Also, explanatory notes at the back of a book would explain sources, writing or the author's point of view.
There is a trend in publishing nonfiction books for children that I find disturbing. I think this tendency is related to the interpretation of the phrase "creative nonfiction". It occurs when there is an entertaining "nonfiction" text, with the nut of the information about the topic at the end of the book in the form of a background note. Since the meat of nonfiction is information, that information should be in the body of the text. I wish authors and editors who feel that extensive information needs to be provided in notes at the end of a nonfiction book would ask themselves two questions. Do they think that the children who read the body of the text will be able to read the background notes? Is the information presented in the background notes important enough to be published for this age level? If the answers to either question is yes, then that information should be integrated into the text, not relegated to an area which may very well be skipped.
I must also weigh in on the side of the footnote/sourcenote advocates. I am a footnote freak. Two of my favorite adult books from the 1990's, one fiction and one nonfiction, had copious footnotes. Susan Faludi's
"Backlash" was the most intensely footnoted non-scholarly work I have every read; while, in Randall Kenan's "Let the Dead Bury their Dead", the author not only invents a town with all its diversity of characters, but an entire "faux" historical documentation for the town. I loved both. I think that footnotes or sourcenotes (not background notes) can be unobtrusive, placed at the end of the book for the delectation of all of those who enjoy them. Such notes may not appeal to all, but to some of us they add dimension and amusement to an already pleasurable experience.
Ellen Loughran
Received on Wed 10 Apr 2002 05:40:37 AM CDT
