From: Smithhemb at aol.com <Smithhemb>
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 16:46:45 EST

In a message dated 1/2/2003 4:23:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, melyons at adelphia.net writes:


I couldn't agree more. Last year's Countdown to Independence is an excellent example of a childrens' book that seemed to be critically acclaimed, in part, for its use of scholarly apparatus, yet, as a specialist in the subject area, I can attest that the research is woefully out of date -- despite the fact that the bibliography is lengthy and claims are properly footnoted.

My take is that the primary functions that documentation should serve in childrens' non-fiction are enticing children to pursue a subject in more depth and pointing them in the direction of useful sources. Those aren't the functions that documentation serves in various forms of scholarly writing
(and those functions vary from discipline to discipline and from genre to genre).

I'm delighted by the prospect of higher standards for childrens' non-fiction, but I think it's important not to mistake form for substance here. The goal
(I'd hope) isn't more and better footnotes and bibliographies, but more books that treat children as readers who are capable of forming opinions about interpretive controversies, who can and should evaluate the sources of the things they read, and who might/should want to read more than one book about a topic before they decide what they think.

Sue Hemberger Washington, DC
Received on Thu 02 Jan 2003 03:46:45 PM CST