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From: uma at cyberport.com <uma>
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 09:40:31 -0700
I agree, most young readers don't glance at small-print backmatter, but they know it's there, and they can be taught to recognize it as a component of a certain kind of books, even if they treat it cavalierly and skip right over. I skipped over introductions to books in my youth, a bit like obits in the paper--good or bad, you grow into this stuff, right? I do know some visual learners who are riveted by timelines, maps, etc., and who do things like look at a timeline and compare it to the sequence of events in the story--occasionally my resident fact-checker belonging to this school has found errors my bleary eye has overlooked.
I recall reading Betsy Hearne on the need for documentation for one kind of nonfiction hasn't been discussed--the retold traditional or folk tale. She made the point (I'm paraphrasing, don't have the article handy, but I think I have the jist right) that in many ways, children's literature has become the last bastion of this kind of story, because who else publishes them for general consumption? And that if we want to keep these stories from becoming hopelessly bowdlerized, then the standards must include accurate documentation, explanations of where the retelling diverged from source material, and why.
Uma
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 09:40:31 -0700
I agree, most young readers don't glance at small-print backmatter, but they know it's there, and they can be taught to recognize it as a component of a certain kind of books, even if they treat it cavalierly and skip right over. I skipped over introductions to books in my youth, a bit like obits in the paper--good or bad, you grow into this stuff, right? I do know some visual learners who are riveted by timelines, maps, etc., and who do things like look at a timeline and compare it to the sequence of events in the story--occasionally my resident fact-checker belonging to this school has found errors my bleary eye has overlooked.
I recall reading Betsy Hearne on the need for documentation for one kind of nonfiction hasn't been discussed--the retold traditional or folk tale. She made the point (I'm paraphrasing, don't have the article handy, but I think I have the jist right) that in many ways, children's literature has become the last bastion of this kind of story, because who else publishes them for general consumption? And that if we want to keep these stories from becoming hopelessly bowdlerized, then the standards must include accurate documentation, explanations of where the retelling diverged from source material, and why.
Uma
-- Uma Krishnaswami Books, links for teachers and writers, FAQs, and South Asian children's lit resources at http://www.umakrishnaswami.com """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" One of the ways in which we cope with an overwhelmingly intricate world is to edit our lives into manageable narratives. [Margaret Mahy]Received on Sat 04 Jan 2003 10:40:31 AM CST
