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From: Roxanne Feldman <fairrosa>
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:26:56 -0500
Margaret asked,
I took a quick look of the past 50 years worth of Newbery Winners. Margaret is right that out of the last 10 years, we had 6 historical fiction as winners. And before 1994, there had been 3 or 4 out of 10 per decade.
One possible answer that I can think of is the sheer volunm of Historical Fiction titles published each year. I was struck by the fact that SOOOO many Historical Fiction titles were submitted to us when I was on the 2002 Newbery Committee. It felt like every other book was a Historical Fiction. Solid, established writers who used to not write HF's seem to start writing them -new talents who can tell really good HF's seem to be discovered and published more readily than new (or old) talents for other genres.
I took a look at the Feb. issue of SLJ and did a slow count in the FICTIONS sections -- only including titles marked in the range of 4 - 8 grades (either it's designated 2-4 or 5-7 or 6-9 .. roughly, 4-8, that's what I tried...) out of the 29 titles that fall into this range, 9 of them are historical fiction -6 in America, 2 in Europe, and 1 in China. So, it's not every other book, but every 3rd book...
I suspect that there is such a strong trend to publish HF's because it is somehow a "safer" investment -- there is a much sounder market for it than pretty much any other types of books for middle readers nowadays, due to the fact that many classrooms are using HF's in conjunction with the teaching of History. (The marriage of Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum definitely influences how fictions are used in classrooms.)
Do you see a new trend surging? With the HP success, there are more Magic books (not all can be categorized as Fantasy, mind you) published... I'm hoping that new talents that will give us text rich and profound as in the Earthsea, Dark is Rising, or Prydain series will be discovered and nurtured.... It's been a long time!
-- fairrosa
Received on Sat 15 Feb 2003 05:26:56 PM CST
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:26:56 -0500
Margaret asked,
I took a quick look of the past 50 years worth of Newbery Winners. Margaret is right that out of the last 10 years, we had 6 historical fiction as winners. And before 1994, there had been 3 or 4 out of 10 per decade.
One possible answer that I can think of is the sheer volunm of Historical Fiction titles published each year. I was struck by the fact that SOOOO many Historical Fiction titles were submitted to us when I was on the 2002 Newbery Committee. It felt like every other book was a Historical Fiction. Solid, established writers who used to not write HF's seem to start writing them -new talents who can tell really good HF's seem to be discovered and published more readily than new (or old) talents for other genres.
I took a look at the Feb. issue of SLJ and did a slow count in the FICTIONS sections -- only including titles marked in the range of 4 - 8 grades (either it's designated 2-4 or 5-7 or 6-9 .. roughly, 4-8, that's what I tried...) out of the 29 titles that fall into this range, 9 of them are historical fiction -6 in America, 2 in Europe, and 1 in China. So, it's not every other book, but every 3rd book...
I suspect that there is such a strong trend to publish HF's because it is somehow a "safer" investment -- there is a much sounder market for it than pretty much any other types of books for middle readers nowadays, due to the fact that many classrooms are using HF's in conjunction with the teaching of History. (The marriage of Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum definitely influences how fictions are used in classrooms.)
Do you see a new trend surging? With the HP success, there are more Magic books (not all can be categorized as Fantasy, mind you) published... I'm hoping that new talents that will give us text rich and profound as in the Earthsea, Dark is Rising, or Prydain series will be discovered and nurtured.... It's been a long time!
-- fairrosa
Received on Sat 15 Feb 2003 05:26:56 PM CST
