From: Barbara Tobin <barbarat>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 23:26:06 -0400

I felt privileged to attend the presentation of the Charlotte Zolotow Awards in New York a few days ago. Bravo to the CCBC for putting on such a warm and wonderful evening at the very elegant Algonquin Hotel. Ginny's tribute to William Morris was very moving.

I enjoyed browsing through the honored picture books for very young readers, and with our month's topic of historical fiction drawing rapidly to a close, I got to wondering at how young an age can historically themed picture books be meaningful? What types of historical treatment might be successful for the pre-K set, and in what context? (story time? parent lap time?). Perhaps stories relating to the child's relatives and ancestry?

What are your thoughts, authors and storytellers? Are there some picture books of historical fiction that you have personally found satisfying and understandable to our youngest readers? Or is this genre best left to school age children, where they might have the support of the social studies curriculum?

        Barbara Tobin
Received on Thu 27 May 2004 10:26:06 PM CDT