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From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:09:35 -0500
Lisa, you wrote "People ask me this question a lot -- how do you make science understandable to young people? But what I'm actually doing is making it understandable to myself! "
I find your assessment interesting because something that I appreciate as an adult reader is how your books--and other terrific science books (and good children's non-fiction on any topic)--make the topic comprehensible to me. I love coming away from a science book for children knowing that I've learned something, as is most often the case. Even if I have a very basic grasp of the concept, as I did of evolution, my own feeling is that if the book excites and enlightens me (who has a hard time grasping technical and scientific information) it has the potential to do the same for children. And your style, which presents facts so artfully, in a sense echoes the poetry of the way our world and universe work: there is structure, which is in and of itself beautiful, but within that structure there is also room for so many surprises.
You also commented that, in writing the book of volcano poems, you ran into a problem because you knew "too much" about a particular volcano: "The first draft of the poems was too complex, too sophisticated for a young audience. I had to work hard to revise, to bring back that childlike sense of wonder that I certainly had possessed the first time I'd visited the volcano." Does this experience leave you feeling that, despite the research required, it may be easier to write a book on a topic that you are approaching with great interest but little knowledge (as opposed to one you already are familiar with)? Does your own need to comprehend and synthesize the facts make it easier overall to capture that sense of wonder?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, UW-Madison 600 N. Park St., Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
ph: 608&2?03 fax: 608&2I33 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Wed 06 Jul 2005 11:09:35 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:09:35 -0500
Lisa, you wrote "People ask me this question a lot -- how do you make science understandable to young people? But what I'm actually doing is making it understandable to myself! "
I find your assessment interesting because something that I appreciate as an adult reader is how your books--and other terrific science books (and good children's non-fiction on any topic)--make the topic comprehensible to me. I love coming away from a science book for children knowing that I've learned something, as is most often the case. Even if I have a very basic grasp of the concept, as I did of evolution, my own feeling is that if the book excites and enlightens me (who has a hard time grasping technical and scientific information) it has the potential to do the same for children. And your style, which presents facts so artfully, in a sense echoes the poetry of the way our world and universe work: there is structure, which is in and of itself beautiful, but within that structure there is also room for so many surprises.
You also commented that, in writing the book of volcano poems, you ran into a problem because you knew "too much" about a particular volcano: "The first draft of the poems was too complex, too sophisticated for a young audience. I had to work hard to revise, to bring back that childlike sense of wonder that I certainly had possessed the first time I'd visited the volcano." Does this experience leave you feeling that, despite the research required, it may be easier to write a book on a topic that you are approaching with great interest but little knowledge (as opposed to one you already are familiar with)? Does your own need to comprehend and synthesize the facts make it easier overall to capture that sense of wonder?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, UW-Madison 600 N. Park St., Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
ph: 608&2?03 fax: 608&2I33 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Wed 06 Jul 2005 11:09:35 AM CDT
