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How Much Truth in Picture Book Biographies?
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From: K.T. Horning <horning_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:52:23 -0600
I've very much appreciated the discussion here. In these times, it's easy to forget that we can disagree and still be civil and respectful.
I'd like to raise a specific concern based on a personal scenario I shared with my friend Betty Carter several years ago. I was speaking on the phone to my sister one Saturday in mid February, and I could hear her four-year-old son Jack crying in the background. I asked her if everything was okay with him, and she assured me that it was, but that his dad had just read him a picture-book biography of Abraham Lincoln that he'd brought home from the school library, and they had just gotten to the part where Lincoln was assassinated. "Poor Jack!" I said, and my sister replied "I know! And he had just gotten over Martin Luther King."
I mentioned this to Betty Carter when I next saw her, since I know her to be an expert on nonfiction, and she said that it used to be that biographies about Lincoln for young children omitted details of his assassination. "You have to wonder," said Betty, "what the point is of introducing a historical figure and lifting him up as a hero, only to shoot him down on page 32."
Betty's question has stayed with me, and I'd like to turn it over to you all. If a picture book biography of Lincoln or King (or JFK or Malcolm X, for that matter) omitted his assassination, would it be acceptable by today's standards?
KT
-- Kathleen T. Horning Director Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 N. Park St Madison, WI 53706 http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc horning_at_education.wisc.edu 608-263-3721 (phone) 608-262-4933 (fax)
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2011 08:52:23 AM CST
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:52:23 -0600
I've very much appreciated the discussion here. In these times, it's easy to forget that we can disagree and still be civil and respectful.
I'd like to raise a specific concern based on a personal scenario I shared with my friend Betty Carter several years ago. I was speaking on the phone to my sister one Saturday in mid February, and I could hear her four-year-old son Jack crying in the background. I asked her if everything was okay with him, and she assured me that it was, but that his dad had just read him a picture-book biography of Abraham Lincoln that he'd brought home from the school library, and they had just gotten to the part where Lincoln was assassinated. "Poor Jack!" I said, and my sister replied "I know! And he had just gotten over Martin Luther King."
I mentioned this to Betty Carter when I next saw her, since I know her to be an expert on nonfiction, and she said that it used to be that biographies about Lincoln for young children omitted details of his assassination. "You have to wonder," said Betty, "what the point is of introducing a historical figure and lifting him up as a hero, only to shoot him down on page 32."
Betty's question has stayed with me, and I'd like to turn it over to you all. If a picture book biography of Lincoln or King (or JFK or Malcolm X, for that matter) omitted his assassination, would it be acceptable by today's standards?
KT
-- Kathleen T. Horning Director Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) 4290 Helen C. White Hall 600 N. Park St Madison, WI 53706 http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc horning_at_education.wisc.edu 608-263-3721 (phone) 608-262-4933 (fax)
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2011 08:52:23 AM CST
