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Recognition for Nonfiction
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From: Loree Griffin Burns <loreegriffinburns_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2012 07:25:07 -0700 (PDT)
Hello, all,
As a digest member, and a quiet one at that, it took me some time to remember how and where to send this message. Assuming I do r each the list-serve, I hope you'll let me stand up, respectfully, and shout "No way!" to the idea that there is a "serious lack of great non-fiction" in our world, or that the "majority of nonfiction looks ... like 'report' b ooks rather than engaging reading."
I read (and write, for the record)nonfiction voraciously, almost exclusively, and I am startled by comments like this. The nonfiction books for kids that cross my desk (and my beds ide table; I read these books for work and for pleasure) are compelling, re levant, thoroughly researched, and gorgeous. To Richie's fine list of 2012 examples I'll add the two favorites sitting beside me as I type: Sy Montgom ery's TEMPLE GRANDIN and Phillip Hoose's MOONBIRD. These are riveting stori es--the sort of books a kid might read on vacation, as my 13 year old son d id with MOONBIRD--and yet each could be used in an academic setting as an e xample of fine writing, or as an invitation to consider a variety of topics , from the ways individual humans comprehend and interpret their world to animal rights issues (TEMPLE GRANDIN), and from food webs to geography to the biomechanics of flight (MOONBIRD).
An earlier poster said, in part "I don't think the blame should be placed on the committee members but rather on the major publishers who release only a token amount of nonfiction, poetry, traditional literature, etc." But if any part of that "toke n amount" is worthy of merit--and that very same commenter admits "we can a ll identify stellar nonfiction titles"--then the problem is not the amount of nonfiction being produced, but the fact thatthe stellar nonfiction title s are not being recognized to the same degree that their stellar fictional counterparts are.
I don't think anyone in the world of children's nonfiction wants non-worthy books to be promoted as stellar. I certainly do n't. But it does seem prudent to acknowledge the fact that there is a demon strated preference for fiction by award committees. This is not a judgement or a criticism of the award committees. I repeat, this is not a judgement or a criticism of award committees! It is a simple statement of the facts a s laid out in the lists of award winners and honorees.
The important question for me, then, becomes this: is there any way to address this pr eference so that nonfiction books are weighted equally? Because the best wa y to get publishers to commit to producing more nonfiction, it seems to me, is to get the nonfiction they are already publishing to sell better. And o ne of the ways that books sell better--particularly books of literary merit when important award committees proclaim them worthy.
All my bes t, Loree Burns
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Griffin Burns, Ph.D.
Author of: Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard(Holt, 2012) The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Houghton, 2010) Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion (Houghto n, 2007)
Learn more at www.loreeburns.com
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Received on Tue 07 Aug 2012 07:25:07 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2012 07:25:07 -0700 (PDT)
Hello, all,
As a digest member, and a quiet one at that, it took me some time to remember how and where to send this message. Assuming I do r each the list-serve, I hope you'll let me stand up, respectfully, and shout "No way!" to the idea that there is a "serious lack of great non-fiction" in our world, or that the "majority of nonfiction looks ... like 'report' b ooks rather than engaging reading."
I read (and write, for the record)nonfiction voraciously, almost exclusively, and I am startled by comments like this. The nonfiction books for kids that cross my desk (and my beds ide table; I read these books for work and for pleasure) are compelling, re levant, thoroughly researched, and gorgeous. To Richie's fine list of 2012 examples I'll add the two favorites sitting beside me as I type: Sy Montgom ery's TEMPLE GRANDIN and Phillip Hoose's MOONBIRD. These are riveting stori es--the sort of books a kid might read on vacation, as my 13 year old son d id with MOONBIRD--and yet each could be used in an academic setting as an e xample of fine writing, or as an invitation to consider a variety of topics , from the ways individual humans comprehend and interpret their world to animal rights issues (TEMPLE GRANDIN), and from food webs to geography to the biomechanics of flight (MOONBIRD).
An earlier poster said, in part "I don't think the blame should be placed on the committee members but rather on the major publishers who release only a token amount of nonfiction, poetry, traditional literature, etc." But if any part of that "toke n amount" is worthy of merit--and that very same commenter admits "we can a ll identify stellar nonfiction titles"--then the problem is not the amount of nonfiction being produced, but the fact thatthe stellar nonfiction title s are not being recognized to the same degree that their stellar fictional counterparts are.
I don't think anyone in the world of children's nonfiction wants non-worthy books to be promoted as stellar. I certainly do n't. But it does seem prudent to acknowledge the fact that there is a demon strated preference for fiction by award committees. This is not a judgement or a criticism of the award committees. I repeat, this is not a judgement or a criticism of award committees! It is a simple statement of the facts a s laid out in the lists of award winners and honorees.
The important question for me, then, becomes this: is there any way to address this pr eference so that nonfiction books are weighted equally? Because the best wa y to get publishers to commit to producing more nonfiction, it seems to me, is to get the nonfiction they are already publishing to sell better. And o ne of the ways that books sell better--particularly books of literary merit when important award committees proclaim them worthy.
All my bes t, Loree Burns
-----------------------------------------=
Griffin Burns, Ph.D.
Author of: Citizen Scientists: Be a Part of Scientific Discovery from Your Own Backyard(Holt, 2012) The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Houghton, 2010) Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam and the Science of Ocean Motion (Houghto n, 2007)
Learn more at www.loreeburns.com
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Received on Tue 07 Aug 2012 07:25:07 AM CDT
