On the first page and in the backmatter of Ordinary Hazards:
A Memoir, Sibert Medal Honoree Nikki Grimes explains that her book is a product
of her memory and her imagination. She lets readers know that in
addition to the narrative verse, the text includes about sixty invented journal
entries.

For many memoirists,
it seems, what’s important is that the heart of the story is “true” to their lived
experience rather than completely accurate.

The first question
is: Are the students reading memoirs aware of that distinction? Not necessarily, so it can be helpful for them to read, watch, or listen to interviews in which a memoirist explains the decisions they made while writing. Students should also have the
opportunity to discuss how they feel about an author’s choices. What do they
think is lost when a writer deviates from true events, alters characters, or
invents dialog in certain instances. What is gained? What would they do
differently if they were the author?

The second
question is: Should memoirs replace finely-crafted narrative and expository
nonfiction in the curriculum? Because there’s undoubtedly tremendous value in
reading memoirs, perhaps they should be considered a genre of their own—not quite
fiction, not quite nonfiction—and get their own spot in the curriculum, like poetry. They should be read in addition to—rather than instead of—nonfiction.

According
to NCTE’s January 2023 Position
Statement on the Role of Nonfiction Literature (K-12), “With so much to offer young people as readers and thinkers,
nonfiction should play a far more robust role in the reading and learning lives
of young people in and out of school.”