On Monday, I shared an expository passage about some amazing deep-sea
critters called bone-eating snot flower worms from my upcoming book Ick!
Delightfully Disgusting Animal Dinners, Dwellings, and Defenses and talked
a little bit about the process of writing that book.
Today, we’re going to continue our discussion of the differences between
narrative and expository nonfiction by looking at two consecutive spreads from
Michelle Cusolito’s wonderful book Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea
Submersible ALVIN, illustrated by Nicole Wong. And then, Michelle is going
to share how and why she chose to use a narrative writing style (which tells a
story or conveys an experience) for this book.
Here are two
consecutive spreads from Flying Deep:
Like the
bone-eating snot flower worms I described on Monday, these deep-sea denizens
are nothing like the creatures we see on land. The environment is so exotic
that young readers can’t help but be intrigued.
Let’s take a closer look at Michelle’s fascinating narrative scene:
A desolate
landscape stretches before you.
Soar along
sloping mounds
of cooled lava.
Like a puppeteer,
use the miniature arm inside
to control the large arm outside.
Grasp a piece of glassy rock.
Movement
out the starboard porthole
catches your eye.
A ghost crab!
Could there be more?
Watch for jutting vent chimneys
as you tunnel through darkness.
Eerie spired loom.
Black smokers blast
scalding water
and poisonous, sooty particles
from deep inside Earth.
shimmering water swirls.
Pompeii worms,
like sausages sporting dreadlocks,
move in and out of tubes.
Dinner-plate-sized clams
Giant tubeworms’
feathery plumes sway.
the blooming oasis.
thee vigor and varietyof life is breathtaking.
Notice
Michelle’s use of second-person narration, similes and metaphors, and precise
word choice. She varies sentence length to build drama, and her imagery is spot
on. The craftmanship behind this book is undeniable.
says Michelle, “you need the basics of a story: beginning, middle, and end. Biographies
tend to have this built in, but many STEM topics will not work in a
narrative style.”
world beneath the waves (which has a built-in story arc), Michelle found her
way to a narrative style. Here’s the backstory:
line popped into my head. ‘Imagine you’re the pilot of Alvin, a submersible
barely big enough for two.’ (Note: it fits three. My memory was wrong.)
reached to my back pocket for my notebook, but I had forgotten it. [Luckily] it
dawned on me that I had another tool in my pocket I could use—a smart phone
with a Notes app. I sat down beside a pond to type that first sentence and more
came flooding out. I typed wildly, with one finger, trying to capture
everything.
later, I had a 500-word draft. [By] putting the kid reader in the pilot seat
for a typical dive day, I had found the heart and structure of my story.
of a dive day [a narrative with a sequence text structure], many of the
decisions were made for me . . . so I was able to [focus on] word choice and
rhythm.”
comparing this response from Michelle to my comments on Monday (scroll down to
read them), we can begin to identify patterns underlying an author’s decision to
use either expository or narrative nonfiction in STEM-themed books.
nonfiction is the best choice for books that explain or describe widely-accepted science knowledge or concepts, while
narrative nonfiction is a better choice for titles that focus of the role of
humans in making scientific discoveries. Narratives can explore how
scientists carry out investigations or the nature of scientific
inquiry.
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One Response
The best lines come on walks (or in the shower!). Loved reading this story behind the story!!