Today I’m welcoming Jen Bryant to the blog. She’s written a
fascinating essay that’s a bit of a departure from the topic of this year’s
Monday series. As Jen points out, sometimes it’s important to break the
rules.
Before I was an author, I was a high school French and
German teacher and cross-country coach. (I was also a retail clerk, road crew
assistant, waitress, bank teller and picture framer—but that’s a story for
another day!)
In my language classes, I had students who adored the
fixed, predictable, (mostly) logical verb conjugations in our workbooks. They
completed not only the pages I assigned, but did extra ones that I didn’t. But
many other students loathed those same exercises—they did them, yes, but their
real learning and integration of this second language came through
improvisational speaking and listening activities. As a teacher, I knew that
both were necessary to further not only a “correct” language acquisition, but
also to foster a sense of ownership and ease—and perhaps even joy—in using it.
I share this because I see a parallel in writing (and
teaching) nonfiction. Adults often spend so much time defining and categorizing
our book genres, that we suck the marrow right out of the JOY, the lyricism,
the emotional connection that great works of nonfiction can offer to young
readers. Definitions have their place, to be sure—but when I write my
biographies for kids I am careful to keep the KIDS, not the adults (with all
due respect to the many adults whom I admire and love), in mind.
My research is deep and wide and very, very thorough. I’ve
dived into the bowels of art museums to view Lautrec, O’Keeffe, Wyeth, and Pippin
paintings in storage; I’ve visited overgrown gravesites and stood in abandoned
childhood homes; I’ve begged original document images from archivists; I’ve spent
weeks in cheap hotels and explored forgotten towns and alleyways; I’ve finagled
interviews from my subject’s friends, mentees, cousins, and children; I’ve viewed
countless films and listened to only a few less audio recordings; I’ve attended
plays and lectures; I’ve read thousands of articles, web pages, and books.
And once I’ve done my due diligence (which continues as I
write the manuscript—one is never quite “finished” with research), it’s my duty
and obligation to try to deliver the facts of my subject’s life in the most
lyrical and memorable way that my limited talents will allow.
Sometimes, this requires risks and even “gasp!” breaking
the adult rules and definitions. Here are two recent examples from
award-winning books.
I began The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus with
a death. The death of the subject’s father, in fact. And I continued to explore
the theme of loss and dislocation for the rest of the book.
That’s not a big risk for an adult biographer, but for the
author of a 32-page picture book for kids—it’s enormous. But it had to be done,
because it gets to the TRUTH of why the boy Peter became the Mr. Roget who
invented the thesaurus: grief, anxiety, doubt.
If you REALLY know kids, you know that they can handle
this. As one of my heroes, Kate DiCamillo, often reminds us, kids are, in fact,
grateful when you respect them enough to be emotionally honest.
Nonfiction sometimes carries the unfortunate stigma of delivering
facts over feelings. “You can learn from these books, but don’t expect to me
moved by them” is often the message kids get. I maintain that the obligation to
communicate the essence, the TRUTH about any individual, means going to deeper
levels of understanding and nuance than merely ordering a list of chronological
events and facts.
In my 2016 biography Six Dots, that meant breaking a
rule of biography—using 1st instead of 3rd person POV—to
do it. Every previous biography I’d read, including one I’d written for a YA
series a decade earlier, seemed inadequate in conveying the emotional turmoil
and sense of isolation that this brilliant, determined, courageous young man
endured.
As a biographer, I felt it was my duty to somehow invite
the reader to share in a little bit of that struggle—but also in his triumph. The
TRUTH is that Louis Braille had more courage in his TB-ridden teenage body than
most of us will ever have if we live to be a healthy 105. So, I broke with
convention and wrote it from Louis’s POV. In this way, I believed I could not
only share the facts of his life, but reveal the essence of who he was—and why we
celebrate him.
What I hope I’ve said well enough here, is that writing
excellent biographies includes both accuracy in research and artfulness in
storytelling. As Salman Rushdie recently said in his New York Times
article:
The truth is not arrived at by
purely mimetic [literal] means. An image can be captured by a camera or by a
paintbrush. A painting of a starry night is no less truthful than a photograph
of one; arguably, if the painter is Van Gogh, it’s far more truthful, even though
far less “realistic.”
Jen
Bryant writes picture books, novels and poems for readers of all
ages. Her books have received the Sibert Medal, two Caldecott Honors, two
Schneider Family Book Awards, and two Orbis Pictus Awards. She remains in
grateful awe of the amazing artists who illustrate her books and the patient
editors who shepherd them into publication. Jen lives with her family in
southeastern Pennsylvania.
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7 Responses
Unique researching, brings on interesting perspectives, creating spot-on thinking – all adding up to powerful PB Bios. Thanks for your post and your books.
I use The Right Word as an example of what’s possible in PB bios. Did you get pushback for your choice of opening or was it a harder project to sell?
I actually sold this by proposal, not a manuscript so the editor didn't see the opening until much later. She was fine with it, though, and of course Melissa's art made it accessible for young readers!
Thank YOu, Joyce!
I love those books. And I never thought of them as "pushing the envelope" – until now that you mention it. Going to read them again and take a closer look at how you tell the stories. Thanks!
Jen – I loved reading your thoughts about your writing. Makes me want to go back and read your books with fresher eyes. After a year off of teaching, I am back in the classroom with a 6th grade, and going to take them through 8th. I look forward to bringing some of your novels to them in 7th and 8th, and might even see if we can create a visit for them. I have several students who would simply soak up anything you have to offer.
This is great. Thank you.