I like to compare my role as a nonfiction
author to being a museum curator. I think this analogy can help young readers
understand that narrative nonfiction isn’t a mix of facts and made-up stuff,
and it also differs from informational fiction. (Books with made-up characters
or dialogue that may have informational elements.)

While many students haven’t had the chance to
visit a museum in person, most museums have online exhibitions. It’s easy,
then, to pull up an exhibit page on, say, dinosaurs and ask: What kind of information would you expect to
find here? Do you expect the label on
a dinosaur fossil to be accurate? Do you want to know where the facts came
from?

No kid who’s an expert on dinosaurs (and we
know there are many) will have much tolerance for made-up stuff. In the same
way, narrative nonfiction holds to the standards we expect of museum curators: meticulous
fact-checking, an engaging visual presentation, and deep, informed research.

Like the best museum exhibits, narrative
nonfiction illuminates events, artifacts, artwork, or people’s lives. These
books engage and involve us.

Just as we may move from room to room in a
museum, narrative nonfiction can sweep us along on a narrative journey. Controversies
are explored; different viewpoints aired. This isn’t to say museums are always
right. But when a museum has made a mistake or needs to reinterpret the past, the
best ones address these issues and try to do better. And writers should too.

A stellar museum exhibition can be a truly
memorable experience that helps us think about the world in new ways. That’s
what I aspire to in writing narrative nonfiction.

I also try to make the writing and research
process transparent. During virtual or in-person author visits, I work with
students to interrogate photographs and primary source documents. While
students devour facts eagerly, many don’t yet have finely honed historical
thinking skills: close reading, sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization.

I believe these skills are built over time, and
narrative nonfiction is a fabulous genre to help readers develop them.

And that brings us back to the catapulted
corpses.

I was fortunate to have medieval specialist Dr.
Lori Jones as the academic reader for The
Deadliest Diseases. Dr. Jones critiqued my draft and also provided access to new
research, including a then-unpublished paper by Dr. Hannah Barker. Dr. Barker’s
research is reshaping the familiar story of plague—and shedding doubt on that
often-told story of the corpses.

But rather than get rid of the corpse story after I’d gotten comments
from Dr. Jones and read Dr. Barker’s analysis, I decided to try to incorporate
the process into the book. For example, with Dr. Jones’s permission, I included
excerpts from her emails and explained how her expertise improved and changed
my draft. I shared how Dr. Barker used close reading of primary sources like grain
shipping records and reports from diplomats living around the Black Sea—reports
than never mentioned catapulted corpses.

Then we explored how Dr. Barker’s close reading reveals a much less
dramatic but far more likely scenario. The lifting of grain embargoes after the
siege brought grain and plague-infected rats and their fleas into Kaffa, and then
onto ships bound for Italy.

Now, what happened in the fourteenth century may not matter much to
young readers. But what does matter is their ability to interrogate sources, ask
questions, corroborate facts, and be open to changing their minds. 

I write narrative nonfiction for young people who will grow up to face challenges
as daunting and consequential as any in human history. I hope my books help
inspire empathy for the past, and give young readers some of the tools they
will need in the future.

Deborah
Hopkinson is an award-winning author of picture books,
middle grade historical fiction, and nonfiction. Her new books include
the Deadliest series, picture books The Story of a
Story and Only One, and My Little Golden Books on
Dolly Parton and Betty White. Deborah connects with readers on
Zoom from her home in Oregon. Follow her on Twitter:
@deborahopkinson or Instagram @deborah_hopkinson.