When the Research Doesn't Match Your Vision

By Lauren H. Kerstein

 

My guiding force as an author, creative coach, and psychotherapist is to lift up others and help them feel seen. In writing HOPE RODE, I was thrilled that I had the opportunity to share a story with the world that not only lifted up and paid homage to librarians but also highlighted the strengths of rural communities in Kentucky during the great depression. 

 

This story also gave me the opportunity to spotlight some incredible women— Eleanor Roosevelt and Elizabeth Fullerton— in addition to the tenacious and tireless librarians who rode 100-120 miles per week over mountains, through creeks, and down treacherous landscapes to deliver books. 

 

I even had the opportunity to talk about horses and mules.

 

It was a beautiful story and an incredible opportunity, until…the research didn’t support my goal of helping others feel seen. 

 

Let me take a step back to explain.

 

After hundreds of pages of notes and many, anmy interviews, I could not find an answer to the following question: 

Was the BIPoC community included in the Packhorse Library Project?

 

I hit dead end after dead end. And then… I found a picture and I thought I had my answer.

I was so relieved as I wanted as much diversity in the illustrations as possible. I wanted everyone to feel seen.

But something nagged at me. Why was there only one picture? Why couldn’t experts verify whether or not the BIPoC community was involved? I wanted more information so that I could ensure my NONFICTION book was accurate. I didn’t want to suggest the BiPoC community was involved, if in fact, they were excluded. 

 

So, I kept digging.

 

Enter Reinette F. Jones, an outreach/research/reference librarian in Special Collections at

the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on all things connected to African Americans in and from Kentucky. She told me the picture I found was actually from a Library Extension Program NOT the packhorse library program.

 

I was devastated.

 

“Yes,” she said, “libraries were and are incredibly important to the African American community. But “no,” she wouldn’t include any librarians of color in the packhorse program. It wasn’t historically accurate.

 

IT WASN’T HISTORICALLY ACCURATE.

 

I was faced with an excruciating choice. How could I help everyone feel seen if some were excluded from the program?

 

The following guideposts helped me decide what to do.

Nonfiction: I wanted to ensure my nonfiction book was just that… NONFICTION.

 

Facts: Facts have become more amorphous than I’d like in today’s world. I wanted to ensure my book included only FACTUAL information that I could reference because I’d cross-checked it with reputable sources.

 

Backmatter: I could use my backmatter as a place to address the BIPoC community and librarians in a clear and concise way.

 

Author Visits: I would have the opportunity to discuss this research dilemma with students in the classroom, not only to share my journey, but also to ensure each and every student felt seen.

 

Reality: The reality is that there are far too many heartbreaks in our history. Segregation. Racism. Discrimination. Hatred. Mistrust. The list goes on and on. If I were to suggest people of color were included in the packhorse library program, I would be contributing to misinformation, not highlighting the fact that these heartbreaks led to exclusion and lack of access.

 

At the end of the day, we, as nonfiction creators, are arbiters of truth. The research didn’t align with my initial vision, but it didn’t stop me from still highlighting these fierce, dedicated, and bold librarians who brought the gift of reading to rural Kentuckians during the great depression.

 

These badass women changed the world forever.

 

Perhaps, now, I need to take what I learned about the BIPoC community and Library Extension Services and write that book. Or share this knowledge with someone within the community who might want to write this important book.

 

Stay tuned…

 

But for now, I feel good that I remained an arbiter of truth as I shared what I’d learned about the packhorse library program.

 

Librarians are truly the backbone of our world!

 

 

About the Author: Lauren is an award-winning author, psychotherapist, creative coach, screenwriter, and NYT-bestselling ghostwriter. She is the author of the Rosie the Dragon and Charlie picture book series, Home for A While, Remembering Sundays with Grandpa, and Hope Rode. Additionally, Lauren writes books in her field and just released a book about emotion regulation. Lauren is one of the founders of #ReVISIONweek, a judge with Rate Your Story, and is a long-time member of 12x12 and SCBWI. Her writing goals are simple. Read voraciously. Embrace feedback. Grow each day. Work hard. Be passionate. Write courageously. Touch children’s hearts.

 

The Twelve-Sentence Story

By Lisa Amstutz 

 

Have you ever found yourself lost in the weeds with your nonfiction picture book? Maybe there are so many great details about your subject that you want to include them all! Maybe it feels like you’ve lost the throughline. Or maybe something just feels off.

Today I wanted to share an outlining method that I’ve found helpful in getting to the heart of a story. I call it the Twelve-Sentence Story. Each sentence corresponds to one spread in your picture book. You may need more than 12, depending on your book’s page count and how much back matter you’ve included.

Some people like to make a book dummy, which is also a great idea. However, this quick method allows you to see the whole story at a glance.

Start by numbering 1-12 on a sheet of paper (vertically). Write one sentence by each number summarizing what’s happening on that spread. Keep it brief—this is the bare bones version of your story.

Now read through your sentences. Is there a complete story arc there? Where does the conflict happen? Is it early enough in the story? Are there clear stakes?

Does the story build toward a satisfying conclusion? Is all the info you’ve included necessary, or does some of it distract from the main point? On the tail end, should your story have ended sooner?

Here is a sample outline from Full of Beans: Henry Ford Grows a Car by NF Ninja Peggy Thomas, illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham (Calkins Creek, 2018). This is a 48-page book, with 17 full spreads plus back matter.

1. Henry Ford made cars.

2. Mother encourages young Henry to help others; he tries.

3. Life on the family farm is hard—he looks for ways to make it easier.

4. The Great Depression makes life even harder for farmers.

5. Maybe he can create a new market for their products!

6. Henry builds a laboratory to test crops.

7. He finds the perfect food…the soybean!

8. Ford tractors plant 300 kinds of soybeans over 8000 acres.

9. Henry’s team creates soybean paint for Ford cars.

10. The team makes more car parts from soybeans and keeps farmers busy!

11. Ford eats beans…and even wears beans.

12. Ford makes his cars even beanier with soybean plastic.

13. He tests the plastic—it works!

14. Ford assembles the soybean car.

15. Ford shows off his new car.

16. WWII begins and the soybean car is forgotten.

17. But the soybean is not!

18-23. Back matter

You can see a clear arc here, from Henry's desire to help farmers to his eventual success at building a soybean car, and even more broadly, to helping create markets for soybeans.

You may want to try an outline before you start writing or wait until you have a draft down on paper. This method works for picture book biographies as well as other narrative nonfiction stories. It works equally well for fiction. And it can be adapted to outline an expository or concept picture book as well.

What outlining method works best for you? Please share in the comments!

 

 Lisa Amstutz is a literary agent with Storm Literary Agency and a Nonfiction Ninja. She is the author of more than 150 children’s books, including Our Christmas Tree Farm, Plants Fight Back, Amazing Amphibians, and Applesauce Day. With a background in biology and environmental science, Lisa particularly enjoys writing about nature and agriculture. When she’s not writing or agenting, she loves watching birds, hiking, and gardening. Learn more at www.LisaAmstutz.com.

 

Finding Story Arc & Structure in Non-Narrative Nonfiction

By Debra Kempf Shumaker

 

In narrative nonfiction picture books, like biographies or ones about historical events, the story frequently has a natural story arc and structure. Not that they are easy to write, but it’s pretty likely the author will work in chronological order, maybe with a flashback or two, and that the arc will build toward the climax - the subject’s invention or big moment in history. There are exceptions to this, of course, but narrative nonfiction frequently has that built-in arc.

For science-based nonfiction, I found finding a story arc more difficult. With both Freaky, Funky Fish and Peculiar Primates—rhyming nonfiction books about strange and odd adaptations—I decided to end on a nighttime scene to provide a subtle arc.

Several years ago, I wanted to take some drafts of poems I wrote about the wind and make a picture book out of them. Finding a structure and arc proved to be really challenging. Just stringing the poems together felt disjointed. I wanted something to tie the poems together with an opening and closing that made it FEEL like a picture book vs. an anthology of poems.

Looking back at my computer folder of my many, many file names for this wind manuscript, you can see I tried a huge variety of ways to find that “something”, that structure and arc:

•    Wind by Location

•    Wind Season

•    Wind Mood

•    Wind Story

•    Wind Dance

•    Wind Blow

•    Wind Can Be

•    Wind Is Riddle

•    Dance of Air

•    Stripped Down

•    Wind Is

With each attempt, I revised and polished the poems—adding poems, taking them out, adding them in again, and drafting different openings and closings based on the structure I was attempting. A few drafts in, I realized that the poems where I used metaphors to describe different types of wind—wind is a butterfly, wind is a boxer—were my strongest and soon I rewrote every poem as a metaphor and added new ones. Fun, but challenging!

One of the metaphors from my initial set of poems was a general poem about what wind is instead of poem about a specific wind. It read:

The wind is a dance of air.

Warm air steps up and then floats high.

Cold air steps in and stays down low.

Up, in. Up, in.

Sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

As I played with different structures, I frequently deleted that “dance of air” poem but found I kept putting it back in. Finally lightning (or windstorm?) struck—wind as a dance of air could be the overarching metaphor and my opening! Transition lines about the dance of air getting faster and stronger gave me the arc I needed. By progressing the winds by speed, it gave the story a climax point. Finally, my set of poems FELT like a picture book. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it wasn’t during the process, LOL.

Here is that revised poem used as my opening:

 

While this story took me years to find the right structure, every draft I wrote and every structure I tried gave me new insight into finally finding the story I wanted to tell.

If you’re struggling on a nonfiction project’s structure or arc, take some time to play! Brainstorm different ways you could tie the information together. Try them all. You might be surprised at what works.

Take a look, too, at recent non-narrative nonfiction books. Not every one of them has an arc, but many do. They may be subtle. Here are a list of a few and their arc:

By size, getting smaller:

•  Meet the Mini-Mammals: A Night at the Natural History Museum written by Melissa Stewart, illustrated by Brian Lies.

By depth, going deeper:

•  Scratching the Surface: Exploring Earth's Layers written by Kate Allen Fox, illustrated by Erin Brown.

•  Deep, Deep Down: The Secret Underwater Poetry of the Mariana Trench written by Lydia Lukidis, illustrated by Juan Calle.

Span of time:

•  I Am We: How Crows Come Together to Survive written by Leslie Barnard Booth, illustrated by Alexandra Finkeldey. (Dusk to dawn.)

•  When Twilight Comes: The Animals and Plants That Bring Dawn and Dusk to Life written by Marcie Flinchum Atkins, illustrated by Michelle Morin. (Dawn progressing to light and dusk progressing to dark.) Publishing in March!

If any of you wrote a non-narrative nonfiction book, I’d love to hear in the comments if you have an arc and how you found it!

Debra Kempf Shumaker loves weird and fascinating facts. When she isn’t reading or writing, she enjoys hiking, gardening, setting puzzles, and watching Jeopardy. She writes from her home in Northern Virginia and is the author of several nonfiction  and concept picture books, including Wind Is a Dance, an NCTE 2025 Notable Book in Poetry. Her first fiction picture book—Sunday Scaries—hits shelves August 4th. Fire Is a Chorus, a companion to Wind Is a Dance, will be published in Spring 2027.