Making the Hard Stuff (look) Easy

By Cynthia Levison

Writing nonfiction for kids is an act of translation. Doing the background research—interviewing scientists, visiting museums, reading a subject’s diaries, etc.—is thrilling. But the trick is to convert some of what you’ve learned into a book with kid-appeal (and editor-glee). This task is especially challenging when the material is technical, conceptual or just plain tough. How do top-of-their-game nonfiction writers pare the mountain of evidence they’ve amassed and channel what’s left into text and illustrations that are comprehensible and meaningful? Here are some approaches.

1. Keep it basic. Hardly anything could be more technically complex than physics (at least for me). In the picture book On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein (Chronicle Books), author Jennifer Berne and illustrator Vladimir Radunsky draw in readers with an opening sentence that moves from the universal (“as the stars swirled in the sky”) to the familiar (“as the Earth circled the sun”) to the particular (“as the March winds blew through a little town by a river”) to the personal (“a baby boy was born”). Then, rather than delve into mechanics, they simplify the concept of light by focusing on a beam on which little Albert rides a bicycle!

In the philosophical realm, Paige Britt, with Sean Qualls and Salina Alko, accomplish the same magic with the highly conceptual, very low word count Why Am I Me? (Scholastic Press). 

2. Hook your reader at the get-go. In their picture book We Go Way Back (Roaring Book Press), Idan Ben-Barak and Philip Bunting talk directly to kids with the opening line “Hey, you! Yes, you!” After the page turn, they get serious: “What is life?” And, they’re off—with kids inevitably along for the ride.

3. Make the text conversational. This advice can be especially useful in books for older readers, who want more information but in digestible forms. Pamela S. Turner, who also talks directly to readers in How to Build a Human in Seven Evolutionary Steps (Charlesbridge), raises the questions she’s sure are in their minds, and then writes, “So glad you asked.” It’s as if she’s chatting with them.

4. Put the technical stuff into sidebars. Christina Soontornvat’s middle-grade All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team (Candlewick Press) tells a gripping story with suspense, personalities, and cultural context and places such technical scientific information as “Human Responses to Levels of Oxygen Concentration” into charts. She relegates other unfamiliar information, such as “Buddhism in Thailand,” to sidebars. 

5. Mix writing styles. The chapters in my books Fault Lines in the Constitution (with my husband, Sanford Levinson, Peachtree Publishers) and Who Owns the Moon? And Other Conundrums of Exploring and Using Space (with Jennifer Swanson, Margaret Quinlin Books) open with a short narrative story, then move on to expository legal, historical, and scientific information, mixed variously with graphics, sidebars, diagrams, QR codes, and other means of keeping readers actively engaged with the material. 

6. Let the illustrations convey the hard stuff. It’s not just science, philosophy, and law that can stump kid-lit writers. So can frightening experiences. Tonya Engel paints a ghost-like but dark and looming figure in Rise: From Caged Bird to Poet of the People (Lee & Low Books) to show the specter of a child molester while Bethany Hegedus’s subtle free verse merely hints at what might happen.

7. Respect your audience. Teens want and deserve to be taken seriously and can absorb and ponder serious subjects and material. Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb, written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin and adapted for young adults by Eric Singer (Putnam) deals with physics, politics, romance, and more. Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group (Houghton Mifflin), Deborah Heiligman’s Loudmouth: Emma Goldman vs. America (a love story) (Farrar Straus Giroux), and Ann Bausum’s White Lies: How the South Lost the Civil War, Then Rewrote the History (Roaring Book Press) all deal straight-forwardly with complex politics, undercurrents in America, and violence.

How can you accomplish what these authors do? Try this: Choose a topic about which you’re curious but know nothing. No WIPs allowed! (For instance, how does a refrigerator work? Or, what is the mind-body problem?) Next, list all of the questions you have about the topic. It’s likely that your questions will be as basic as your readers’. Now, using your questions and the suggestions above, write the first sentence of a book. 

 

About the Author: Cynthia Levinson writes nonfiction books for young readers, aged five and up. Focusing on social justice and law, her books have received the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal; the Carter G. Woodson, Julia Ward Howe, and Crystal Kite Awards; Golden Kite honors; and Best Book recognition from multiple organizations, including the National Science Teaching Association, among other honors. She and her husband divide their time between Austin and Boston.