By Cynthia Levinson
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.
