Adaptations of Adult Nonfiction Books

Back in the 1980s when I became a children's librarian, I had a negative perception of books written for adults that had then been adapted for children.  I can't remember any actual titles but I recall thinking they were probably all hatchet jobs.  I'm happy to say that's no longer the case.  A number of fine adaptations of nonfiction have been published in the past few decades, mostly aimed at middle schoolers.

This morning I compiled a Pinterest Board that I called, in my usual imaginative way, "YA Nonfiction Books Adapted from Adult Nonfiction." (http://pinterest.com/kodean/ya-nonfiction-books-adapted-from-adult-nonfiction/)  Right now it has 15 books that I've read and enjoyed, plus a Spanish version of a book I read in English.  In only one case have I read both the adult and the teen version: Mayflower and The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World, both by Nathaniel Philbrick and both excellent.

Many of the books made it onto bestseller lists in their adult version, typically ones on historical subjects like James Bradley's Flags of Our Fathers, which kept the same title for young people, and James L. Swanson's Manhunt, published for young people as Chasing Lincoln's Killer.

Most of the books on my Pinterest board were published in the 2000s, but two of my favorites came out in the 1990s.  I often recommend Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals for teen book clubs or classrooms.  Beals was one of the Little Rock Nine who helped change the world in 1957, and her story never feels old or less moving.

Nor has Michael Collins' story in Flying to the Moon, based in part on his Carrying the Fire, lost its drama.  He describes being the astronaut who piloted the command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first moon walk.  He was the first person alone on the dark side of the moon.  Like Beals, he's a fine writer with a gripping tale to tell.  

 Two recent adaptations speak to the lives of very different young Hispanic men.  In They Call Me a Hero: A Memoir of My Youth (available in Spanish as well as English), Daniel Hernandez recounts his role in helping save Representative Gabby Giffords's life in 2011.  Of Mexican descent, Hernandez writes about his upbringing and his determination to succeed, discounting his label as a "hero" and focusing on what matters most to him. 

Enrique's Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario, based on her adult book and Pulitzer Prize winning L.A. Times articles, is the devastating account of a Honduran teenager who rides on train tops through Guatemala and Mexico trying to reach his mother in the U.S.  Time and time again, he's sent back to Honduras or Guatemala by immigration police.  More than once he's robbed and beaten by gangs.  He finally reunites with his mother, who's struggling as an illegal immigrant, but it's far from the fairy tale ending Enrique had hoped for.

 

 Many of the adult nonfiction on my Pinterest board presumably sells mostly to men or as gifts for men, and may especially appeal to your male students.  If you do a Read Across the School book in high school, consider using both versions of one of these books, offering stronger readers and adults the more challenging one.  The two versions overlap enough to provide plenty to discuss.  Warriors Don't Cry, They Call Me a Hero, and Enrique's Journey focus on young people and offer a lot that students can relate to.   

Make a display of adapted nonfiction books, add them to summer reading lists, and make sure students and teachers know how good they are. And read a few yourself, if you haven't already, to  see how much adaptations have changed.


 

Making Historical Thinking Visible: Hats Off to Author Tonya Bolden

If you are searching for a well-designed, highly readable work of nonfiction that makes historical thinking visible for intermediate grade students, here’s the book: Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Girl in America by Tonya Bolden. Granted, it’s not due for release until January, but maybe you can plead with the publisher (Abrams) to send you an advance reader’s copy.

 In the meantime, let me share with you what is so useful about this book in meeting CCSS standards related to Craft and Structure:

·         The author raises questions about her subject, Sarah Rector. Here’s a sample: “What thoughts ricocheted around Sarah’s head? What feelings were in her heart? How aware was she of the brouhaha over her riches?” There are many more questions scattered throughout the book, showing the author actively questioning her material.

·     The author admits that there is material she wished she had. She tells us that she was unable to locate a diary written by Sarah or any documents that would give her voice.

·       When the author can’t find any record of Sarah’s great-grandparents' move from Alabama to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, she shares what she learned from a document written about another black couple’s move to the same place at the same time and what they witnessed. That’s one way for an author to try to figure out what happened, and it’s the best she could do.

·         In the Author’s Note at the end of the book, Tonya Bolden tells us:

o   How she first learned about Sarah Rector

o   How important it is to read primary sources with “discernment”

o   How surprised she was when her expectations about people proved to be mistaken. Her lesson: “Better to rest on research and reason than on scuttlebutt.” Good advice.

While you are waiting for Searching for Sarah Rector, check out Tonya Bolden’s earlier book Maritcha (Abrams, 2005). This book is also about the experiences of a young black girl. And while Tonya Bolden was able to locate a memoir written by Marticha, there are still many missing pieces to this story, too. The author is always up front with readers about what she could and could not find.
Check these books out! Both books show an author at work shaping history and dealing with gaps in information. They provide a great look at process.

We're Back!

The kids are back at school and so are we! It has been a while since we blogged, but the group is back and ready to blog our way through this school year, sharing our insights and understandings of the many ways that nonfiction books can engage the most avid “fiction” readers, entice reluctant readers, energize curriculum, and nurture and help sustain a sense of community in the classroom and school library.  Our goal is to blog three times a week. The reality is, because of our schedules and other writing demands, some weeks will be more prolific than others.

Last spring, I was on sabbatical from my university, researching and writing my own biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France and England in the 12^th century.  I’m a teacher educator;  most of the writing that I do professionally focuses on classroom practice. While writing for children has always been a personal goal, out of necessity, I have privileged my writing for teachers. But the reality is, working on a nonfiction book for children has been the greatest lesson in what has to happen in K-12 classroom. My research, on a topic about which I am passionate, reminds me of how essential it is to give students access to their own passions and interests. What better way to continually evolve as a reader, writer, listener, and speaker than by participating in inquiry in which you are invested? How do we, as teachers, librarians, parents, authors, and illustrators, pave the way for authentic inquiry, a continuum that stretches from the first day of school to the last and manifests itself in different ways throughout the school day? 

Photo by M.A. Cappiello

I fell in love with Eleanor of Aquitaine’s effigy back in the late 1980s in an art history class in college. I am not sure why, though as a Religion major, exploring religious texts in their historic and literary context, I was particularly attracted to medieval history. Perhaps it was her face, the slight smile. Perhaps it was the book in her hands, though the one today is not the original.

My daughter was named Ella after Eleanor of Aquitaine and Eleanor Roosevelt. Unlikely Eleanors, certainly. Ella and I had a chance to visit Eleanor’s grave on a windswept February afternoon, to find her vase deep inside the Louvre, the only object from her life, besides her effigy, that remains. I look at these pictures every day, as I make my way through popular biographies and scholarly tracts, examining and re-examining the many ways Eleanor has been represented by medieval clerics, 19th century historians, and 21^st century medieval feminists. I’m still reading. I’m still writing. My “deep structure” keeps shifting, as I frame and reframe her life in different contexts, and consider what children can learn about changing interpretations of one life, about the reality of researching medieval women when there is still so much source material that has never been studied. Now that I am back teaching, back writing another book for teachers, she is still, always, on my mind-- when I sleep, as I drive into Cambridge, sit by the ocean, cook supper.

Photo by M.A. Cappiello

Photo by R. Geoffroy-Schwinden

She was on my mind last night, as I drove home from my first class of the semester, “Middle and High School Content Literacy.” I spent the evening with 20+ dynamic and engaged men and women, all in the process of becoming middle and high school math, science, social studies, and English teachers. I talked to them about my own passions, my own interests. I asked them to tell me about theirs. They were surrounded by nonfiction trade books, most of which were brand-new to all of them. Together, we are going to spend the next four months talking about the intersection of ideas and content in texts of all genres and modalities. Together, we are going to explore how each discipline asks and answers certain kinds of questions, uses texts in different ways to both access knowledge and share knowledge. There is so much for them to learn; they have so many questions about adolescent literacy. But because they see the content of our course through the prism of their own disciplines and passions, there is great promise and possibility for what we can accomplish, and what they can go out into schools and empower young people to do.

Welcome back, from all of us, to all of you.  

Helping Books Dance Delightfully Off the Shelves - Shelftalkers

Shelftalkers = signs that make your books dance off the shelves into the arms of grateful readers. You know those great PR promotional shelf signs everyone sees in all types of retail and book stores. 

One comment that keeps coming back to me from a presentation I did in April for the Library Association of Rockland County (New York State).

A librarian was concerned about purchasing new nonfiction for K-12 that would not circulate. I agreed because most of the time the NF taken out has been for research.  We need to shift this thought process, work to find the right types of  NF that will dance off the shelves.  This discussion lead to shelftalkers. It is critical that we don't seat back to wait and see if a book will dance off the shelf.  Promote your product every day and every way to help create partners on the dance floor - book to reader and reader to book.

Step One:  Purchase NF that has the right type of appeal for your customers and not just for research.

I read a review recently in SLJ for a book about experiments with candy.  The reviewer felt it might not be considered a first purchase but supplemental.  I say - order that book - grab it when it arrives and promote it.  I love candy and I know a large segment of the population does as well.
Add a shelftalker to the book that says "Get a special surprise when you check out this book"  When the student checks out this book on candy experiments reach under your circulation desk and give them some candy for one of the experiments.   Hopefully, the candy makes it home for the experiment:)  Think about logical ways to promote and reward. 
Learning to read instructions is a great way to introduce NF to students.
Candy Experiments By Loralee Leavitt c. 2013

Step Two:  Promote and reward your students for their interest in NF. 

Speak to your students as they search for books.  Engage your students.  Rewards come in many shapes and sizes.  A reward can as simple as being the first to line up to go back to your classroom or the next student who gets to check out their classmates books during the next library class.  Let your students know why they are rewarded - Dialogue with your students, for example - "Thanks for being the first person to check this out"  or "I can't wait to hear what you think of this book next week"

Step Three:  Shelftalkers to the rescue.  Don't let NF linger on the sidelines.

I started to think tonight about other parts of our society that promotes products. Every grocery store and all the large retailers put out an advertisement flyer each week of what is on sale. The shelftalker can be compared to the "on sale" flyer - here is the special of the week.

We need to do more promoting or pushing the product to the customer every single day.

It needs to be continual so that the product provided (books, books, and more good books!) is consumed in the manner we want.It should never be a one time promotion.

I want to see EVERY single library put a note in the corner of every display case that says "If you want to check out any of the books on display - just ASK - we are happy to see them go home with you to enjoy!"

People won't ask so you must promote the idea of PLEASE help us dismantle this display - this sign is another version of a shelf talker.

One of my summer projects will be to create a standard set of shelftalkers for the busy librarian.  I will be working with Jackie Graves who is a retired librarian from Central New York.  She is a very creative person and will assist me in assembling a ready made kit to help promote library collections specifically your NF.  Stay tuned to see how our summer project takes shape.  If you have any questions about shelftakers or clever ideas that you use, feel free to share and comment.

A few web sites to help you build your book dancing muscles:

http://publiclibraryshelftalkers.blogspot.com/

http://librarycenters.blogspot.com/p/shelf-talkers_26.html#.UX7lEoJAsrE

http://www.dsmarketingsolutions.com/ShelfTalkerLibrary.html
Not about library shelf takers but use this one for inspiration

http://pinterest.com/libraryaware/shelf-talkers/
A great visual shelftalking experience.

http://www.shelfwiz.com
A commercial web site for shelf signs that offers a FREE sample.
I ordered one last week and received it within a week.  A very nice sample!

School Libraries and the Reading-Writing Connection

Recently, a request to sign this White House petition came into my email inbox.  I signed it, although I am not sure it will go any further than the request last year for mandating school libraries at the federal level. The 2012 petition received enough support to gain a response from the White House, but the response focused on literacy in general, and did not address specific issues regarding the connection between literacy achievement and school libraries.

This fall, a very exciting research study on the impact of school libraries in the state of Pennsylvania was released. The research, conducted by the Education Law Center, the Health Sciences Library Consortium, and the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association, looked at the 2010-2011 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests in Reading and Writing grades 3-11. Specifically:

"The report examined the 2010-­‐11 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) tests in Reading and Writing for students in grades three through 11, and tracked outcomes for students based on five factors: staffing, collections, digital resources and technology infrastructure, library access, and funding.

Overall, the greatest impact on student test scores was seen from having a full-­‐time, certified librarian.

• Students who have access to a full-­‐time, certified librarian scored higher on the PSSA Reading Test than those students who do not have such access. This finding is true for all students, regardless of their socio-­‐economic, racial/ethnic, and/or disability status.
  
• For several student groups that tend to experience achievement gaps—economically disadvantaged, Hispanic, Black, and those with IEPS (Individualized Education Programs)— Reading and Writing results are markedly better when those student attend a school with a librarian and library support staff, according to the research. In fact, they benefit more proportionally than the general student population."
  

As a nation, we have focused on isolated reading instruction far too much over the past decade, and ignored what we know about the reading-writing connection and the valuable suggestions offered in the National Commission on Writing's 2003 report "The Neglected R: The Need for a Writing Revolution" The report advocates for many changes in how we approach writing instruction in Prek-12 schools, most of which have been ignored. In the upper grades, the report suggests "half the students" and "twice the time" in class for effective and meaningful writing instruction. Certainly, educators and literacy experts have long been aware of the reading-writing connection and the ways in which reading impacts writing and in turn writing impacts reading. Preschoolers often "encode" with drawings and attempts at forming letters and words before they start to "decode" words on the page. But writing takes time, and thoughtful and effective writing instruction takes place in the context of using trade books and other print and digital texts as mentor texts for student writing. This is yet another reason why the quantitative evidence provided by the Pennsylvania report, linking school libraries with success in reading and writing, is so valuable. Perhaps it can influence policy.

Yesterday, Deval Patrick announced a new vision for public funding of education in the state of Massachusetts, where I work as a teacher educator. There are many good ideas in this proposal  although I have not yet seen the details. I do very much hope that school libraries become a part of the discussion.

Sometimes You Read Something That Says Everything You Wish You'd Said

 

I got an email the other day from an excellent New York public high school librarian asking me if I'd read Sam Wineburg's essay on Howard Zinn. I hadn't, but boy was I glad she directed me to it. (Here is an article about the article, with a link that will take you directly to it: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/december/wineburg-historiography-zinn-122012.html). Wineburg is a paragon of fairness -- granting Zinn not only his popularity, but the moral fervor behind his work and the importance of some of his historical claims. But then, in the most careful use of primary sources and secondary scholarship he shows the flaws in Zinn -- the sense in which, under the cover of writing a new form of history, he is writing his own ideological textbook which omits what it does not want to consider, chooses not to shade what it prefers to make black and white, and rest strong claims on thin sources. Zinn, one clearly sees, offers to those on the left the same assurance that the kinds of "patriotic" textbooks they detest give to those on the right -- in both cases a familiar and appealing stance allows the author to ride roughshod over the complexity of real history. Hurray for our side (whichever side that may be), says the book, and that comforts those who feel it important to tell that particular appealing story to children.

    Because Zinn is juxtaposed against older more conservative textbooks, he feels -- to some -- like a relief, a healthy corrective. And that is precisely how I would suggest using him -- pair Zinn and an anti-Zinn book, let students see the differing points of view, and compare them. But the key is comparison.We should no more treat Zinn as finally true than we should a 1950s All white America First textbook. This is the key to nonfiction as it should be, especially in the age of the Common Core. We are teaching students to be critical readers of all nonfiction -- whether we agree with it or not. That is why we must tell them where we get not only our quotations but our ideas -- what secondary sources do we use, and how reliable are they? Having Zinn to juxtapose against older textbooks is good. But encouraging students to compare both and question their sources is even better. Now that I think about it, teachers who use Zinn shouldn't stop, they should just hand out Wineburg's article to their students. Welcome to the world of real history, that would say, where we all take our shots at getting it right. Wineburg's article is called "Undue Certainty" and that perfect -- we know the past in fractions, and need to be honest with students about the gaps.

 

Marc Aronson

SLJ Author Panel Webinar

If you are a teacher or librarian looking to learn more about nonfiction picture books and chapter books, and how these books can be used to achieve the goals of the Common Core State Standards, sign up for the free webinar I'll be moderating for School Library Journal on January 17th.

This webinar is the third of a three-part series that Marc and Sue kicked off back in October. November's webinar featured Olga Nessi, of the New York City DOE Department of Library Services. 

You can register for the archived versions of these webinars and sign up for the upcoming January 17th webinar at: http://www.slj.com/2013/01/webcasts/part-3-on-common-core-making-the-text-connection/.

Participating award-winning authors include: Deborah Hopkinson, Barbara Kerley, Sally Walker, and Steve Sheinkin.