Betsy Bird writing for School Library Journal asked me and fellow authors including Candace Fleming, Chris Barton, Deborah Heiligman, and Carole Boston Weatherford some trenchant questions on an important topic: addressing mature subjects when writing true stories for young readers.
That topic has long been of interest to me [see my many posts with the tag “nonfiction”], so I would have participated even if Betsy had not used the phrase “successfully discussed subject matter that no one else has ever dared to consider.”
And here is some of the content from my interview that is not in the article:
The through line of my nonfiction is high-profile hook plus mystery in the background. Everyone knows Batman. Few [even among comics geeks like me] knew the full tragedy of his “secret” co-creator. Everyone knows that the Japanese attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in WWII. Few knew that the Japanese also bombed the mainland.
But that hook/mystery combo alone isn’t enough—to sustain it, you need drama. Yes, Batman is absurdly popular, but that doesn’t mean that his creation can sustain a book. At school visits, kids clamor “Do a book on the Flash! Do Black Panther! Do Deadpool!” [Yes, some second graders have seen that R-rated movie.] But sometimes a character [or an invention, or an idea] is conceived without friction by a person at a desk. That won’t fill 32 pages. For me, no suspense means no go. Bill the Boy Wonder, however, involved betrayal.
And that betrayal involved something I hadn’t seen in nonfiction picture books: a singular “villain.” Often in biographical picture books, the antagonist is a group—Nazis, intolerant white people, men [in books about misbehaving women making history]. In Bill the Boy Wonder, artist Bob Kane, while not full-on evil, lies and mistreats his professional partner, writer Bill Finger. A friend becomes an enemy. You root for Bill—and against Bob. That dynamic gave me delicious grist. Thirty Minutes Over Oregon also had an element that felt new to the format—redemption. An enemy becomes a friend.
These stories are not about household names or famous incidents. And they have an underlying darkness to them. Therefore, they were not easy sells to publishers. I find that paradoxical—we well know that kids are drawn to stories with edge. They can handle glimpses of the complexity of the human condition. I feel we need to push kids a little.
As I research, I build a list of essential moments to include as well as moments that are like ice cream toppings—I don’t need them, but they’ll make a sweet story sweeter.
You can tell with almost scientific accuracy that certain details will be irresistible to kids [and adults!]. Boys of Steel—young Jerry Siegel is so excited to tell his friend Joe Shuster about the character [ahem, Superman] he dreamed up overnight that he doesn’t take off his pajamas but tugs clothes on over them and runs nine blocks to Joe’s apartment. Bill the Boy Wonder—Batman’s cringey initial design [red union suit, stiff wings]. Thirty Minutes Over Oregon—a Japanese naval pilot bringing a 400-year-old samurai sword on every mission for good luck. Fairy Spell— nine-year-old Frances and 16-year-old Elsie claiming fairies emerged only when no adults were around.
I strive to write up at kids to show them I respect their intelligence. Part of that is not shying away from unpleasantness. In Thirty Minutes Over Oregon, aimed at upper elementary and older, I mention seppuku—ritual suicide—a single time. [That was a stated reason for at least one of the rejections.] Obviously it’s a highly sensitive topic, even though no character follows through, but it’s relevant to establish the severity of the WWII-era Japanese military sense of honor.
In Fairy Spell, Frances and Elsie lie about photographs they take of what they claim are real fairies. But when you factor in the larger context of the story, they don’t seem like liars. The reason they lie in the first place is understandable; I’d argue their “crime” is victimless. A big reason they keep up the lie, revealed at the end, is surprisingly touching.
It’s often said that kids need to see themselves in books, which of course is true—but it’s not the only imperative. Kids also need to see characters in books who give them something to aspire to. Or who show them behavior to avoid.
Some kids may feel momentarily disillusioned to learn that some adults do icky things to each other, like take credit for something good that they didn’t actually do. Many kids who read Bill the Boy Wonder react indignantly to the way Bob treated Bill—and some fault Bill for not speaking up enough in his own defense.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! We want these reactions!
When kids decry injustice, it gives hope that they will go on to fight injustice on some level. When kids hold the de facto “hero” of a story at least partly accountable for his own fate, that helps them realize that they must hold themselves to the same standard. In other words, when you’re wronged or mistaken, don’t wait around for a hero to save the day. Instead be the hero. Or, more precisely, be the one who tries to improve a situation, hard as that will be sometimes.
When kids learn that the duo who created Superman were awkward teens who endured 3.5 years of rejection for their idea, it may inspire other young people [or awkward people of any age] to also try to overcome adversity.
When kids learn that a soldier who attempted to bomb civilians as part of his wartime obligation later felt remorse and apologized to those civilians—and they accepted his apology—that is a lesson wrapped in a lesson sprinkled with yet more lessons.
