To the Reader

To the Point: Nonfiction Books for Children

Informational Books in the United States: Transitions and Trends
Evelyn B. Freeman

Deconstructing Dinosaurs: Imagery, Fact, and Fiction in Information Books
Margaret Scanlon and David Buckingham

Reluctant Readers Choose Nonfiction: Just Give Me the Facts!
Mary Dayton-Sakari and Ronald Jobe

The (Non)fiction Book for Young Children: An Interesting Case in the Greek Publishing Market
Angela Yannicopoulou

The Nonfiction Illustration: A Bookbird Interview with the President of the BolognaRagazzi Award Jury for Illustration, Professor Antonio Faeti

Other Voices

The Nonfiction Book in France at the Crossroads
Eric Pierrat

Publishing Children's Nonfiction
Mary M. Rodgers

Regular Features

Focus IBBY
IBBY's Jubilee Congress in Basel o IBBY Elects
New President and Executive Committee

Country Survey: Germany-To the Point, Please!
Renate Grubert

Author Spotlight:
Birds Encourage the World (A Portrait of the Slovak Writer Klára Jarunková)
L'ubica Kepštová

International Children's Books of Note

Professional Literature

News and Announcements

Dear Bookbird Reader,
Representing a large segment of the children's book market, nonfiction books have surely not escaped your attention. Probably you have often dealt with them in different roles, not only as a university professor, scholar, teacher, or librarian, but also as a parent. Maybe you have wondered which books to choose from the huge variety available, and have tried to elaborate your own evaluation criteria. This issue of Bookbird will acquaint you with some problems troubling the genre of the nonfiction book for children, a genre somewhat removed from the mainstream of children's books.

Dealing with a different aspect of nonfiction and representing a different point of view, each article in this issue introduces the reader to some problem related to the nonfiction book for children. It is astonishing that, although writing in different languages and on different problems, the authors in this issue share similar views and their articles complement each other. This suggests some degree of globalization in nonfiction. Although these books are labeled with various terms in different languages ("nonfiction" in the English language area, "Sachbuch" in German, "documentaire" in French, "popular-science books" in the Slavic countries, and "informational" or "information" books all over, a term becoming more popular lately), in no other genre in the literature for children is globalization so evident as in nonfiction. Many publications are licensed editions, produced by a newly created species of professional-the "packager" (someone creating a packaged product ready for publishing). Thus, some publishing houses in developed countries have specialized in making the first publication, and then distributing licensed editions all over the world. One common view shared by the authors of the issue is that in spite of being a marketing hit, the nonfiction book is still a stepchild of the critics and researchers, possibly because criteria for evaluating the merits of nonfiction are at best vague. Some of the authors share their concern about the development of the Internet and CD-ROMs.

The introductory article by Evelyn B. Freeman, while discussing some of the key changes in informational books in the United States and the current trends in this genre, is at the same time also an introduction to the problems of the nonfiction book in general. Basing their argument on some quite popular books about dinosaurs, Margaret Scanlon and David Buckingham treat the way of presenting nonfiction, which has to be equally attractive for children and for the parents selecting the book, and often combines elements of education and entertainment. Ronald Jobe and Mary Dayton-Sakari share their experience of how nonfiction books can convert reluctant readers into eager ones. An interview with the president of the BolognaRagazzi Award Jury, Prof. Antonio Faeti, addresses the trends, innovation, and illustrating of nonfiction.

Nonfiction books are created mainly in developed countries: the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Canada. It is interesting, however, to examine nonfiction books in a smaller country such as Greece. The article by Angela Yannicopoulou traces the development of nonfiction books for younger children in Greece, typical of countries with a strong narrative tradition of myths and folktales. The presentation of some prize-winning books, such as the publication of the Spanish publisher Media Vaca, signals that innovation in the field of nonfiction may be expected not only from large and well-established publishers but also by new, smaller ones.

Several publishers of nonfiction for children from France and the USA share their experiences, their criteria about selecting a topic and creating a valuable nonfiction book, and their thoughts and concerns about the future of the nonfiction book and its growth, conditioned to a large extent by the development of the Internet and communication technology. The article by Renate Grubert in the Country Survey column not only reflects the situation in the German-language area, but also deals with the global problems of nonfiction.

The only departure from the topic of nonfiction is the portrait of the fiction writer Klára Jarunková marking the eightieth birthday of this most translated and most popular author in the Slovak Republic.

Ultimately, it is worth drawing your attention to the fact that some of the authors (especially the publishers) observe a certain crisis in the genre at the moment and mention a search for new ways and new forms. Although some opinions concerning the possible ways of development of nonfiction are expressed, the debate about the future of nonfiction books for children is ongoing.

The Bookbird Editors:
Evelyn B. Freeman, Barbara A. Lehman, Lilia Ratcheva-Stratieva, Patricia L. Scharer

Copyright 1992-2006 University of Toronto Press Incorporated except where otherwise noted. For guidelines on use of material on this site see Legal Notice. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material included in this site. If your article appears here without your permission, please let us know and we will remove it. Contact Anne Marie Corrigan.