Lecture 9: Contemporary Children's Books
Historical Fiction

Out of the Dust

Out come the scantrons, and kids dully fill in the bubbles, completely, with #2 pencils only. Facts flood, or fail to trickle into, the brains: "U.S. Civil War...1861-1865," "Looking for fountain of youth...Ponce de Leon," "Amendment ending Prohibition...no idea."

History is much more than isolated names and dates. It is story. It is the story of human success and failure, of growth and decline, of the power or the weakness of the human will. It is political struggle and psychology and creativity.

And it certainly does not have to be dull. Ken Burns proved that in his award-winning The Civil War series aired on PBS.

The best (yes, I'm using the word best) history and historical fiction for children not only exposes readers to other times and places, it engages readers, encourages them to share the experience of these other times and places. The historical events, the customs, the architecture are carefully-drawn backgrounds; at the heart of these books are compelling human dramas and identifiably human characters. The middle-ages was filled with regular people trying to survive, so was the Great Depression, so is contemporary Los Angeles. The best stories teach while making the material interesting and relevant to the readers.

And they succeed. Many children who find rote memorization unappetizing gobble up Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Slave Dancer, The Mid-Wife's Apprentice, Bud not Buddy, and so on.

history with personality...

Karen Hesse's 1998 Newbery-award winner succeeds for a number of reasons. It's a richly-textured story that teaches quite a bit about life on an Oklahoma farm in the dust bowl during the Great Depression. There are plenty of facts about economic and environmental issues,

The Path of Our Sorrow

Miss Freeland said,
"During the Great War we fed the world.
We couldn't grow enough wheat
to fill all the bellies.
The price the world paid for our wheat was so high
it swelled our wallets
and our heads,
and we bought bigger tractors,
more acres,
until we had mortgages
and rent
and bills
beyond reason,
but we all felt so useful, we didn't notice.
Then the war ended and before long,
Europe didn't need our wheat anymore,
they could grow their own.
But we needed Europe's money
to pay our mortgage,
our rent,
our bills.
We squeezed more cattle,
more sheep,
onto the land,
and they grazed down the stubble
till they reached root.
And the price of wheat kept dropping
so we had to grow more bushels
to make the same amount of money we made before,
to pay for all that equipment, all that land,
and the more sod we plowed up,
the drier things got,
because the water that used to collect there
under the grass,
biding its time,
keeping things alive through the dry spells
wasn't there anymore.
Without the sod the water vanished,
the soil turned to dust.
Until the wind took it,
lifting it up and carrying it away.
Such a sorrow doesn't come suddenly,
there are a thousand steps to take
before you get there."
But now,
sorrow climbs up our front steps,
big as Texas, and we didn't even see it coming,
even though it'd been making its way straight for us
all along.

September 1934

daily living

Rules of Dining

Ma has rules for setting the table.
I place plates upside down,
glasses bottom side up,
napkins folded over forks, knives, and spoons.

When dinner is ready,
we sit down together
and Ma says,
"Now."

We shake out our napkins,
spread them on our laps,
and flip over our glasses and plates,
exposing neat circles,
round comments
on what life would be without dust.

Daddy says,
"The potatoes are peppered plenty tonight, Polly,"
and
"Chocolate milk for dinner, aren't we in clover!"
when really all our pepper and chocolate,
it's nothing but dust.

I heard word fro Livie Killian.
The Killians can't find work,
can't get food.
Livie's brother, Reuben, fifteen last summer,
took off, thinking to make it on his own.
I hope he's okay.

With a baby growing inside Ma,
it scares me thinking, Where would we be without
somewhere to live?
Without some work to do?
Without something to eat?
At least we've got milk. Even if we have to chew it.

February 1934

other historical events of the time,

Dionne Quintuplets

While the dust blew
down our road,
against our house,
across our fields,
up in Canada
a lady named Elzire Dionne
gave birth to five baby girls
all at once.

I looked at Ma,
so pregnant with one baby.
"Can you imagine five?" I said.
Ma lowered herself into a chair.
Tears dropping on her tight stretched belly,
she wept
just to think of it.

July 1934

The facts of the dust bowl are made more relevant to contemporary readers by filtering them through the point-of-view of a young girl, Billie Jo; they become the background for her struggle to deal with the guilt of her mother's death and the complete breakdown of communication with her father. She will do just about anything to get out of the dust, and her music might be her only opportunity. Through the course of the novel she must come to peace with her family and with the fact that she can't run away from what troubles her inside. Along the way she discovers her own uniqueness, the value of education, the need to make alliances. She has the same sorts of concerns as readers of the book.

...and style

But what really makes this book special is its style. The language of the prose/poems is carefully matched to the events. At times it has the toneless inevitability of still photographs:

Beginning: August 1920

As summer wheat came ripe,
so did I,
born at home, on the kitchen floor.
Ma crouched,
barefoot, bare bottomed
over the swept boards,
because that's where Daddy said it'd be best.

I came too fast for the doctor,
bawling as soon as Daddy wiped his hand around
inside my mouth.
To hear Ma tell it,
I hollered myself red the day I was born.
Red's the color I've stayed ever since.

Or it is alive and dancing across the page the way Billie Jo's hands dance over the piano keys:

On Stage

When I point my fingers at the keys,
                          the music
springs straight out of me.
                          Right hand
playing notes sharp as
                          tongues,
telling stories while the
                          smooth
buttery rhythms back me up
                          on the left.

Folks sway in the
                          Palace aisles
grinning and stomping and
                          out of breath,
and the rest, eyes shining,
                          fingers snapping,
feet tapping. It's the best
                          I've ever felt,
playing hot piano,
                          sizzling with
Mad Dog,
                          swinging with the Black Mesa Boys,
or on my own,
                          crazy,
pestering the keys.
                          That is
heaven.
                          How supremely
heaven
                          playing piano
can be.

January 1934

Or it is lush with metaphor and imagery and symbol:

Apples

Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.

To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.

But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.

June 1934

The best histories for children (and maybe for adults as well) shine and sing a story of lives lived, not just dead facts to memorize.