Welcome to day 32 of 40 craft lessons.
Has it happened to you that you read about a person or an event and decided it is the perfect subject for a picture book biography? However, while writing, you face a big problem: a lack of resources. Since everything in a biography should be verifiable, we cannot write biographies about many people—for example, many women, marginalized groups, and minorities—due to the lack of documented material.
The first solution is to give up, forgetting about that person, which is not really a solution. The second solution is to write historical fiction.
Historical fiction, a subgroup of informational fiction, allows the writer to include fictional characters, made-up dialogue, and descriptions. But the essential information is verifiable and based on documented research.
Artist and Me (2016, Shane Peacock, Sophie Casson) is the story of a boy who torments a crazy man. An unnamed first-person narrator tells the reader about bullying a strange, misunderstood artist. One day, the boy meets the artist alone in a wheat field, painting, and in that moment, the boy sees the world as the artist does. Years later, the boy—now an old man—sees that painting in a famous museum.
This historical fiction brings a small slice of Vincent van Gogh to young readers’ attention. Before reading this picture book, I never knew van Gogh had experienced bullying.
By turning to historical fiction, writers can shine a light on overlooked stories and bring these fascinating lives to young readers, even when the historical record is incomplete.
Hope reading this blog post has given you new ideas. See you tomorrow for Day 33.
