Bib Me?
I review a fair amount of non-fiction picture books in my spare time. And truth be told, half the mental rules I follow for this activity come from a one week section on How to Review taken during my MLIS graduate school days. It’s funny what remains ingrained in the woodlike section of your head. I remember certain rules very clearly. Things like Always mention both author and illustrator when reviewing a picture book and Consider the audience. That sort of stuff. One rule I have also always followed in terms of non-fiction picture titles is Look for a Bibliography at all times. I’ve never questioned the logic of this. After all, why should we hold non-fiction for 5-year-olds to standards any lower than those for a book for a 15-year-old?
Then recently someone called me on it. Does every single non-fiction picture book absolutely need a Bibliography? Really? Really really? Let’s say it’s a short look at your average every day trashman. How short a book is too short for a Bib? How simple too simple? What if the information being presented is so basic that anyone could easily find additional titles if they wanted? Is a Bib always 100% required on every single non-fiction text at all times?
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Take Seymour Simon as your example. He has this lovely little series on every possible element and living creature under the hot white sun, yet he never names his sources. Does he need to?
On the whole, I’d have to say yes. I like recommended web sites and lists of books. I’ve had little ankle biters show me a list of titles on fire trucks in the back of their fire truck book in the hopes that I’d help them find some. This doesn’t happen all that often, of course, but more than never. Do you always need to know where the author gets their sources in these cases? If not, where do you draw the line?
Food for thought. I think I’ll continue to praise good Bibs and sigh morosely at those writers that don’t include ’em, but I’d be interested in hearing how other people judge this element of non-fiction. Maybe I should hop on over to Marc Aronson’s blog and ask him. I’m sure he has some interesting thoughts on the matter.
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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Betsy do you mind a formatting suggestion? Poor old recently-bifocaled me is having some trouble with the density of the type on your posts over here at SLJ.
I think you can force line height to maintain space-and-a-half with this html tag (in angle brackets of course but I’m not going to try that here)
span style=”line-height:150%”
Hey and how come nobody talked to you for the horrendous “hipper shusher” article? And they talked to some part-timer at St Ann’s instead? Atrocious.
M’darling, I’ve switched the formatting and font of this blog so many times to adjust to so many different suggestions that at this point I’m out of energy. This is where it will have to stay. However, there is always the lovely option of increasing the font size on your own computer. I figured that it would be easier to go smaller and then allow people to adjust their own computers rather than go huge and end up looking silly. I’m a personal fan of Times NR, so I’m afraid this is where we are going to have to stay.
The “hipper shusher” article didn’t talk to a single NYPL, Brooklyn, or Queens public librarian. Odd but true. Apparently librarians can be hip, but only if they work out of town or in the private sector.
Betsy,
Regarding bibliographies in nonfiction books for children. I do think there are other ways to determine the accuracy of the text: An author could be an expert in the subject. For example, books that might not require a bibliography: books about space travel written by astronauts, books about sharks or whales written by a marine biologist, books about rocks and minerals written by a geologist. I tell the students in my children’s literature course to check the back flap of a nonfiction book jacket for the author’s qualifications. I also suggest they look to see if an author includes an acknowledgment or thanks to an expert or organization he/she may have consulted.
Ha! Good question. For my book ALIENS I included one. My book City Hawk will have one. But Strong Man doesn’t. Why? Two reasons.
1) there wasn’t enough room. I don’t think people always realize how difficult it is to fit everything in there AND include a story (the most important part!)
2) none of my sources are readily available to the average person/kid. I used articles from 1929 and that sort of thing. That’s not something everyone can get their hands on.
My editor and I talked a lot about this and decided that if people were wanting my bibliography then I could put it on my website… which I will… maybe today!
meghan
For whatever reason I didn’t include a note on sources in my (out of print) book Dinosaurs at the Ends of the Earth — this even though I’d done a heavy load of research — and for this omission earned glaring caveats in several reviews. I tried to make amends in the book’s listing on my web site, but who’s going to read that? Well, lesson learned. Sources have been touted since. In small type on the copyright page, but touted, still. If nothing else it’s a way of letting parents and librarians know that you’re not a sloppy hack.
I used a groundhog scientist as my expert for my Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun. (and myself as the expert for how to do a Groundhog day party, using the stuff I use for my library Groundhog Day parties) But the reviewers didn’t seem to notice the acknowlegment to the scientist at all. And criticised the lack of BIB.
You can bet that the next book in the series: The Halloween Book of Facts and Fun, has a full BIB list. In fact, it grew too long and we had to cut many sources from the list in the book.
-wendieO
p.s. I’m wondering why the answer to the question for Post a Comment always GREEN?