At the same time, he is dealing with a necessarily imperfect subject about whom the young reader wants to know as much as possible." William H. Children's biographer Marilyn Jurich has described the genre as "especially hard to write as it is supposed to recreate and at the same time provide a guide to success, to encourage the child ‘to make something of himself’ by giving him a believable model who ‘made it.’ Thus, the biographer is supposed to be a psychologist or a moralist or both. It is a composition of that material." How historical fact is composed for young audiences has been an issue of great debate in the children's literature field, particularly because many children's biographies are expressly written with the underlying intention of inspiring child readers to revere major historical figures and learn from their examples. Young adult biographer Milton Meltzer has suggested that, "Biography is not a compilation of the material you researched. The main differentiator for children's biography is the issue of presentation-how the biographical details of a subject's life are conveyed to developing readers. While the biography is often recognized as a unique facet of nonfiction literature, children's biography is perhaps an even more specific genre. These characteristics, along with pat themes and lack of shadows, are flaws in many postwar biographies."
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Speaking to this issue, Linda Walvoord Girard has asserted that, "tirring and inspiring intentions have often ended up sounding like predictable moralizing, rendered in a saccharine or adulatory tone. Many children's literature scholars have argued that issues of factual accuracy and the tendency of authors to "sugar-coat" the lives of their subjects for young readers limits the impact of many children's biographies.
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Yet, despite the genre's continuing relevance, appeal to children, and importance towards young adult education, it remains a highly specialized field in which the demands of accuracy, general interest, and usage are often debated by both critics and educators. INTRODUCTIONĬhildren's biography is among the most popular forms of juvenile nonfiction, and several works in the genre have been recognized with major book awards, among them, a pair of Abraham Lincoln biographies-1939's Caldecott Medal-winning Abraham Lincoln by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire and Russell Freedman's Lincoln: A Photobiography (1987), which won the 1988 Newbery Award. CRITICAL APPROACHES TO CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHIESĬHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHIES ON ETHNIC AND MINORITY FIGURESīiographies of important cultural, social, and historical figures written for juvenile and young adult audiences.