35_1 Partridge
September/October 2006
True Confessions: Grabbing Hold of Those Hard to Reach Kids
Elizabeth Partridge
True confessions: I’m a real archive rat.
To put together a biography, I pick a complex, contradictory person doing some kind of creative work, living in interesting political times. I want lots of layers. Then I plunge into research, going to the library, buying books, reading, reading, reading. I interview people, visit fascinating places, and try to time-travel back to my subject’s days. I pore over photographs. I inhale a huge amount of information. I’d guess less than 5% of what I learn ends up in my book.
Once I start writing, I use the tools of narrative non-fiction. These are all the best techniques of fiction: foreshadowing, pacing, point of view, careful character development. There’s one huge exception: I never make anything up. Not a feeling, not a thought, not a spoken word. I slip a lot of context into the book—but never more than a few sentences at a time.
When I get the book done, I go into partnership with librarians. I’m trying to reach a tough group – the kids who come up to you at your desk and say: "I need to do a report on somebody… I have to read a biography."
You know these kids – the boys’ pants are falling off their butts, and their mouths never seems to open up more than about the size of a dime the whole time they are talking. Eye contact is minimal. They probably have tattoos or piercings in places you don’t even want to hear about.
You ask helpfully: "What are you interested in?"
Shrug. "But the book has to be at least 100/200 pages long."
Now, I like the kids who reach me on their computers, with polite questions, and credit from teachers if they can bag an answer from me. But I really have a soft spot for the kids I’ll probably never see, the ones who are barely making it into the library, who only minimally care that they are supposed to do a book report. The kids who, if they can’t find an interesting book the first day, may not come back.
They are smart, angry, and don’t fit in. They don’t want to fit in, and in some ways I admire them for that. They have reason to be angry. But while they mature, and get to the point where they realize they’re responsible for their actions, and that they’re part of how the world will spin in the future, I want to send some role models their way, role models they can relate to and learn from.
These kids see the world is a complex place. We have been offering them our truth, they need to find theirs. Nobody has lived their truth before. And it is vastly more exciting and compelling than the white-washed version of life that we often give our children.
So grab them when they sidle up to your desk. Pull books off the shelf for them. Who knows? One of these kids might even end up an archive rat.
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Elizabeth Partridge is a prolific writer who lives in Berkeley California.
Find more about her at http://www.elizabethpartridge.com.
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