What Makes an Exceptional Middle-Grade Biography

Last year, I worked with a student who didn't like to read. He had a book report due at the end of the month, every month. The assignment was simple, half a page about the book and half a page recommendation. December's genre: biography. He's a baseball fan so I figured You Never Heard of Sandy Kofax would be the perfect choice for him.  It's exceptionally written by renowned poet, Jonah Winter and illustrated by Andre Carrilho. The tone of the writing makes you feel like you're hearing Kofax's story from an announcer. Because of the concise nature of an illustrated book, the story needs to be told with precision. The challenge of taking the picture book route for non-fiction results in a story that is dense with essential information without overwhelming readers. In short, they don't have to wade through a swamp of text to obtain the essence of the subject. Which should be what we want when students are exploring biographies. 

Here's what happened: his teacher didn't think it was appropriate for him to do his report on a picture book, took it out of his hands, and replaced it with JFK: America's 35th President. Over 100 pages of cover to cover black and white text. 

Feeling personally slighted by the teacher, I ran out and purchased a copy of Martin Sandler's photoessay style biography Kennedy Through the Lens: How Pictures and Television Shaped an Extraordinary Leader. In short, Martin Sandler's a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, the text is organized around essential images that shaped Kennedy's life and presidency, designed in a way that immerses students in the subject.

Today, a student asked me if he could take a break from his fiction book to read a Kennedy biography. I jokingly told him no. At least, not the one he was holding. I was a bit shocked when I handed him Kennedy Through the Lens and he reacted with distain for it. My assumption was that because of it's pictures it was somehow below his level. 

Notice the lack of information about the author? His research? Where kids can go if they want to learn more? Today's expectations for children's non-fiction has risen sharply. The images below show the source notes, further reading and author's credibility. These are the pieces we want our students to be looking out for when they're evaluating a non-fiction text. 

Balloons Over Broadway

This brings me to the most engaging non-fiction I've come across in ages. Melissa Sweet's new biography of Tony Sarg.

If you're usure of who Tony Sarg is, you're probably not alone. In short, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade would not exist in the form we know it if it wasn't for him. Sweet tells the story of how this boyhood tinkerer turned puppeteer used his knowledge of the dying art of marionettes, combined it with the simple machines he loved to play with as a boy, and innovated the large scale balloons that are a fixture of Thanksgiving. 

The art is outstanding, the story informative and compelling. I urge any parent out there to pick this up at the bookstore or library before the parade. I'll certainly see it through new eyes. 

I know we want our students to be fluent readers. We want them to read grade level texts. We want them challenging themselves as readers. And in many cases, parents and teachers see picture books as contradictory to these desires. But, I implore you. Read Melissa Sweet Balloons Over Broadway. Even if it means going to Barnes and Nobles and reading it there. Read the preface on the endpapers and the author's note in the back. This is the non-fiction you'll want your kids to read. The next time your student is assigned non-fiction reading, you'll opt for a pile of picture books before you put a chapter book in their hands, too.