There seems to be a prevailing attitude these days that historical fiction is not what kids want to read, so it gets pitched out of library collections as being dry as dust and uninteresting to today's kids who live life in the fast lane with all of its electronic gewgaws and gadgets. Just the very name "historical fiction" tends to conjure images of dusty dry dull tomes we were all forced to read in High School English classes. Younger readers are also deprived of chances to dig their teeth into good historical novels because libraries will not carry them anymore due to the prevailing attitudes even among some librarians that history is so "yesterday", dull, dry, boring and a mere recitation of names, dates, battles won and lost and elections and results, just the facts, ma'am, etc. There's too little contextual information conveyed that tells a broader story beyond who, what, why, when and how. The root word of history is "story", and I regard history as the stories of ordinary people in extraordinary times and circumstances who did things that were both ordinary and history making. There are lots of names lost to history of every day people who probably did remarkable things for their time but you can supposition this in a good historical novel. You can make up stories of people who might have existed or who might not have existed but you can place them in any time period your heart desires and write a good story about it. Plenty of authors have done this and written quite fine stories that ought to be read by today's kids who might actually enjoy reading a story set in a different time if given half the chance to do so.
I just wish that some librarians didn't have the attitude that kids only want what is now, what is today, what is hot right at the current moment. Trends are flashes in the pans that come and go like the next wind. One day one thing is hot, and the next, it's gone the way of the dodo as the kids move on to the Next Big Thing. There's simply no attention span anymore. Even Harry Potter books are falling off in popularity since the whole vampire craze, the result of the Twilight saga books, but when that is said and done, something else will come along and replace it. It doesn't take long for things to become a "has been" trend, whether it's the Jonas Brothers, Harry Potter, vampires or what have you, I've seen things built up to big "must have" stuff only to fall off in popularity when something else comes along to replace it that gets the kids buzzing about it. Naturally, a lot of it is media and Internet fed crazes and in our fast paced world, things move along at lightning speed. Right now, Justin Bieber is a big hit among the 'tweens but as soon as he grows older and his voice deepens, he'll be a has been whose time has come and gone. So it's just a shame that those things that have endured, good books, historical novels, are sort of neglected and have fallen to the discard piles of library books because print media is rapidly becoming obsolete, a thing of the past, and I truly hope that it's not consigned to the trash heap of history as a trend whose time has come and gone. I hope that libraries don't regard print media as something to let go of in favor of embracing digital media so much that they dump good books that may never be translated to the digital format. And anyway, there is still a very vast "digital divide" out there of the haves and have-nots among those who have Internet access, particularly high speed broadband access, and those who don't. Up until last October, I was still using an ancient old desktop computer on a slow dial up connection. So it wasn't even that long ago that I finally upgraded to a laptop (albeit reconditioned and circa about 2006) and a high speed broadband connection, so I finally caught up with the rest of the world and got on the high speed Internet highway. But plenty of folks out there either lack a computer and thus Internet access altogether, or they have old, slow dinosaur computers like what I had until not so long ago. Libraries are helping to fill this gap by offering free broadband access, so at least there is that way to bridge the gap. But even so, as much as I love the digital world and the Internet, there's nothing like sitting down with a good hard copy book and a cup of coffee or tea and holding it in your hands, turning the pages and reading it. I just hope today's kids, reared in an almost completely digital environment, will still embrace reading good hard copy books and using their libraries to do so. And I hope that they don't hold with the often prevailing attitude that history is as dry as dust. It just isn't so. Crack open a book for yourself and find out!
There seems to be a prevailing attitude these days that historical fiction is not what kids want to read, so it gets pitched out of library collections as being dry as dust and uninteresting to today's kids who live life in the fast lane with all of its electronic gewgaws and gadgets. Just the very name "historical fiction" tends to conjure images of dusty dry dull tomes we were all forced to read in High School English classes. Younger readers are also deprived of chances to dig their teeth into good historical novels because libraries will not carry them anymore due to the prevailing attitudes even among some librarians that history is so "yesterday", dull, dry, boring and a mere recitation of names, dates, battles won and lost and elections and results, just the facts, ma'am, etc. There's too little contextual information conveyed that tells a broader story beyond who, what, why, when and how. The root word of history is "story", and I regard history as the stories of ordinary people in extraordinary times and circumstances who did things that were both ordinary and history making. There are lots of names lost to history of every day people who probably did remarkable things for their time but you can supposition this in a good historical novel. You can make up stories of people who might have existed or who might not have existed but you can place them in any time period your heart desires and write a good story about it. Plenty of authors have done this and written quite fine stories that ought to be read by today's kids who might actually enjoy reading a story set in a different time if given half the chance to do so.
I just wish that some librarians didn't have the attitude that kids only want what is now, what is today, what is hot right at the current moment. Trends are flashes in the pans that come and go like the next wind. One day one thing is hot, and the next, it's gone the way of the dodo as the kids move on to the Next Big Thing. There's simply no attention span anymore. Even Harry Potter books are falling off in popularity since the whole vampire craze, the result of the Twilight saga books, but when that is said and done, something else will come along and replace it. It doesn't take long for things to become a "has been" trend, whether it's the Jonas Brothers, Harry Potter, vampires or what have you, I've seen things built up to big "must have" stuff only to fall off in popularity when something else comes along to replace it that gets the kids buzzing about it. Naturally, a lot of it is media and Internet fed crazes and in our fast paced world, things move along at lightning speed. Right now, Justin Bieber is a big hit among the 'tweens but as soon as he grows older and his voice deepens, he'll be a has been whose time has come and gone. So it's just a shame that those things that have endured, good books, historical novels, are sort of neglected and have fallen to the discard piles of library books because print media is rapidly becoming obsolete, a thing of the past, and I truly hope that it's not consigned to the trash heap of history as a trend whose time has come and gone. I hope that libraries don't regard print media as something to let go of in favor of embracing digital media so much that they dump good books that may never be translated to the digital format. And anyway, there is still a very vast "digital divide" out there of the haves and have-nots among those who have Internet access, particularly high speed broadband access, and those who don't. Up until last October, I was still using an ancient old desktop computer on a slow dial up connection. So it wasn't even that long ago that I finally upgraded to a laptop (albeit reconditioned and circa about 2006) and a high speed broadband connection, so I finally caught up with the rest of the world and got on the high speed Internet highway. But plenty of folks out there either lack a computer and thus Internet access altogether, or they have old, slow dinosaur computers like what I had until not so long ago. Libraries are helping to fill this gap by offering free broadband access, so at least there is that way to bridge the gap. But even so, as much as I love the digital world and the Internet, there's nothing like sitting down with a good hard copy book and a cup of coffee or tea and holding it in your hands, turning the pages and reading it. I just hope today's kids, reared in an almost completely digital environment, will still embrace reading good hard copy books and using their libraries to do so. And I hope that they don't hold with the often prevailing attitude that history is as dry as dust. It just isn't so. Crack open a book for yourself and find out!
1 comment:
Who comes up with all these fads? They're all rediculous.
Now, "history is dry" is something that's been said for a long time and is as untrue as it has ever been. History was made by people and if they did it in 402, 1210, 1932, or 2009 they did stupid, funny, brave, magical things.
I'm tired of hearing that the old song "history is dry".
That's why I write historical fiction because then I can - with the help of the facts - create my own (what's the opposite of dry? Wet?) action packed history.
Dave
www.dmmcgowan.blogspot.com
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