Comments on: This Is Too Much Fun — What 7th Graders Think NF Should Be Called

By: Marc Aronson

Marc Aronson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:59:23 +0000

problem is that can sound like we are fictionalizing history, but good thinking

By: Marie de Angelo

Marie de Angelo — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:16:34 +0000

How about facttion?

By: Pamela Turner

Pamela Turner — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:26:37 +0000

I love the moniker “true books”. The problem with “true books” is that is can be interpreted as a positive assertion about accuracy. Even aside from poetry and folklore, there are books shelved as NF that have only “truthiness” going for them.

By: Marc Aronson

Marc Aronson — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:29:44 +0000

it seems to me that, wonderful as Mr. Dewey and his system is, we can come up with new terms and more subtle classifications — we do not need to be trapped by decisions made to suit 19th century libraries

By: Marc Aronson

Marc Aronson — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:28:28 +0000

whenever I point out to kids that there are only two things defined by what they are not — nonfat (pointed out to me by a 6th grader) and nonfiction — they all agree the name makes no sense, and then the contest to rename it begins

By: Joan

Joan — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:35:56 +0000

I would say their most popular choice is true books. I’d say it is the one I use the most in trying to explain what nonfiction is to kids. But what do we do about the Children’s Press series of True Books? The word lover in me prefers trumors. Reality books does cover the field though. We librarians made a trap for ourselves when we insisted on classifying poetry and folktales as nonfiction though. It is hard to explain those fields when you just got through explaining that nonfiction is real stuff.

By: Cindy Dobrez

Cindy Dobrez — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:37:00 +0000

I’ve been doing lots of genre booktalks in which the students have to identify the genre after my booktalk. They have the worst time identifying non-fiction. They often pick historical fiction. We had decided this week, without hearing your talk, that non-fiction was just a bad label and had decided we should rename the section Reality Books figuring they would make the connection to reality tv (which has SO much TRUTH in it. HA). I love the comments from these kids. Thanks for sharing.