Writing Tip #2 - What to do if your subject isn't "kid friendly"

Another problem with writing a biography for children is that many famous people have controversial lives. What if your subject's life wasn't 100 percent “kid friendly”?

For example, artist Jackson Pollock had a drinking problem and musician John Lennon experimented with drugs. My advice? I believe a person's real life flaws and how they overcame them to lead an extraordinary life and deliver a lasting contribution to society or to art is NOT controversial for children. Kids are surprisingly MUCH more sophisticated than we realize. They can handle supposedly controversial material quite well... provided the subject material is written in a sensitive manner.

There are different ways to accomplish this difficult task. One way is simply addressing the more controversial parts of a person's life in the AUTHOR'S NOTE in the back of the book.

For example, authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan chose to write a children's picture book biography on artist Jackson Pollock by focusing SOLELY on the creation of his most famous painting, "Lavender Mist." Their book, "Action Jackson" (Roaring Book Press, 2002, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker) opens and ends with Pollock thinking about what he wants to paint and ending with the completion of "Lavender Mist."

Here's the opening paragraph: "In the afternoon Jackson Pollock puts on his paint-splattered boots and walks across the yard. The wind blows in from Gardiners Bay, bringing the scent of salt marshes and sea lavender. His eyes miss nothing - sunlight on the tree branches, tangled stalk of blackberry bushes, beetles crawling in the grass underfoot." How beautiful and clear is this language? Specific details, interesting word choices, visceral images. There are hints of what's to come with phrases like "sea lavender." We see what Jackson Pollock sees.

The book ends with Jackson preparing to start his next painting - "Jackson sits, silent, staring at the blank canvas spread on the floor of the barn. Waiting. Soon he will dip his brush in a can of paint, lifting it high in the air to begin again." Isn't that gorgeous? We end full circle!

Finally, the authors address the other details of Pollock's life in the Author's Note at the end of the book - check out how they present his alcoholism in a sensitive manner for children: "By 1951... he was famous now, but he told friends that all the attention made him 'feel like a clam without a shell.' Jackson struggled with alcoholism and depression for most of his adult life. When he was sober, he painted well, but when he was drinking he felt discouraged and temperamental. His career was cut short by a fatal car crash in 1956. He died at age forty-four. Due to his ground-breaking paintings and those of other Abstract Expressionists, New York became the center of the art world, and a new American art was born."

So that's one effective way of handling the not-so-pretty parts of a person's life for children's books.

But author Doreen Rappaport chose to directly address John Lennon's drug use and affair with Yoko Ono head on in the text of her biography picture book, "John's Secret Dreams: The Life of John Lennon" (Hyperion Books, 2004, illustrated by Bryan Collier).

The artwork for this picture book is gorgeous and surreal at times, and Lennon's lyrics "float" across the page near the actual text of the story. It opens with John Lennon at age five and chronicles his life growing up with his aunt and uncle because his mother didn't want to take care of him. Abandonment of a five-year-old child on page one of a children's book? That's HARSH. But look at how the author handles the material in a sensitive manner: "John's mother took his hand. They left their house in the Penny Lane district of Liverpool, England, to go to his new home with Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. His father, a merchant marine, was away at sea. His mother, feeling trapped, didn't want to take care of him. John was only five years old."

Later, John Lennon meets Paul McCartney and they start writing songs together. Then, Lennon's mother dies. The author writes, "Not long after, John's mother died. It hurt too much to cry." Okay, we're talking rock and roll music, abandonment, death of a mom... and we're barely halfway through the book. But see how spare and lyrical the prose is, and how unsentimental it is? Just keep the facts simple, don't be melodramatic, and use language that is lyrical and spare.

I was really curious to see how the author would handle the drug use scenes, and here's what she wrote: "Soon John felt suffocated by fame, and trapped, now married with a son. He moved his family to London, hoping he would be happier. He wasn't. He tried drugs, hoping they'd push his bad feelings away. They didn't. He studied meditation in India, hoping to find inner peace. He couldn't."

I was blown away by how effective the prose worked to present very sensitive, controversial material for children. We then see how his past haunted him and his inner torment led to his maturation as an artist: "People felt longing in John's song about his childhood haunt." (Strawberry Fields)

And how does the book end? "Now John sang mostly solo or with Yoko. He continued sharing his dreams for a more loving world. Yoko encouraged him to be more daring. He shared feelings he had been afraid to share. He wrote of the pain of his parents deserting him and of the joy of being a father for the second time. He dreamed about being sixty and being with Yoko. That dream did not come true. John Lennon was murdered when he was only forty years old. Now it's up to us to make John's dream for the world come true..."

Once again, FULL CIRCLE. What happens in a person's childhood eventually leads to some type of closure - or hope - in their adult life. Think of using this type of structure when working on your manuscript!

Stay tuned for Kid Lit Tip #3...