Creating New Knowledge: Books that Demystify the Process.

Zarnowski and Turkel describe heated discussion of nonfiction that is taking place among nonfiction authors and share fifth graders' responses to this genre.IN THE MARCH/APRIL ISSUE of The Horn Book Magazine, author and editor Marc Aronson wrote a lightening rod of an essay about nonfiction literature. In this article, he claimed that some nonfiction is groundbreaking because it shows new knowledge as it is taking shape (2011, p. 57). He referred to authors of this nonfiction as and distinguished them from other authors whom he described as translators of existing knowledge. Translators take established or settled knowledge and write about it in a way that is accessible to young readers.According to Aronson, a crucial difference between two kinds of nonfiction - and - is that author- explorers speculate about meaning of their material, while author-translators do not. In fact, he went so far as to describe author- explorers as being on a for truth that is similar to heroic in a fantasy. Both leave comfortable settings of known ideas and established information to venture into new, less explored turf. They then come back bringing knowledge, enlightenment, and understanding.Not surprisingly, Aronson's article caused quite a stir among nonfiction authors. The children's literature blogs lit up with activity as heavy hitters like authors Jim Murphy, Vicki Cobb, Deborah Heiligman, Dorothy Patent, Jen Bryant, Rosalyn Schanzer, Steve Sheinkin, and Barbara Kerley - nonfiction dream team - weighed in on topic. Educators and bloggers such as Monica Edinger and Mary Ann Cappiello did too. It was a thrilling to trawl children's literature blogs to see heated discussion.So, what did they say? The immediate response of nonfiction writers was hostile, hurt, and somewhat angry. Authors whose books do explicitly detail their processes of seeking out information, shaping it, and speculating on it resisted implication that their work was style nonfiction. Vicki Cobb (2011) called this distinction between and arbitrary and not a solid thesis (para. 3). Jim Murphy (2011a) stated that the 'new' isn't really new, but has been around for a long time (para. 8), since all his books involve extensive detective work. He shared his own quest for information when writing The Boys' War. Steve Sheinkin (2011) claimed that students don't care whether a story is or not, and Jen Bryant (2011) questioned need for a hierarchy of nonfiction types. In short, no authors wanted their work to be seen, to use Vicki Cobb's term, as old hat.As dust settled and cooler heads prevailed, Jim Murphy went on to explain that in future he intends to be more explicit about showing kind of exploration Aronson described as characteristic of nonfiction. He wrote:I simply wanted to point out that many of elements mentioned as defining nonfiction, including original research and speculation on historical record, have been around for a while, though many/most of us haven't always elaborated on them in our books. I am hoping to share more of this process with readers in future projects.... (Murphy, 2011b)Among more interesting comments that surfaced were those of Mary Ann Cappiello who requested that we - that is, scholars, educators, authors, and editors - extend conversation to include impact of nonfiction on teachers and students in classroom. Referring to research process that nonfiction writers use, she asked, How can nonfiction trade book authors model this process and how can teachers teach this process authentically? (Cappiello, 2011, para. 2). This idea of modeling, a very familiar one to educators, was immediately embraced by Marc Aronson (2011b) who argued that ...venturing, positioning, researching, arguing, and being challenged is exactly what kids are learning in school. …