Remembering Jane Sutcliffe

The Connecticut, and beyond, children's literature community was saddened last week to hear of the death of Jane Sutcliffe, an excellent writer of historical nonfiction. I first knew her through the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Eventually she joined my writers' group. 

I am rerunning below a post about Jane's presentation at the 2015 Connecticut Children's Book Fair. You can also check out another 2015 post about Jane's book The White House Is Burning: August 24, 1814.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 Jane Sutcliffe At The Connecticut Children's Book Fair

Jane Sutcliffe was my original reason for attending this year's Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Jane's a member of my writing group, and I've been acquainted with her for several years through the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. As things turned out, she was a morning presenter, and hers was the first author talk I attended.

Jane talked about the original inspiration for her book Stone Giant: Michelangelo's David and How He Came to Be and how researching it led to another book, Leonardo's Monster. What was particularly interesting about Jane's presentation was her description of seeing the actual David statue in Venice and seeing in the face not just beauty, but a story.

I thought Jane was not just talking about David or her books. She was also talking about how to look at art. Her description of what was going on in David's face and how it related to David's story was amazing and will have an impact on my thinking when I'm looking at art in the future.

Speaking of David's story--I was certainly familiar with Michelangelos's statue, David. And I definitely know much of David's story...David and Goliath, King David, etc. I taught Sunday school for close to a decade and David is sort of the superhero of the Old Testament. I am embarrassed to say that I had not made the connection between the statue David and the Biblical David.

Or if I had, it never hit me the way it did when Jane showed a close up of the statue's face and described what she saw in it and how it related to the story of David and Goliath.

Jane Sutcliffe's Connecticut Children's Book Fair presentation would make a great offering at art museums with children's programs. I wonder if it couldn't be extended into an art history talk for schools, too.  

What I Didn't Know About 20th Century Russian History Filled A Book

My faithful followers may have been wondering if I am ever going to read another book, or at least write about one here. Put your minds at rest. I recently finished Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M. T. Anderson. This is a historical work, not historical fiction. I am going to be upfront here and say:

• I think it should have been called Dmitri Shostakovich and An Introduction to Communist Russia, since the actual siege doesn't come until well into the book.
• Also, I found this a little long, probably because there was such a long wait for the siege I'd been promised in the title.
• And then there's the issue that I am an old fart who will never give up wanting footnotes sprinkled through a historical text that I'm reading so that I can be assured that there is documentation for this point or that point, and I don't have to go hunting through the end notes to see if it exists. Yeah, I'm never going to see that again.

I'm also going to be upfront and tell you that Symphony for the City of the Dead was on the longlist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2015. (The winner that year was Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman.)

Thoughts

• Anderson uses Shostakovich as an entry point to discuss the period he lived in. That's not unusual. In fact, most works on historical figures need to include information on the world that formed them.
• I am truly embarrassed that I knew so little about the Siege of Leningrad before reading this book. I was aware that the Soviet Union suffered huge losses during World War II, but I didn't know anything specifically about Leningrad. I had heard and read plenty about London during the Blitz. Why has Leningrad's suffering and survival not been more prominent? My high school history courses often didn't get all the way to World War II. I wasn't that interested in twentieth century history when I was in college. So this could be on me. And, yet, as I said, I know about the Blitz.
• Am I the only person who thinks M.T. Anderson and Dmitri Shostakovich look alike? Come on.
• I spent a lot of time bitching about Joseph Stalin while I was reading this.
• Yes, I've been listening to a little Shostakovich recently.
  

Symphony for the City of the Dead is one of three nonfiction books I can think of off the top of my head that I didn't totally embrace while reading but that shifted, or at least enhanced, my world view.

Marc Tyler Nobleman On Biography And Historical Nonfiction

I was just writing about historical nonfiction here on Monday. Last night I spent an hour listening to Marc Tyler Nobleman's talk at the Richmond Memorial Library. He was speaking specifically about two of his books, Boys of Steel and Bill the Boy Wonder, biographies about mid-twentieth century comic book writers and illustrators. Boys of Steel is about the co-creators of Superman, and Bill the Boy Wonder is about the uncredited co-creator of Batman. So, there you go. I'm writing about historical nonfiction again.

Nobleman's description of his books and how he went about writing them illustrate a couple of points made in a Horn Book article from a few years back on contemporary children's historical nonfiction.

1. Children's history books are no longer simplified versions of subjects that were already covered for adult readers. Instead, they often involve new research. Nobleman describes lengthy searches for the pictures of the childhood homes of some of his subjects and finding and interviewing people who had never even been contacted before. Some of these people are now dead, so no one is going to be interviewing them again.
2. Because children's writers often seek out new topics to write about, it's not unusual to find children's books that are the first on a subject or even the only book on a subject. That's the case with the titles discussed last night. Boys of Steel was the first stand alone book on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Bill the Boy Wonder is still the only book on Bill Finger.

Attending last night's talk so soon after reading Jane Sutcliffe's The White House Is Burning makes me wonder if children's historical nonfiction won't become another area in children's literature that attracts adult readers. Well-organized presentation and new research on little-known subjects--who wouldn't want to read that?

Terrific Historical Nonfiction

Even though I have a big interest in history, I sometimes find reading it a bit of a chore. Or, at least, not the kind of thing that I want to rush back to. The White House Is Burning: August 24, 1814 by Jane Sutcliffe is not at all a chore to read, and I found myself looking forward to getting back to it.

The book's publisher refers to The White House Is Burning as the "biography of a single day." That is how the book is structured. Sutcliffe takes readers through the day the city of Washington fell to the British during the War of 1812. She does that by using first person accounts. Fortunately a number of people who experienced the burning of the President's house felt moved to write down their thoughts. Note that the Introduction and the last chapter both begin with a reference to how the fall of Washington would be covered in the modern press. Nice frame.

The White House Is Burning is a great read, but it's also lovely to look at. It's illustrated with beautiful period artwork and portraits of historical figures referred to in the narrative. Though this is what might be described as an over-sized book, don't mistake it for a picture book. This is 105 pages of full text accompanied by 7 pages of quotation credits and a 3 page bibliography. And there is an index. I mention all this because I've heard that some teachers in the upper elementary school grades have page requirements for books acceptable for projects. This book ought to meet them.

I don't know how big a place The War of 1812 has in school curriculum. This book, though, is so marvelous a piece of work that it ought to be valuable in teaching how to read history and how history can be written.

Disclosure: I've run into Jane Sutcliffe here and there over the years, and a few months ago, she joined my writers' group. I ordered this book through Interlibrary Loan. I'd hoped to include it in my "Friends' Books" 48-Hour Book Challenge, but it didn't arrive in time.