Capturing the past
Historical Fiction for Children: Capturing the past, Fiona Collins & Judith Graham (editors), (David Fulton 2001).
For teachers considering the use of historical fiction in the classroom this is an invaluable collection. In it a range of authors, academic writers and teachers reflect on the nature, scope, range and richness of historical fiction for children.
Young Quills – a new Award for Children’s Historical Fiction
The Historical Association with the support of BBC History Magazine will be launching a major new award for children’s historical fiction in 2010 – the Young Quills.
The Young Quills have three categories: young fiction (under 7s and will likely include picture books), older children (about 8-12) and teenage. The initial shortlist will be made by children with the support of primary and secondary schools. The shortlist will be announced in June 2010. The final selection will be made by a small panel including children’s authors which will be announced in late September 2010.
The Sacred Scarab
The Sacred Scarab, Jill Harvey (Bloomsbury 2010) is the latest title to be published in the Egyptian Chronicles and is as good a read as its predecessors. The author manages to recreate an authentic Ancient Egypt without the reader ever feeling over loaded with historical information. She gives us strong, convincing characters, an intriguing problem for them to resolve and in the process we see them grow as people. Here is how she introduces an important character in a way that also alerts the reader to the diversity of Ancient Egypt, the fact that not all people were the same. Could your students work out his occupation?
Tiptoeing forward, Isis peeked into the guest room and saw a man sitting with his head bowed. His skin was a deep, deep brown from long hours working in the sun, and his kilt was shabbier than anything Paneb or Hopi would wear. His toenails were deeply ingrained, not with the dust of Waset, but with the rich black earth of the surrounding farmland.
http://www.bloomsbury.com/childrens/Books/details.aspx?isbn=9780747595656&title=The+Sacred+Scarab
Convincing historical settings
One worry history teachers may have is that in using historical fiction they are moving away from history. The extract below from Troubadour, Mary Hoffman (Bloomsbury2009) shows that this is not the case with well written and well researched books. Not only is there accurate historical detail in the description, such as the yellow crosses, but also in the deeper features of medieval society that underpin the writing. For example that time/the muster day is associated with a Saint or that the length of military service this particular set of crusaders were signed up for was just forty days.
Less than a week later, the northern army mustered at Lyon. It was the Feast of John the Baptist, the city’s patron saint, and there were crowds of people: pilgrims, traders and pickpockets. Nearly twenty thousand knights, wearing yellow silk crosses on their chests, assembled in a field outside the town.
There were men of every sort, from lords, archbishops and bishops to mercenaries and quartermasters. The host stretched for four miles as it marched down the banks of the Rhone, with its barges floating down the river beside it, carrying all the supplies needed for the forty days of fighting and besieging.
And ahead of the warriors a huge siege train of sappers, carpenters and military engineers had been sent to Avignon to await the army. They carried the mangonels and trebuchets that would hurl stones and carrion at the walls of the heretics’ castles.
How much could students learn about medieval warfare from just this brief extract?
http://www.bloomsbury.com/childrens/Books/details.aspx?isbn=9780747592518
Two villages
Below are two extracts. In each the writer describes a medieval village. An interesting question for your students to consider is how convincing are these medieval villages and how have these authors created an authentic setting? The first is from Arthur: The Seeing Stone, Kevin Crossley-Holland (Orion 2000) which is mentioned elsewhere in this blog.
Tumber Hill! It’s my clamber-and-tumble-and-beech-and-bramble hill! Sometimes, when I’m standing on the top, I fill my lungs with air and I shout. I shout.
In front of me, I can see half the world. Far down almost underneath my feet, I can see our manor house, the scarlet flag dancing, the row of beehives beyond the orchard, the stream shining. I can see Gatty’s cottage and count how many people are working in the two fields. Then I look beyond Caldicot. I gaze deep into the thick Pike Forest, and away into the wilderness. That’s where the raiders would come from, and where Wales begins. That’s where the world starts to turn blue.
The second is from the Newbery Medal winning Crispin: The Cross of Lead, Avi (Simon & Schuster 2003). A later episode in the narrator’s story is Crispin: The End of Time (2010)
A road led from the river bank. Once a traveller had crossed the river, a road led east and reached another road that ran north and south. Where these roads met, our stone church, St Giles by-the-River, stood with its ancient bell.
Above and below the church were our dwelling places, some forty cottages and huts of wattle and daub, thatch and wood, packed earth and mud, all in varying shades of brown.
North of our village was the commons, where the peasants grazed our own oxen and sheep. Here too were the archery butts where men of age were required, by King Edward’s decree, to practise every Sunday. It was also the place where the public stocks and gallows stood.
The land for growing crops was laid out in long narrow strips. One of the three strips was planted with barley, another with wheat. The third lay fallow for the grazing of the manor’s cattle.
As for the two roads that passed through Stromford, all I knew was that they led to the rest of England, of which I had no knowledge.
Which story do your students want to read more of?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crispin-End-Time-Avi/dp/0061740802/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262003973&sr=1-10
You wouldn’t want to be a gladiator
In a previous post I mentioned the importance of strong visuals for students to enable them to write convincing settings. The gladiator mosaic is a good example of this. And students also need stimulating resources to research a particular period. It is sometimes the accurate detail inserted into the story which brings the past to life. But your students need to be careful. Too much detail can slow the plot and cause the reader to skip or even stop. With that proviso in mind here is a delightful site. Thanks to Daniel Schmidt for this suggestion.
Traitor
Traitor, John Pilkington (Usborne 2008)
This is the second book in the ‘Elizabethan Mysteries’ series. The hero Ben’s company, Lord Bonner’s Men, are invited to play at the Rose Theatre and then to perform a new play in front of Elizabeth I on the 26th December. But they are under threat from rivals and costumes are stolen, actors attacked and the theatre nearly set alight.
An enjoyable adventure with believable characters that brings the Elizabethan theatre and city to life. In this extract Ben has gone for his fencing lesson – for on stage mock fights and not the real thing.
‘Signor Ben – you here at last!’
The words greeted Ben a short while later, as he stepped out of the cold into Carlo Bonetti’s fencing school. He was in a wide, bare room, behind the Bull Inn in Broad Street. There were benches around the walls, and above them hung enough swords to arm a small regiment. But the swords were not for soldiers: they were for fencers to practise with. Most of them were light rapiers, known as tucks. None of them was more than a yard long – the Queen has passed a law some years back making that the maximum length.
The other titles published in the series are Rogue’s Gold (2007), Thief (2009) and Revenge (2009).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rogues+gold
Story resolutions
How a story ends is as important as how it begins. The reader doesn’t want to be disappointed and the problem that started the story off needs to be resolved. This is why story endings are called resolutions – they resolve the problem, sort it out and bring it to a close. In many stories, especially adventures, the characters are often changed by their experiences. This doesn’t just mean a change in their fortunes or their circumstances; the things that happen to them during the story make them see things differently. They learn from their experiences, have their opinions changed and usually end up wiser, better people.
The Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin (Doubleday 2006) provides a good example of this sort of reflective ending. Her story ends with Matteo thinking about what has happened and coming to some conclusions about the future.
The Maestro reached out and drew me to my feet and we embraced.
‘It is a difficult challenge for a person to find his own identity,’ he said. ‘And though you may have avoided the truth, Matteo, it has followed you and found you, and you must live it, as a good man does.’
This is how it was with him, the Maestro da Vinci. His expectations made those who knew him aspire to meet his trust. Thus I became resolved to be a good doctor and a good man.
Another way of ending, once all the problems have been resolved, is to move away from your characters, showing them within their setting, getting on with their lives without the story teller, and looking forward to the future. Henry Treece’s Legions of the Eagle (Bodley Head 1954) takes this approach.
There was nothing for it. Gaius had to laugh too. “Come on,” he said, “or this lot will get me into trouble!” Then he gave the order and they all began to move across the bridge. And as they went the little dog frisked round the heels of the stern-faced soldier, and the last rays of the Gallic sun fell across the broad river, turning its blue currents to a rich red gold. Tomorrow, it seemed, would be a good day.
Or there is the ambiguous ending, which hints at a new twist on the events as here in Eleanor Updale’s Montmorency (Scholastic 2003).
And so Montmorency put another world behind him. Though under the bed in his room at Bargles lay a splendid pair of waders. He told one of the Sams that he was preparing for a fishing trip to Scotland. He told himself that they were souvenirs.
But in his heart he knew why he was keeping them.
Just in case.
Vivid villains
Writers use a range of techniques to bring their characters to life. Here are two villains, Wosret and Sir Robert Dysart. We know this because of how they are described, what they do and say and how the other characters fear them. Wosret appears in the first extract below from The Eye of the Moon, Dianne Hofmeyr (Simon & Schuster 2007).
The Highest of High Priests held up his hand and the crowd fell silent. His high cheek bones and strong nose with flaring nostrils gave his face the appearance of carved wood rather than flesh, and his eyes under the dark lined eyebrows looked as if they had been replaced with glass, black obsidian set in a statue’s face. Lifeless, lizard eyes.
‘Henuka, as Her Majesty Queen Tiy’s trusted Priest and Embalmer at the Temple of Sobek I’ve come to fetch you for a special embalming’.
My father bowed. ‘It must be someone of great importance for you to have come personally my lord’.
Wosret’s eyes gave nothing away. ‘This I cannot announce’.
‘My daughter Isikara is my helper. If the embalming is of great importance I’ll need her assistance’.
Wosret’s eyes flicked coldly in my direction but moved quickly away again. Despite the sun on my back I felt a small shiver run through me.
‘Then let her hurry. The weather is warm. We mustn’t delay. The bodies will not last.’ He snapped his fingers at his servants and they stooped to lift his chair onto their shoulders once again.
And in this second extract, from Sovay, Celia Rees (Bloomsbury 2008) we meet Sir Robert Dysart.
Sir Robert turned in his hand, much to the relief of those who remained in the game. Dysart had a reputation for always winning. The only men who would sit down with him were as skilful as he was, or rich fools who thought they could go up against him and win. There were plenty of those sitting around the table.
Dysart was above average height, although his narrow build and slightly stooping posture made him seem smaller. He wore an old fashioned wig, curled at the sides and queued at the back. His face was thin, with a rather prominent, pointed nose above narrow lips and a sharp chin. His pale, watchful eyes seemed focused on nothing in particular, but Dysart saw everything: who was at play and who was not, who was winning, who was losing, who was betting, how much and on what. He gave up his place to another and went to prowl the room. Neat to the point of fastidiousness and always dressed in black, he stood out among so many men of fashion like a raven in a room full of peacocks.
And we also know roughly what period they are living in from the clues the writers have given us such as servants carrying High Priests in chairs and men wearing queued wigs. Imagine how much detail your students will have gathered from reading more.
Judging the quality of students’ writing
In their research Myra Barrs and Valerie Cork used the indicators below to judge the quality of children’s writing. Whilst they were working with children in primary school these indicators are equally applicable to older secondary age children. You may find them helpful in judging the historical fiction writing of your students.
Indicators that could be counted
Breaks in the time sequence (or narrative where the writer pauses to describe or reflect).
Mental state verbs (wonder, realise – where the author reports a character’s state of mind).
T-units – length of, get longer with older children but could be getting shorter if that is style of the author they are using as a model. Increasing length (complexity) does not necessarily mean better writing.
Non-right branching sentences (delaying the point of a sentence by delaying of the main verb) e.g. When we got back to the manor, we found Serle and Tom and Sian sitting by the fire. (Taken from The Seeing Stone, Kevin Crossley-Holland ).
Indicators that could be given an Impression score
Narrative voice which takes three parts, a) the voice in which the narrative is told, b) the maintaining of that voice, c) the way in which other voices are included in the narrator’s voice.
Sense of reader in two parts, a) is the writer aware of the reader and catering for their needs (e.g. carefully sequencing events & giving the reader essential information), b) is this sustained.
Literary turn of phrase use of simile, metaphor, alliteration, lists, repetition, …
Echoes of the text the children were using as a model.
Taken from The Reader in the Writer: The links between the study of literature and writing development at Key Stage 2. Myra Barrs and Valerie Cork, Centre for Language in Primary Education (London, 2001), pp 212-213. To view the project this publication emerged from visit: http://www.clpe.co.uk/researchandprojects/research_01.html
