International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature

has brought constraints in institutional book budgets. In these circumstances, the
information book market remained relatively buoyant as schools trimmed down
purchases of fiction in favour of the non-fiction which supported school work.
A new factor in the market for much of Britain has been the introduction of a national
curriculum, but changes in its content leave publishers particularly vulnerable, with the
strong possibility of having titles out of date almost as soon as published. Information
books have a short backlist life in any case, with three years regarded as a reasonable
lifespan, but the situation today is even less secure.

The Critical Context

Although the criticism of children’s literature in general has expanded over the last few
decades, criticism of children’s information books is in a relatively primitive state, and
they are rarely considered. Surveys such as The Year’s Work in Children’s Literature
Studies tend to include little material on non-fiction for children. Perhaps because its
form is often closer to that of the story, biography seems to be the area where children’s
literature critics are most comfortable. The Carnegie Medal, awarded by the British
Library Association, has been presented for only four non-fiction books since 1936;
similarly the choice of Abraham Lincoln: A Photobiography for the American 1988
Newbery award was an exception. The lack of an agreed critical approach to non-fiction
is exemplified in a report from the Kate Greenaway Medal judges for 1993 on the one
non-fiction title short-listed.

Stephen Biesty’s work caused lively disagreement. Some of the panel were full of

praise, others dismissed it as technical graphics, and not comparable to others in

this category, but eventually it was voted on to the shortlist.

Spencer 1993:350

The major review journals in the children’s literature field reserve most of their space to
works of the imagination. For Britain, the most consistent attention is given in the
journals Books for Keeps and School Librarian; overall, non-fiction is ‘noticed’ rather
than critically reviewed, and suffers from being produced in quantity but receiving little
critical attention. Ways of Knowing (Heeks 1982) was an attempt to record some works
of quality as well as provide the basis for book assessment workshops: in Matters of Fact
of a decade earlier, Margery Fisher offered a commentary built around ten subject lists
in the expectation that her critical technique could then be applied to other subject
areas (Fisher 1972).
While criticism of non-fiction books themselves is sketchy, the knowledge of the non-
fiction reader is another missing area. This category of children’s literature lacks the
illumination which has come for children’s fiction from such works as The Implied
Reader (Iser 1975). A brief attempt to relate Iser’s work to the information book field was
made in a 1977 article for The Times Educational Supplement (Heeks 1977:18).

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