Review Reports - Children’s Nonfiction, Biography, and Their Responsibilities to Children

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Abstract raises the expectation that the essay discusses at length the items the debate has brought to surface. I expected the essay would go beyond the exchange between Aronson and Freedman, considering the aftermath of the "hottest arguments" as well as the reception of the debate, current positions and implications. The essay, however, only superficially touches on the concerns listed at the end of the abstract. Instead, it mostly rereads Aronson and Freedman without elaborating on the further development of the debate or situating the respective positions of Aronson and Freedman in the larger context of relevant theoretical concepts (e.g. on the status of history, historiography, biography, or knowledge, to name but a few) that inform this debate. The footnotes also indicate that the author has refrained from such a theoretical contextualization, because the references almost exclusively rely on Aronson, Freedman, Sutton, with only a handful of additional secondary sources. I am convinced that the essay would have profited from such a more thorough theoretical grounding, because some of the problems mentioned below could, perhaps, have been amended.

The first two sections review Aronson's "speculate" claim and Freedman's position. Whereas the author scrutinizes the latter critically (in Section 2), Aronson's claim is presented without critical comment in Section 1. This does not only create a certain bias; a more critical review of Aronson's statements could have helped to avoid some inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the further course of the argument. It is in Section 1, where I was missing the theoretical contextualization most. After all, Aronson's claims on "speculative" nonfiction are not only about different age groups of addressees. What is stake here first and foremost, are different concepts of knowledge (result vs. process), and different levels of expertise between authors and readers. The "translators" operate between those two levels of expertise in nonfiction for readers of all age groups, because general readers of adult non-fiction will not be expected to grasp all details of scholarly discourse and research, either. The same applies to the question whether nonfiction conveys established research results or work in progress: Since science, research and, with them, knowledge, are or a processual character, intersubjective verifiability is the decisive criterion – and this does not necessarily rely on secondary (in the sense of published research) but primary material.

In fact, if I must admit that I am not really convinced by the essay's line of argument it is because of a perceived lack of intersubjective verifiability. I often found it hard to find evidence for the author's assumptions about Aronson's and Freedman's statements in the referenced quotations. For instance, ll.57-58 turns Aronson's "existing adult research" (in the original essay) into "research previously published in adult nonfiction". Research and research published in adult nonfiction certainly are not the same; one ought to distinguish between published research and adult nonfiction processing such research for general readers. In Section 2, the author seeks to point out contradictions in Freedman's statements without questioning Aronson's equating of Freedman's "documented record" with published research in the first place. Freedman's cited statements quite obviously contradict this equation, for he clearly refers not only to published research by experts, but also to his direct engagement with primary sources (text or material ones). What Freedman insists on is a reliance on traceable evidence – in other words intersubjective verifiability. By the way, even if the archeological research informing Aronson's book on Stonehenge was yet unpublished work in progress, one should assume that it was also based on such intersubjectively verifiable evidence and not mere speculation (as mentioned above, a critical assessment of Aronson would have been helpful). It is a bit irritating for me to read a scholarly essay that does not seem to share this common assumption but perceive in it something like an authoritative stance.

To continue with the list of discrepancies between quotations and the assumptions made about them: The conclusions about Bader's statement drawn in ll. 215-223 have no correlation in the cited text. The quotation mentions that children's nonfiction was supposed to be different from adults', so as to meet children's interests, imagination and incite the desire to learn more. Nowhere does it state that "knowledge and analysis were better at home in nonfiction for grownups". Nor does it mention "the skillful craft of the adult writer". The ensuing quotation from Freedman evokes the Lockean idea of the importance of first impressions. Whereas this concept (and Freedman's quote) does imply educators and authors are responsible for the formation of children's minds and imaginations, it does not demand children ought to be confronted only with "safely settled" knowledge – that is a mere speculation by the author.

In the sections on Freedman's Babe Didrikson Zaharias, The Making of a Champion, I had the impression that the essay not only promotes but also endorses a speculative approach. Section 3 frequently bases its argument on the author's claims about what Freedman "implied" or "seemed to be saying" - for instance ll. 266-272; ll. 274-276; l. 285; ll. 287-289. The author's conclusions about inconsistencies in Freedman's statements eventually rest on these interpretations/speculations, but not on the statements themselves. Section 4 proceeds in this manner. In lines 322ff, the author reads a "conflict" into a statement by Freedman that simply is not there: "as forthright as the historical record allows" presupposes the criterion of intersubjective verifiability based on the available source material. This corresponds with ll. 319f ("if the record shows something..."). It is due to this precept, why Freedman refrains from any explicit statements about Babe's possible lesbianism, but merely describes situations and happenings, thus delegating conclusions and judgements about her sexual orientation to the readers – thus also acknowledging the young readers' agency and capability of judgement. All this is conclusive and coherent within the statements by Freedman referenced in the submitted essay. The author's attempts to reveal inconsistencies or even paradoxial positions in Freedman's statements therefore remain unconvincing. The argument concerning the "Partner" chapter seems to me particularly far-fetched. "Partner" is a term of such common usage, with such a variety of meanings, that one can hardly assume prolific writers use this term in all publications throughout their career with one exclusive meaning, no matter in which book or context. The passage illustrating Freedman's deliberately suggestive presentation of Babe's first encounter with Betty Dodd (ll 399-401), as well as Freedman's truism that "nonfiction should be written with literary techniques" (l. 410-1), both demonstrate Freedman's intention behind his way of presentation. The author's dismissal of the textual evidence as "almost too heavy-handed to qualify as… one of the 'leads' he left readers to follow" (ll. 412-413) is as unsubstantiated as the conclusion that Freedman unintentionally composed the passage that way.

Finally, I had the impression that, in the two sections on Freedman's biography on Zaharias, the rationale of the essay gradually took another turn and no longer consisted in the issues raised in the abstract. The two sections on the case study seemed to be less concerned with the conceptual questions mentioned in the abstract than with Freedman's refusal to address Babe Didrikson Zaharias's lesbianism explicitly in his biography of her. In these sections, the essay's focus tends to shift from a theoretical, conceptual assessment of children's nonfiction to a critical discussion of (lacking) representation and visibility of LGBTQ characters in children's nonfiction. The statement in ll. 461-463 in the "Conclusion" supports this impression. As a result, what the essay eventually says about assumptions on childhood, the obligations of writing for children, or the ethics of children's nonfiction remains quite general and moves out of focus in the case study chapter. The conclusion does not compensate for that either because it returns to details in the Aronson-Freedman debate instead offering some pointed generalizations. It would have greatly helped had the Conclusion finally distilled the assumptions announced in the abstract.

Author Response

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to revise.

[I see that the software is asking for a point-by-point response to each reviewer's comments. Because my revisions were so significant, I cannot do that. Instead, I am pasting here the response that I have for all three reviewers.]

In this revision, I faced that classic academic task of pleasing one reviewer who approved of the article enthusiastically, one reviewer who thought it was badly misguided, and one reviewer who thought it was good but needed significant revision. I hope that I have found a way here to please all three reviewers, though what remains does not have much in common with the previous submission.

Here are the main revisions that I finished in reply to specific feedback:
* I have provided a context in which to understand the debate. R1 suggested a specific context, but it wasn't one that allowed me to focus on the subject of the special issue, so I've used another one that leads directly into that topic.
* I have expanded on what it means to destabilize information, which has helped me explain one of the key points of conflict.
* I have expanded on the idea of the vulnerable child within the context of children's literature, which has been very helpful in focusing on the subject of the special issue.
* I have narrowed the focus of the article to the conflict between Aronson and Freedman, leveraging that conflict to make insights only about Freedman's writing, not about nonfiction in general.
* R2 felt strongly that I should attend to the specific implications of writing biography for children, so I have made this the final movement of the argument.

My genuine thanks to the reviewers. I hope you'll see how seriously I took the opportunity to improve my argument.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I enjoyed reading this article; it is well-written and clearly structured, and guides the reader through an interesting debate regarding nonfiction for children and its responsibilities towards a young audience. The aim of the article is promising: the author wants to show that the ‘speculate debate’ lays bare ‘key themes in the construction of childhood with implications for children’s nonfiction in specific and children’s literature as a whole’ – an aspect that to their view has not yet been discussed.

However, and sadly so, the article does not fulfil its potential. First, it makes rather big claims based on one very specific example, that is, the omission of the supposed but plausible lesbian relationship of ‘Babe’ in a biography about her by Russell Freedman. Second, and more importantly, the author makes the choice to treat this debate isolated, rather than taking into account historical and ideological contexts. There are barely any references to what is being written on the topic, both on the starting point itself, the so called 'speculate debate', as on (the ethics of) nonfiction, and biographies in particular, models of education and childhood studies. That way, the article misses many opportunities to show how the debate between Aronson and Freedman ties in with many discourses circulating in society, for example on childhood, education, science and science communication. The article would strongly benefit from engagement with existing scholarly work. As a matter of fact, this very same debate is the starting point of Joe Sanders’ chapter 6 ‘The Pursuit of Reliability in Almost Astronauts’ in A Literature of Questions (included in the biography of this article), that touches on very similar topics, and was thoroughly discussed by Zarnowski and Turkel in their article ‘Creating New Knowledge’ (2012).

I provide more specific remarks below:

l 22-23: reconsider paraphrase - Sanders stresses the financial success of including photography in nonfiction

l 25: be more specific about 'hottest arguments'/ reception of debate + sources

l 29-30: promising, but not developed to the fullest

l 141-142: elaborate

l 159-160: consider their voices as echoes of a much broader debate (on history, science, education), and make this explicit

l 172: Since biography is a specific genre within nonfiction, I would refrain from expanding findings on biography writing to all kinds of nonfiction. Also, consider including a paragraph (or some sentences) on the genre of biographies.

l 176/183: 'scholars' and 'writers for adults' can not be used interchangeably

l 270-271: interesting, but again: 'scholar' is not equal to 'author' (l 272-274)

l 290, and further: while I enjoyed reading the close analysis I struggle with the fact that so many insights build on one very specific case/comment

l 296-297, and further: what about the reluctance to share precisely this kind of information with children? - ideological context of this 'plausible fact'?

l 316: In my opinion, this endnote should be included in the main text and become part of the argument.

l 344-346 - see Sanders, A Literature of Questions

l 386-300: the word 'partners' has different meanings in different contexts, I don't agree that the use in another, unrelated work, even when written by the same author, can prove its meaning here

l 414-415: do you need 'evidence' to sketch the bigger ideas behind a discussion? shift in aim of the article?

l 420: 'forgotten', which would be possible/probable, given the timespan between writing and interview

l 429-430: if this is the case, why pay so much attention to what was meant by whom? what is the relevance of this debate if not the discourses on which it is built?

l 453-454: again, difficult to go from this one very specific case study to more general claims

l 467-470: rather vague, could you be more precise?

Overall, I believe this article has the potential to touch on very interesting themes and topics, but it seems to have lost track of its own aims somewhere halfway the article. I hope the author will take the time to reconsider the argument and engage with existing scholarship.

Author Response

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to revise.

My genuine thanks to the reviewers. I hope you'll see how seriously I took the opportunity to improve my argument.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents am informative, crisp, and cogent evaluation of a specific debate in the field of non-fictional children’s writing, exemplified by the documented scholarly conflict between Aronson and Freedman. This centres in essence on the perceived tension between presentation of historical record and freedom of interpretation granted to the child reader. In this respect, the essay’s main parameters of inquiry are original and well-defined, an bring analytical rigour and insight to the ‘speculate’ debate. It nicely dovetails with the journal scope in exploring the concept of child readership in the context of this specific genre through a specific conceptual and theoretical lens.

In so doing, the essay raises some really interesting, suggestive questions about ‘childhood, obligations of writing for children, and the ethics of children’s non-fiction’. Using pivotal illustrative moments from the debate between Aronson and Freedman, the essay explores and evaluates some key issues regarding the extent to which children’s non-fictional writers should enfranchise their reader to interpret, evaluate, and assess the material presented for themselves. This is linked to an important theoretical question, with ethical implication, relating to the agency, autonomy, and creativity of the child reader - to what extent should the children’s non-fictional writer trust their readers/addressees? The relationship between child reader and adult writer is therefore a rich and fruitful focus for analysis which the essay deftly explores. This is particularly well achieved in terms of the speculation v translation aspect of Aronson’s theory, with the former imagined as a reader who is a participant, or ‘co-navigator of new knowledge’, and this raises the very interesting idea of co-creation here with all its attendant ethical implications. The specific case-study of Freedman’s Teenagers who made History (1961) for the erasure of queer identity works well, exploring the ambiguities - ambiguity relating to definition of ‘public record’. This is carefully and subtly navigated, and exposes very well the ironies and contradictions of Freeman’s position.

There are some ways in which the essay could be strengthened, especially in terms of communicating to a broader readership not familiar with the intricacies and particularities of the context of the Aronson and Freedman debate. Firstly, the introduction would be a useful place in which to sketch out broader context and information about the ‘speculate’ debate. Secondly, it would be helpful to define non-fiction for children as a genre and concept in wider terms, and also in reference to Aronson and Freedman’s own practice as writers. The essay’s focus on one specific example in last third of the essay is helpful but some brief reference to other illustrative texts and examples throughout would be helpful. More specific points of clarification and expansion are listed below.

· What does the phrase, ‘destabilizing the information’, as defined by Aronson, specifically entail? A particular example would be helpful here.

· It would be useful to expand and clarify on the definition of ‘ethics’ being used here. The discussion from Barbara Bader (p. 5) is really clearly summarised and argued but an earlier definition (eg. in the Introduction) would help frame the reader’s understanding.

· The use of the term ‘vulnerable child’, p. 5, l. 233, needs defining here, and also when used again on p. 7.

· What does the term ‘dangerous’ specifically mean in this context?

· At times, the critical evaluation of each participant’s argument seems rather ‘personalised’ eg. p.9 - ‘he seems to have forgotten’ (how can this be assumed?); the use of the term ‘firebrand’; a ‘timid approach to research’; ‘He does cling to a humility’. I would suggest rephrasing all of these in more impartial ways.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The essay is written in a crisp, clear, and cogent style which makes for an engaging and readable argument. I have suggested amendment of more subjective, 'personalised' comments (see above), and also of more informal expression such as 'hottest arguments'.

Author Response

Hi there,

Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to revise.

My genuine thanks to the reviewers. I hope you'll see how seriously I took the opportunity to improve my argument.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Compared with the first version, the essay has been considerably improved. The speculate debate is sufficiently contextualized, and the essay's argument remains focused on the conceptual aspects in the debate between Freedman and Aronson. As a result, the line of argument is much more convincing. In this version, I suggest to publish the essay without further alteration.