Oh, Wise Ones:
All of our fifth graders had to choose an African American to research. I sent many
resources from our library to the teacher for her students to use, including the
book Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates. I have never read the book myself
and it has always been in my biography section for as long as I have been in this
library. Then today, in the course of trying to find further resources for the
student who chose Amos Fortune as his topic (and finding precious little!), I
looked closer at the book and realized that, in my opinion, it is really historical
fiction rather than biography. When I checked the catalog of consortium libraries
in the Cleveland area, I find that their cataloging is divided about 50/50 between
historical fiction and biography. LOC gives it a Dewey number of 974.4 and uses
"African Americans |z Massachusetts |v Biography |v Juvenile literature" as one of
the tracings.
I am, frankly, quite surprised that there seems to be no clear consensus about
whether should be considered fiction or non-fiction. Do any of you have insight on
this that you are willing to share? I'll gladly post a hit. Thanks!
Evie Kremyar, Teacher Librarian
Seton Catholic School
6923 Stow Road
Hudson, Ohio 44236
(330) 342-4200 X228
kremyare@setoncatholicschool.org<mailto:kremyare@setoncatholicschool.org>
"At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that
magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better."
Barack Obama
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