Child-Sized History: Fictions of the Past in U.S. Classrooms

Appendix A: Nationwide Trends in Middle-Grade Historical Fiction

179 Appendix A Nationwide Trends in Middle-Grade Historical Fiction ■ A long history of local control over curricular decisions in the United States makes it impossible to obtain an exact measure of any one book’s penetration into primary and secondary school classrooms. Even as the nation inches toward standardization in educational aims and achievement goals, decisions about how curriculum is delivered—that is, which books are taught and how—continue to be made by individual districts, school faculties, and even single teachers. We can’t create a definitive list of the most widely taught novels in the middle-grade curriculum, but we can track nationwide trends. More than 10 percent of U.S. states—Alaska, California, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, and Massachusetts—publish on their Department of Education website lists of fiction titles or, in the case of Massachusetts, authors that the state endorses or that classroom teachers within the state use and publicly recommend. Many states, both those with and without recommended reading lists, also specifically encourage teachers to select trade books that have won major children’s literature awards. The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts, which a majority of U.S. states adopted in 2010, provides a short list of illustrative texts for each grade level. Publication of children’s book titles in multiple formats offers an additional gauge of circulation. The creation of a motion picture based on a children’s book documents a title’s popularity—the book helps sell the big-screen or made-for-TV film—as does a book’s recording as an audio book or translation into Spanish (both suggest use in school settings as these formats support the learning of special-needs populations). The Internet also provides a tangible if inexact measure of a book’s classroom use, leaving a trail of student and teacher projects on particular novels as well as their queries for academic help or professional assistance. Websites like SparkNotes.com and PinkMonkey.com have responded to student demands for comprehension aids by providing in-depth summa- 180  Child-Sized History Book State list Across Five Aprils CA IN MA NC Amos Fortune, Free Man AK CA NY And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?a CA MA The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, vol. 1b Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amosa AK CA IN MA NY The Birchbark Housea CA MA CCc Bud, Not Buddy CA MA CC Caddie Woodlawna AK MA NY The Cay CA IN MA NC NY Chainsb Charley Skedaddle AK A Day No Pigs Would Diea NC Dragonwingsa CA MA NY CC Esperanza Risinga CA Fighting Ground CA MA A Gathering of Daysa CA MA The Island of the Blue Dolphins IN MA NY Sequel, Zia AK CA ries and analyses of particular middle-grade novels, a service that attests to a book’s assignment in classrooms. Finally, museums’ development of successful school-group programs centered on a particular children’s book suggests wide readership of the novel in the geographic region of the museum. Sales numbers provide additional insight into a book’s use in schools. Publishers Weekly’s list of the all-time best-selling children’s books documents the significance of particular titles over the period of their print life. This system of measuring popularity favors older titles; however, Publishers Weekly’s longitudinal data can be compared to up-to-the-­ minute (literally) sales rankings on Amazon.com, the largest North Appendix A  181 Best-selling children’s paperback ranking Newbery Other major award SparkNotes Other student-centered reading guide or presence on paper-mill website Movie adaptation Museum program Accelerated Reader Audio book Sequel Spanish translation X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 57 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 6 X X X X X X X X X Continued on next page American book retailer. Amazon sales records demonstrate that a book like Island of the Blue Dolphins, which ranks sixth on Publishers Weekly’s list, does so not...