ABSTRACT
There was a huge barn owl along with an assortment of smaller owls. There were other birds, too. Some books attempt to introduce readers to a substantial topic by providing an overall view of it. Writers include a selection of facts and principles in their quest to provide a broad, rather than deep, view of the topic. Magazines, newspapers, brochures, and pamphlets all offer models students can learn from. Like many children in classrooms today, youngest son reads the Scholastic News that comes to his class each week. Some biographers highlight a theme and then weave information about historical figures into the story of a particular event. Readers who journey into children’s nonfiction will find a rich and varied landscape. Many of them blur the edges between narrative and expository writing by providing wonderful examples of short, snappy nonfiction in the end materials found outside the narrative frame of the story.
