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PORTRAYING THE "BAD BOYS" OF HISTORY
A fellow writer asked me recently why I wanted to write young adult biographies of "Bad Boys" like Adolf Hitler, John Wilkes Booth, and to a lesser extent, Charles Lindbergh.
I didn't know how to respond at first because I'd never thought of the books in that way. But I realized it was a legitimate question. The common wisdom for many years held that children's and young adult biographies should highlight people of accomplishment, from Abraham Lincoln to George Washington Carver, who could serve as positive role models for young people.
That's still a worthy goal. But in today's complex and often confusing world, I believe there's also room for biographies of people like John Wilkes Booth and Adolf Hitler, whose destructive actions had such a devastating effect on human history. Youngsters need to know about them and their like—where they came from, and why they did what they did—if only to be on guard against the rise of similarly dangerous individuals in the future.
To be convincing, however, such figures must be portrayed as three-dimensional human beings, not simply stick-figure "bad guys." Most villains do not think of themselves as such. Whether it's Adolf Hitler plotting to conquer all of Europe, or John Wilkes Booth attempting to avenge the South by slaying Abraham Lincoln, they usually see themselves as heroes. That's one reason they're such a menace to society.
In my new book Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth, I try to get behind the labels implied in the title. First I establish that Edwin Booth is still considered one of the finest actors the American stage ever produced while his brother John Wilkes is primarily known as a detested assassin. Then I go on to suggest that their personalities were more complex: "Edwin Booth, in his hard-drinking younger years, did not always fit the stereotype of the "good brother." Nor did John, as a young actor and bon vivant, deserve the label "bad brother." Reckless and rambunctious, yes, but not necessarily bad. All that was forgotten, though, in light of John's final, murderous act—the act that insured he would be remembered only as the man who killed Abraham Lincoln."
Work on the Booth book presented a number of challenges that every writer of children's nonfiction faces. To begin with, there's the matter of objectivity—the need to present a balanced treatment of the material without letting one's personal views and opinions intrude. I'm not sure this goal can ever be achieved—or even if it should be. The author's views inevitably come through in what he or she chooses to highlight or downplay.
For example, in my biography Charles A. Lindbergh: A Human Hero, I devoted considerable space to Lindbergh's flirtation with Nazi Germany in the late l930s and his activities at the beginning of World War II on behalf of the isolationist organization, America First. I did so because I felt they revealed an important, if controversial aspect of Lindbergh's character. At the same time, I condensed the flier's postwar conservation efforts around the world because I didn't think they were as significant. Another biographer might have chosen to emphasize the latter, and ended up with an equally valid portrait of Lindbergh.
Another challenge is how to write a lively text while hewing closely to the facts. I've approached this problem in a number of ways. When I'm researching the subject, I always look for the story line in the material. Every nonfiction topic has one, whether it's the aggressive moves Adolf Hitler made in his rise to power, or the way John Wilkes Booth plotted first to kidnap and then to murder Abraham Lincoln.
Once I've settled on the story line, I use fictional techniques to shape the material in what I hope will be a dramatic and involving way. For instance, the Booth biography begins with Edwin Booth, on tour in Boston, getting the terrible news that his brother has shot the President. Then the narrative flashes back to Edwin's childhood, when he and John were growing up in Maryland as the sons of a famous actor father, Junius Brutus Booth.
Along the way, a nonfiction author almost always runs up against gaps in the historical record. In a biography, it may be a missing link in the subject's activities. A novelist can easily bridge such gaps by inventing plausible explanations, but nonfiction writers don't have that option. There are different ways of getting around the problem, but I think it's best to be straightforward. For example, John Wilkes Booth made a mysterious trip to Montreal, Canada, in the fall of 1864, six months before he shot the President. No records exist of what he did in Montreal, and I say that in the text. But it's assumed by historians that he met with Confederate agents, of whom there were many in Canada—and I say that, too.
A related problem is the matter of dialogue. Invented conversations have long been a no-no in children's nonfiction, but fortunately a writer has many possible substitutes at his or her disposal. Letters, diary entries, excerpts from autobiographies and speeches can all be utilized to inject liveliness into the narrative. I discovered a wealth of such material for the Booth biography. There were fatherly letters that Edwin Booth sent to his young daughter Edwina when he was on tour, and other, highly personal letters that Edwin wrote to his good friend, the drama critic William Winter, over a period of more than twenty-five years.
I also found memoirs written by actors who had performed with both Edwin and John Wilkes, and most unexpected of all, a pocket notebook in which John had jotted down his thoughts while on the run following the assassination. Here's a brief entry from John's notebook, written after he had made a futile attempt to cross the Potomac from Maryland to Virginia:
"After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gun boats till I was forced to return wet, cold and starving, with every man's hand against me, I am here in despair," he wrote. "And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for, what made William Tell a hero. And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat."
I can't imagine any fictional passage that would give a better picture of Booth's self-pitying mood at that moment.
There's one final challenge an author of nonfiction for older children and young adults must deal with. That's researching and obtaining the rights to photographs and other visual materials that will illustrate the book. Illustration research can be great fun when you find what you're looking for, but it can also be immensely frustrating when you don't. Still, most writers realize that the success of a children's nonfiction book today depends to a great extent on the attractiveness and appropriateness of its format, type design, and illustrations.
I've had a number of lucky breaks in researching the illustrations for my biographies. For instance, I never thought I'd find photos of Hermann Goring presenting a German ceremonial sword to Charles Lindbergh in Berlin in 1936, or pictures of Adolf Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, relaxing with their pet dogs on the terrace of the Fuhrer's Alpine retreat, Berchtesgaden, in the middle of WWII. Nor did I expect, in seeking illustrations for the Booth book, to locate a mint copy of the playbill for Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot.
But while I recognize the importance of the visual elements in a biography, as in any other nonfiction book, I feel strongly that the illustrations should never overshadow the words; that holds true for picture book biographies, as well as biographies for older children. For what the best biographies have to offer in competition with other media is a depth, thoughtfulness, and yes, literary style that are not often found on television or the Internet.
People often ask me what I'm working on now. At the moment, I'm assembling the research material for my next young adult biography. Not surprisingly, it will explore the life and times of another "bad boy": Senator Joseph McCarthy and the witchhunts he led in the 1950s. I'm eager to delve into that troubling period which has so many echoes in our own. •
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About the Author:
James Cross Giblin is the author of more than twenty-five informational books, many of them award winners. Besides his "bad boy" biographies for young adults, he has written sympathetic studies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin for younger children. Mr. Giblin grew up in northeastern Ohio, and has spent all of his adult life in New York City.
Recent Books:
Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth
(Clarion Books, 2005)
Secrets of the Sphinx (Scholastic Press, 2004)
The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (Clarion Books, 2002)
The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin (Scholastic Press, 2000)
Charles A. Lindbergh: A Human Hero (Clarion Books, 1997)
To contact this author or illustrator, please use the information for his or her publisher provided on our list of CBC member publishers.
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