Books of fact and information
Peggy Heeks
While specialists on children's fiction busily contest its potential readership (Is Watership Down a book for children; are Garner and Mayne now writing for anyone but themselves?), a whole new genre of information book is emerging, tied to no age group, spanning the adult and junior markets. Of such are the Bodley Head Archaeologies, handsome introductions launched last year under the editorship of Magnus Magnusson who has contributed two titles to the series, Introducing Archaeology, winner of The Times Educational Supplement 1972 award for an outstanding information book, and the new Viking Expansion Westwards, a sub** appropriate to his Icelandic background,': tackled with journalistic skill and easy scholarship. Similarly ambivalent are the glossy Octopus books (£1.25), colour, supplement approaches to popular subjects such as birds, horses, butterflies, and the Orbis books (£1.25) which employ a like technique for enthusiasm-arousing hobby guides, Fishing, Racing Cars, Motor Cycles among them. Time-Life pioneered the method also followed by Collins for their International Library which includes Bardi's spectacular Architecture (£1.50), one of 1972's distinguished information books. The historians concentrate less on visual splendour and more on the immediacy of contemporary documents and illustrations, the backbone of Wayland's English Life books (£2.95) and Pictorial Sources series (£2.50), while that great populariser Lancelot Hogben tries to appeal to all corners by an approachable relaxed text. Maps, Mirrors and Mechanics, the third
volume in his Beginnings of Science Books (Heinemann, £1.90) slides us easily from the discoveries of Archimedes to the new era heralded by the voyages of Columbus and Cabot. On a pick and mix basis these kind of books are ideal for family buying because of their breadth of appeal, stimulating quality and capacity for long use as sources of background information.
The real surge in children's information book publiihing came in the 1960's with the rise of the project method in junior schools and it is these new-version textbooks which still dominate the market. Ideally they should be organized to speed the search for knowledge, with a clear contents page, an itkdex that's easy to use and sends the reader to information worth having, a text within children's language and concept range and illustrations which don't just pretty up the book but carry thp ipessages which words cannot. All these things' are easy enough to check and it is just laziness on the part of adults and a tendency to be mesmerised by any book with plenty of pictures which keeps , third-rate hack productions selling. A good example of a book which keeps the rules is Paul White's Fairs and Circuses (90p), the latest of Black's Junior Reference books, which also offers graphic contemporary comment and illustration — a sword swallower at work, Blondin cooking an omelette over Niagara Falls, the strong man with a paving stone on his chest inviting customers to break it with a 281b hammer — and a book list for those who want to study further, an important and rarely provided aid. Black's new Picture Information Books (85p, paperback) show a similar regard for helping the enquirer: the first eight titles all deal with the natural world, those on Conservation and Pests being particularly thought provoking.
But many of the books designed to back up school studies begin to look dated. We now expect much more than accuracy, clarity and good organization. The information book today has to arouse curiosity as well as satisfy it, to mix learning with enjoyment and stimulate a television-oriented audience to start reading. It is such objectives which have informed Macdonald's Visual Library (£1), snappy, episodic, inviting books on popular subjects, e.g. Archaeology, Prehistoric Life; Heinemann's Green Grass Books (90p) — es
pecially the very wittily illustrated Keeping Time and Sending Secrets — and Purnell's
Library of Knowledge (£1), The Vikings, The Story of Rockets, Fighting Ships etc, large bright books with cliche illustrations which make purists wince but move children to browse.
The bulk of information book publishing is still geared to limited educational ends and aimed predominantly at middle school 9-13 year old pupils. The under nines remain shockingly neglected. Series such as Lutter worth's Wrigley books (35p), the National Trust's modest Dinosaur books on history and natural history (20p, paperback) and Mac donald's Starters (35p), while easy to criticise on detail are at least to be applauded as attempts to get within the reading capacity of the young child, a difficult skill which has had stant recognition.
We haven't yet found a pattern for success with this group. The old trick of mixing fact and fiction is currently deplored as a cheat to children who want a good story, a timewaster for those who want information, but the method has an obvious application in books for young children. Alain Gree has used the technique for his friendly little Look Around books for Methuen (30-40p) on cars, trucks, boats, rockets. It comes naturally to Julie Simpson in her new series of worthy if wordy adjustment exercises of which Come Inside the Hospital (Studio Vista, 65p paperback, £1.15 hardback) is the most successful.
It is also largely Juliette Palmer's method in Cockles and Shrimps (Macmillan, £1.50), a one-off account of an Essex trade told in poetic prose and evocative pictures, more Under Milk Wood than documentary.
We are only just realising that children read information books as a leisure-time occupa tion as well as a school chore: like leisure wear for men, this is a clear growth field. That old favourite for bedtime reading, The Guin ness Book of Records gives its facts unadulterated but the B.B.C's new 4th Dimension (80p), a kind of super annual, has Patrick Moore on stars, Close on cricket and Phil Drabble advising on pets mixed with stories, limericks and the goon-like saga of Captain Radio.
The slowly growing paperback coverage of factual books for the young includes both
potential reference material — Transworld's World War II in the How and Why series (30p), Brockhampton's Picture Reference books (30) and the weighty Story of Britain by Unstead (Carousel: 4 volumes, 30p each) — and the facts-for-pleasure kind, such as Kenneth Ulyatt's fascinating The Day of the
Cowboy (Puffin Books, 35p), although the paperback field is still the special province of the unashamedly recreational, jokes, games, quizzes. Sales of non-fiction may eventually outstrip those of stories for, however much we may lament it, an increasing number of children are finding more enjoyment from
facts than fiction. Perhaps it's time to look on the credit side. Information books can widen
interests, provide a valuable framework of general knowledge and stimulate the desire to read. We could use even more undidactic factual books within pocket money range.