On 1/19/12, I spoke at Stonehouse Elementary in Williamsburg, VA, a town home to events significant to the American Revolution. After, as I was leaving, a fourth grade boy asked my host, the school librarian, for a book on another war, World War II. (Actually, he asked for “another” WWII book.)
Because of my (still-in-progress) efforts to get my WWII nonfiction picture book manuscript Thirty Minutes Over Oregon published, this lifted my spirit and reconfirmed what I’ve been saying: WWII is a topic both appropriate for and of interest to students in upper elementary. (Mine is not the first picture book written about a WWII incident, though given the resistance from some editors, sometimes it feels like it is.)
Even better, the librarian told me it’s not just this boy; the subject is wildly popular with many of her students—and it’s not yet a topic in the classroom. In other words, just because a subject is not on the curriculum (how you doin’, Boys of Steel) doesn’t mean kids don’t and can’t learn about it in school.