Bios With Brio

Abraham Lincoln, Martha Washington, Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Shaquille O’Neal, the Spice Girls, Ricky Martin.

The subjects of biographies for young readers are increasingly broad and varied these days.

Publishers are attempting to meet educators’ demands for in-depth books on accomplished figures, including more women and ethnic minorities. At the same time, the book industry caters to the lucrative market for quickie biographies about sports heroes, rock stars and other pop culture celebrities.

Consequently, the field has its share of tensions.

Many teachers say that even those instant celebrity biographies can seduce students into the habit of reading and steer fiction-favoring young people into more substantive nonfiction. But other teachers and parents complain that it is hard to find book report quality biographies for children.

One thing is clear: The demand for biographies is palpable.

“I think teachers are assigning biographies a lot more; therefore libraries need them a lot more,” said Pearl Yonezawa, chief librarian at the Los Feliz Branch Library in Los Angeles.

Publishing houses say they feel the demand even for biographies aimed at children just learning to read.

“Oddly enough, for kids who would read one sentence on a page,” said Susan Rose, an editor for the Lerner Publishing Group in Minneapolis. The company produces a series of picture book biographies on people such as artist Georgia O’Keeffe, African American educator Booker T. Washington and gorilla researcher Dian Fossey.

Many primary and middle school classrooms use biographies not only as a reading tool, but also to stimulate interest in such subjects as science and social studies.

That’s why Eleanore Godfrey, a seventh-grade history teacher at Chaparral Middle School in Moorpark, has her students read a biography about a historical figure each year. She tries to convince them that what biographies do is similar to what students do at lunchtime: talk about real people. Only the subjects of the books are Genghis Khan, Joan of Arc and King John of England.

This year, second-graders at Dyer Elementary School in Sylmar read biographies on Louis Braille, who invented the raised dot system of reading for the blind; former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt; and Roberto Clemente, the first Puerto Rican baseball player to achieve fame in the major leagues. Then they wrote about how those individuals made a difference in the world and how students themselves can do likewise.

In efforts to entice young readers, more biographies are becoming less formulaic in style and look, according to Caron Chapman, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Assn. of Booksellers for Children.

“It’s a more snappy [writing] style now that authors have, and visuals have to include accurate drawings,” she said. “You can’t just get by with a horse on a prairie.”

Chapman said that among the best-regarded biographies for youth in the last decade have been “Charlie Parker Played Be Bop,” a picture book by Chris Raschka about the legendary saxophonist; “The Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare” by Dian Stanley and Peter Vennema; and “Eleanor Roosevelt” by Russell Freedman.

More books are now available on women and people from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including South African leader Nelson Mandela, opera singer Placido Domingo and folk singer and humanitarian Joan Baez.

Also, many new biographies steer more toward accuracy, even if that means revealing some not-so-flattering characteristics of a famous figure.

In a recent issue of the Children’s Writer newsletter, author James Cross Giblin noted that earlier children’s biographies on Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, omitted mention of the pilot’s isolationism during World War II and what critics considered to be his anti-Semitism. But Giblin said he included such details in his biography, “Charles A. Lindbergh: A Human Hero,” to show the man’s complexity.

Such historical figures, however, may be getting outnumbered by the latest teen heartthrob, band or athlete, who often earn a biography after one hit TV show, CD or season.

Browse through the local bookstore’s children’s section and you’re likely to find books about James Van Der Beek, the star of TV’s “Dawson’s Creek;” the folk-pop singer Jewel; basketball phenomenon Michael Jordan, and champion ice skater Michelle Kwan.

Christina Fernandez, a fifth-grader at Dyer Elementary, admitted that the biography of fifth U.S. President James Madison, which she recently finished for a class assignment, was not exactly a fun read.

But when asked what her favorite biographies were at the moment, Christina’s eyes lit up. She read a book about the band ‘N Sync two months ago.

“They have, like, questions at the back of the book, so if you read the whole book, you’d know the answers,” the 10-year-old said. “I know everything about [band member] Justin--he’s, like, my favorite.”

Many teachers consider these types of books biography lite. Yet they concede that such books are a possible bridge to serious nonfiction, instead of just more comic books, science fiction or the next installment in the Goosebumps or Sweet Valley High series.

Dyer Principal Jim Morris said that among the most popular books in the school library are biographies of sports figures, but he doesn’t think that’s such a bad thing.

“If it gets them interested in a book, then something wonderful is happening,” he said. “The more you read, the better a reader you become.”

Times staff writer Margaret Chapman contributed to this story.

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