Life Drawings: Some Notes on Children's Picture Book Biographies

Abstract

The writing and illustration of biographies for children is most often an attempt at praise. Folk heroes like Johnny Appleseed and Joan of Arc, and inventors and statesmen like Benjamin Franklin recur in the lists, which change constantly with shifts in social awareness: many more children's biographies of women, black people, and American Indians have, for instance, appeared in the last few years than ever before. Infamous people do not receive attention, usually, except as moral foils. The psychology of evil— psychology as such—is not the underlying concern of most biographies for children. Rather, the central character's life in children's biographies is often offered as an exemplum, as a model for the child. Young George Washington, little readers have been told again and again, chopped down a cherry tree but never, never told a lie.