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Honor Books. The impact of the Newbery Medal cannot beunderestimated in contemporary children’s literature published in the United States. Because the Newbery Medal has a tremendous impact on sales, it continues to set the standard for excellence in children’s books. It also seems to have an impact on what sorts of books get published. Unfortunately, the Newbery Committee rarely honors nonfiction, a fact that was brought to the public’s attention in 1976 by Milton Meltzer’s widely read Horn Book essay, “Where Do All the Prizes Go?: The Case for Nonfiction.”
    Although the Newbery Committee had recognized nonfiction prior to this time—in fact, the first Newbery was awarded in 1922 to a nonfiction book, The Story of Mankind , by Hendrik Willem van Loon—it was not until the mid-1980s that the honors came more frequently. In 1984, Sugaring Time , by Kathryn Lasky with photographs by Christopher G. Knight, won a Newbery Honor. In 1986 the Newbery Committee named Rhoda Blumberg’s Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun as an Honor Book; and in 1987, a science book, Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens , by Patricia Lauber, was cited as such. Finally in 1988 the Newbery Medal was awarded to a nonfiction book for the first time in more than thirty years—to Russell Freedman’s Lincoln: A Photobiography .
    While there has always been excellent nonfiction published for children, these four books stood out not only for their distinguished writing but also for their eye-catching presentations. Volcano , for example, was one of the first photo-essays to use color photographs. Today, it would be hard to find a children’s photo-essay that didn’t. Lincoln was generously illustrated, so much so that the word “photobiography” was used to call attention to this fact in the book’s subtitle, lest potential readers dismiss the book as just another dull, thick black-and-white biography. Since 1988, there have been many biographies for children that imitatethe look of Freedman’s book by using dozens of photographs to illustrate the text.
    All these books stand out as examples representing two forces at work: the American population, including both children and adults, was being seen as more visually oriented—that is, more responsive to pictures than printed words—and changes in technology allowed publishers to cater to this belief. Almost overnight we began to see newspapers and magazines decrease the number of printed words and increase the numbers of illustrations. In publications for children, this trend had the biggest impact on nonfiction. We began to see books of information that relied more on illustration, with many book creators successfully using unconventional approaches in presenting information to children. The books in Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen’s innovative series the Magic School Bus were pioneers in this area. Their trademark style of combining fact and fiction, using multiple strands of narrative and healthy doses of humor, has been widely imitated in books of information.
    The 1980s also saw a change in attitudes toward fictionalization in children’s nonfiction. In earlier decades, it was considered perfectly acceptable for authors writing biographies to invent scenes and dialogue. But biographer Jean Fritz set a new standard for children’s nonfiction writers with her highly acclaimed biographies for young readers: Fritz didn’t include dialogue unless she could document that her subject had actually said it, showing that it was possible to write lively, engaging biographies without fictionalization. “I don’t make up facts, but at the same time I have no desire to write in a factual style,” Fritz wrote about her work in 1988. “Nonfiction can be told in a narrative voice and still maintain integrity. The art of fiction is making up facts; the art of nonfiction is using facts to make up a form.”
    Another change introduced at around the same time was