Fiction vs Non Fiction is a hot topic at the moment.

I find it serendipitous that this is a topic for think space this week.  It was about a week ago I attended a debate, at a local bookshop where the topic was “Non Fiction is more important than Fiction”.  The debaters were local authors.  The adjudicator,Karen Viggers, is also a local author.  The arguments presented by both sides were well researched and, more importantly, delightfully entertaining.

 (photo credit me!)

For the affirmative there was Mike McRae, David W. Cameron and Zoya Patel.  While the negative team included Inga Simpson, Adrian D’hage and Jack Heath.

The affirmative fervently promoted the delight and accuracy readers experience from reading factual texts.  They also examined that Non fiction is more relatable in the Narrative sense because it has happened.  The team also argued that Fiction is nothing without fiction, because to have a plausible story the author must research and delve into reality. Zoya brought the affirmative teams argument home by referring to her memoir.  She reminded the audience that there is non fiction doesn’t require the imagination as real life is fascinating enough without making things up.

The negative team argued that reality is so grim that readers need fiction to escape.  Fiction exercises the imagination and allows the reader to relate to characters with the prior knowledge.  They went onto say that because fiction authors partake in extensive research to create their stories, readers are able to retain the facts because they can make connections with the story and retain the information. The team listed all the prizes for literature for fiction in an attempt to muscle out Non Fiction. Jack Heath rounded up the whole debate with his charm and examples of the strength of fiction.

I have to admit that I have forgotten some of the team’s arguments, however, I do remember that each author had equally valid points to their counterparts.  The night was filled with humour, solid arguments, self promotion and a lot of fun.  Needless to say I made a few purchases because of how engaging the authors were as speakers (oops!) The Negative team won by convincing the audience the ‘Fiction was more important that Non Fiction’.

I took this topic home to my 11 and 9 year old daughters, knowing it would spark their own debate.  I say this because my 11 year old is enthralled with non fiction books, particularly history. While my youngest always has her nose in a book and it is almost always a fiction book. They are still trying to convince me, on and off.  It is wonderful.

In the workplace there is no debate as such, I do know that it is certainly easier to purchase fiction books, for a few reasons:

• Australian Standing Order (ASO), generally send more fiction than non fiction
• The students generally choose fiction over non fiction, in our library.
• Fiction titles ‘sell’, and are less effort to choose.
• Our Non Fiction section, while huge, is dated and needs a thorough weeding.
  • This leads to students finding it difficult to locate a book of interest; or
  • Their interests are not being catered for, there are gaps in our collection.

There are gaps in our collection, I believe, because we are not keeping up with the pace of the development of Inquiry Units.  This is something I am trying to combat, through surveying staff to develop a better collection. I hope to develop a curriculum map, or scope and sequence, so that I can see where we are lacking to improve upon our collection.

I am a self confessed fence sitter and love both fiction and non fiction and each bring a lot to readers. I consider myself to still be in the infancy of my TL career and am still learning how to identify a ‘great’ Non Fiction book for my library.  After reading the article’s from set for Module 2.2, Mosle (2012) and Library of NZ (2014), I have made notes what I can do to improve my own selection criteria for Non Fiction books in the future.

#fictionvsnonfiction #loveallthebooks #balancedselection

References:

National Library of NZ. (2014). Non-fiction. National Library of New Zealand Services to Schools. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20160729150727/http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/creating-readers/genres-and-read-alouds/non-fiction

Mosle, S. (2012, November 22). What should children read? [Blog post]. Opinionator: The New York Times. Retrieved from https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/what-should-children-read/?_r=0