Writing A Children's Biography of Grant:
Michael Schuman

 

Michael A. Schuman is the author of 28 books, including many in the young adult non-fiction genres. He wrote Ulysses S. Grant for readers 9-12 years old as an entry in the United States Presidents series for Enslow Publishers in 2004. Other Schuman biographies for young readers are about such diverse historic Americans as the composer Scott Joplin, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Schuman has also written widely about travel, including presidential historical sites, and his work has appeared in more than 150 magazines and newspapers, including The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Dallas Morning News, and Los Angeles Times. He spoke recently with the Grant newsletter.

Q: What do you see as the educational value of children's biographies?

A: They introduce young people to a person they have not read about before. Adults may read a new biography of FDR but they most likely have read many others books and articles about him. So they have preconceived ideas. I am using my skills to give a young people basic knowledge about an individual new to them. So I try to be as objective as possible.

Q: Grant's military and political reputation has been changing in recent years (clearly improving). When you went back and researched him for your book, what, if anything, did you find out that struck you as different from what you learned about him as a kid?

A: To be honest, I was such a poor student in school that I cannot recall anything concrete I learned about Grant. I didn't really take my studies seriously until my last two years of high school. I do agree with you that his image is improving, but I don't think it's by a whole lot. He may no longer be ranked at the rock bottom of polls rating presidential performance, but he still is ranked in these polls as one of the weaker presidents.

Q: What's the "bottom line" on Grant that you would want young readers to know?

A: Everybody has his/her own calling. Grant was a bumbler as a child and was called 'Useless" Grant. But he succeeded in the military and was a very skilled general.

Q: What do you find most challenging about writing series biographies?

A: Trying to find an original way to describe something I have described innumerable times before. For example, I have done several biographies on late 20th century presidents. In each one I have had to discuss the Cold War. I cannot assume children know what the Cold War was (as opposed to writing for adults). So I have to describe its genesis and other details, as well as describe the communist system as it existed in the Soviet Union. Obviously I cannot use the same wording in each book. It is a challenge to find different ways to explain the same thing four or five times.

Q: As a children's non-fiction author, how do you get kids to relate to your subjects?

A: I like to play up the subject's childhood. When I am discussing the subject's adulthood I like to refer to their childhood. For example, I wrote a young adult bio of Truman. In the part about Truman becoming president after FDR's death I mentioned how this boy who was picked on and called a sissy as a child had become one of the most powerful people in the world.