Thursday, December 6, 2007

Searching for a Worthy Subject

So, Maia has a project in school where she has to research any famous person, past or present, and "become" that person for a living wax museum. She needs two sources: one book and one internet source. Well, she has had to change her person several times now because she can't find books about the people she chooses.

Maia wants to be an author some day. She is fascinated by authors and wanted to do this project on various authors. She just couldn't find a book source for any of the authors. Biographies on current authors are impossible to find in the juvenile literature section. I know this because out of desperation today, I took her to the library and went through the entire juvenile biography section with her. Instead of thinking of a person and then looking for a book about that person, I thought we should just go look at the available books and choose a person from there. That's when I saw the problem. Of course, there were biographies on the likes of Clara Barton and Helen Keller, but as far as modern biographies, her choices were Christina Aguillera and Lindsey Lohan. Are you kidding me? Even she, as she was scanning through the books, said, "Well, I don't want to dress us as a person who does drugs, so I won't pick that one!" What's a nine year-old to do when she has such an assignment?

We grabbed six books and I told her to skim through them to see who seems the most interesting to her. Then we'll do more in depth research on the chosen woman. Wish us luck!

8 comments:

Corinne said...

MAN. Good luck Maia!!

Julia said...

good luck! I may have a biography of Laura Ingalls wilder (although her whole series could be considered a biography, couldn't it?) What about Louisa May Allcott? She was always one of my favorites too...

Jenni said...

Wow, good luck!! And good for Maia on staying clear of the crazy biographies - I wouldn't want Sophie doing a school project on someone who's currently in re-hab either!:)

Tracy said...

I just finished reading about Henry VIII's wives. She could be Anne Boelyn and wear pretty dresses and hoods on her head. Just trying to help.....

Cami said...

Ugh! Oh well. I guess no one has written a book about me yet, so I can understand her trouble . . .

Christie said...

Good luck, I like Julias idea of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Deb said...

geesh! our tabloid society has filtered down to elementary school. good luck!

Brenda said...

I think it's so hard to find good books and authors for the young age except the classics, "Charlottes Web" etc. I get a little frustrated about that. It seems they are all about little girls who are having a bad day in school... Good luck.

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