I think there are many needs nonfiction meets. For example, for some readers, and at some times, they actually do just want the facts. When my sons and I look at the box score of a basketball game or a baseball game, we don’t necessarily want flowing prose, we want to know who got how many hits, what’s the final score, what does this do to so-and-so’s batting average or their place in the rankings, and I think there are readers who really, their favorite thing about nonfiction is accumulating facts.
It’s a form of collection, just like other people like to collect Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards or other things that they collect. And so I think we have to recognize that there is a kind of excellence in nonfiction that’s pure facts. We also know, and it’s no secret to any parent or teacher, that there’s a whole subset of kids who love books of records. And it is interesting to know fastest, longest, oldest, quickest, most expensive, all that. It’s fun.