Using footnotes in fiction: children's book which can be enjoyed by adults
I would like to write a children's story which is appealing to both children and adults. However, the world in which the story takes place requires the use of higher vocabulary and slang (it is a real world, for example, the petroleum industry). Most adults know the words, but children don't. Can I use footnotes to define or describe the word so that children can follow along as well?
Thanks.
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4 answers
I don't think this is the right way to go about it.
I have to say I'm not a fan of explanatory footnotes in fiction, it's far too much of an immersion breaker. In fact I'd go so far as to say they are flat-out awful and should be avoided wherever possible. It's a mental load having to go down to the foot of the page, read something that necessarily breaks the flow of what you were just reading and then scan back up the page to where you were and try and pick up mid-flow.
It's jarring and unpleasant as an adult who is used to doing just that (I've read far too many scientific papers over the years not to have had lots of practice) - asking a child (who is likely to be a significantly less experienced reader than an adult) to do so, and to assimilate the new information at the same time feels like a great way to suck all the fun out of reading your story for them.
If you are finding that your primary intended audience don't know the words you are using frequently then you either need to find a better way to introduce what those words mean in the story itself or you need to find alternative words.
As for how to go about introducing the vocabulary of the "world" to the younger reader an audience surrogate can be extremely useful here. Have a character that is going to have a similar knowledge level of the world to the reader and have those "in the know" explain what these terms mean. The reader then learns alongside the surrogate character.
If you're trying to have the story appeal to both younger and more adult readers then you need to keep the accessibility of the story aimed at the younger end. Adults can easily skim quickly through the explanations of any terms they already know with minimal disruption to the experience.
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I'm going to disagree with the “bad idea” answers. I'll give as the example the first book I read containing explanatory footnotes, which happens to be one of all time's best-selling German children's books, Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer. I distinctly remember my enjoyment... They worked perfectly well for me, even though – or perhaps because – I wasn't used to footnotes. Namely, when I came to the † symbol I did not stop and skip down to the footnote, rather I kept on reading the rest of the page and right into the footnote itself. Granted, that did then disrupt my reading, but it was fine: I interrupted, read the footnote by itself and thought “ah, now I get it... I was confused at that point, and this extra info explains it”. Then I started again from the † symbol, and this time turned the page before the footnote. I believe I did think it was a bit weird, but in a good way.
Ok, maybe I'm just a “footnote person”, I also use the over-proportionally often in my own scientific writing. (Tempted to insert a footnote right here, just for the sake of it.) Ah, see: that parenthetical remark was actually more disruptive than it would have been as a footnote, don't you think? But at any rate, the success of Jim Knopf (as well as Terry Pratchett, who was already mentioned) demonstrates that footnotes can be fine in un-sciencey, child-friendly books. Just perhaps don't overdo it.
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When I was a kid, I had the Walking With Dinosaurs and Walking With Beasts companion books, and I read them over and over. I didn't know a lot of the more technical terms, but I could either look them up in the dictionary, or just guess what they meant based on context. It didn't affect my enjoyment of, or engrossment in, the stories in the slightest.
I personally wouldn't worry about including footnotes or a glossary. If a child reading your book doesn't know what a word means, they can always ask their parents/teacher/dictionary/Google what it means. I would worry about making them do this too often, though: they will either get bored of having to look things up, or simply get confused. Either way, they'll stop reading.
(Disclaimer: I was a fairly precocious child so my experience may not be true of all children, but that's also partly why I advise making sure you don't overuse technical language.)
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I agree with the answer by @motosubatsu, +1.
What I would add is it seems you are not really writing a children's story, which just doesn't demand very challenging concepts for them. I think you are writing a story for adults and trying to disguise it as a children's story, to slip it under the radar, or to indoctrinate children and/or adults into some POV on the oil industry.
Personally I think the oil industry is packed wall to wall with evil incarnate, but understanding why is far beyond the mental abilities of children still being read to by their parents; heck it is clearly beyond the mental abilities of some voters that have graduated high school.
Children's stories have simple plots and simple concepts, simple dangers they can grasp. At the age when they are being read to, their rationality is so weak they will believe in anything their Mommy and Daddy (or equivalent) tell them, including that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real live people. Including magic and superheros that can do anything, because they saw them on TV with their own eyes.
If you have to explain more than one word in your book, I don't think you are writing on their level. You can devote a children's book to them learning one new word with examples of how to use it, but I think very few parents are interested in teaching their four year old what "fracking" means or even what a "pipeline" is.
I'd pick another topic, or write for a different audience, one developed enough to ask their phone to define the occasional word they do not understand. 10 year olds and up, perhaps.
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