Anyone writing a picture-book biography of Lincoln has a different set of responsibilities from someone writing a biography for sixth-graders, say, o…

- Russell Freedman

I try to find clues in the documented record - from the subject's own testimony, from the testimony of other people. When you're writing a biography, …

- Russell Freedman

Let's say that history is what happened. The record of what happened is how each individual happens to see those events. They've already been filtered…

- Russell Freedman

Writing history and biography for kids calls for special skills that can only be acquired through practice and that are different from those required…

- Russell Freedman

With the audience I write for, I want to make sure that the reader is eagerly turning every page. I want each of my books to be an absorbing reading …

- Russell Freedman

A children's biography doesn't have to be comprehensive, and it doesn't have to be definitive. It does have to be accurate, to the extent that's poss…

- Russell Freedman

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were all written by affluent white males, but to discuss them in any meanin…

- Russell Freedman

Digging up new information and speculating on it isn't your primary purpose when you're writing a biography intended for young readers, unless you fin…

- Russell Freedman

If you're doing a good job as author, then you get the reader to engage in whatever speculation might be called for. And it's much more meaningful fo…

- Russell Freedman