Book of the Week - Handel: He Knew What He Liked

Handel: He Knew What He Liked by M.T. Anderson

Footnotes are a great way to insert needed information into a story without putting them into the narrative. Some children’s stories have an abundance of footnotes, inserting them all over the page. This can be seen in non-fiction science and animal books especially. Anderson understood that he was writing a story that is very time period directed, and although children will understand the emotions of a character, they may not know what a clavichord, or an opera, or a libretto is. The footnotes are details, but not too much detail. Needed information that would otherwise slow down the pacing of the story. When writing non-fiction one has to keep footnotes into consideration to insert much needed information.