弗立茲少兒傳記析論

On Fritz's Biographies for Children and Young Adult

臺灣的兒童傳記常不能兼顧趣味與真實，近年好些新出的傳記，敘述者插科打諢，虛構人物，捏造情節與對話，甚至有神仙花妖、穿梭時空、仿生人等，失去了傳記紀實的本質，卻未必換得趣味。弗立茲（Jean Fritz）為少年和兒童讀者撰寫的傳記，維持傳記準確真實的本質，不杜撰對話、虛構人物，卻能趣味盎然，引人入勝。她根據材料，透過對細節的描寫，使讀者對傳主印象深刻。她抓住人物生平一再出現的事蹟，敘述時前後呼應，有如無形之線，貫串首尾，以此表現人物特色。她語調幽默，但不輕佻。她詮釋人物動機，使敘事連貫，但清楚區分哪些有根據，哪些是她自己的揣測。她的傳記開首不拘一格，不見得都從出生時地開始，卻常能引起讀者好奇。有趣而真實，是她的傳記最值得借鏡之處。此外，本文亦指出她部分作品未臻完善，未可一概奉為圭臬。

In Taiwan, biographies for children and young adult were often added too many fictional elements, which reduces authenticity of the works without increasing interest. Jean Fritz (1915-2017), a famous American writer of biographies for young reader, creates interesting and popular biographies which were awarded many times. Fritz tends to describe events in subject's life many times throughout the story in order to highlight the subject's character. She highlights details to describe the subject and that often impresses her readers. Her tone is humorous but not sarcastic. Her works show that she differentiates speculations and the truth clearly when she explains subject's intention. Fritz's works often raise curiosity to her readers. She rarely begins the story from subject's birth date and place as most the writers do. Instead, she begins the story in different ways depends on truth resource. How to keep the authenticity without losing readers' interest of reading is what we can learn from Jean Fritz's works of biographies. At the ends of this paper, I also point out some imperfection of her works.