Historical Fiction Picture Book: Marvelous Cornelius

Title: Marvelous Cornelius
Author: Phil Bildner
Publication: 2015

Marvelous Cornelius is about a trash man in New Orleans who goes around happily cleaning up the city after Hurricane Katrina. Bildner does a great job of intertwining the culture, history and spirit of New Orleans into the story, while also adding some fictional elements to make the book fun for readers.

As a reader, I immediately picked up on the beautiful and authentic drawings of each page. After having just visited there this past spring, I recognized prominent historical landmarks, like the St. Louis Cathedral, as well as something as small as the intricate ironwork on the balcony of a house, perfectly resembling the architecture of the French Quarter in New Orleans. When flipping through the pages of the book, I am taken back to New Orleans, because of the wonderful realistic culture he weaves into the book. For example, in the middle of the book, he adds music, which is very popular to New Orleans history, into the drawings and story line. By doing this, the reader learns about the culture of New Orleans, without having to visit there. Bildner adds small details like "gumbo" and "beignet," so that the reader can learn about some of the elements that make up New Orleans and it's history. This adds to the realistic and factual side of the book, while the character dialogue and other elements may be more fictional.

Through using these tools in writing, I believe Bildner makes a historical fiction book interesting for kids to read. First, he weaves in real details about New Orleans history and culture, so that the reader learns about the city. Next, he takes a real story about Hurricane Katrina and tells it from a character's perspective. This makes the character the main focus, not the event as much. Therefore, the event is not as heavy and depressing as if you had just said, "Hurricane Katrina ruined many homes and lives of the people in New Orleans."

One of my favorite parts about his book is that Bildner chose his story to be about a protagonist, Marvelous Cornelius, who is African-American. As we have entered the 21st century, more and more books have become multi-racial. I believe this is how books ought to be, so they are reflective of the real world. Additionally, I really enjoyed the "author's note" at the end of the book and how it explains who the real Cornelius is and how he connects to the broader culture of New Orleans. When I visited the city, I could feel that same lively and happy-go-lucky spirit of the people that Bildner writes and speaks of. As Bildner says,

"On so many levels, Cornelius symbolizes what the city of New Orleans is all about - the energy, the spirit, the magic, the people. That's what brought all those volunteers to the Crescent City, and inside each one was a little bit of Marvelous Cornelius" (Bildner).