I’m working on finding a title for my (almost) true book. It’s a picture book about a gutsy woman in 1855. She wasn’t famous, and there isn’t a lot of solid documentary evidence about her life left. What I do have is all the documents about the big historical events she lived through and a story about her that her family has passed on generation to generation. It’s a story I really want to tell, so I’m venturing out of the world of straight nonfiction into historical fiction. The generalities of the story are historically accurate, but I’ve invented dialogue and taken the family legend as truth.

But I don’t want to mislead readers about what the book is and isn’t. Of course the back matter will explore what’s nonfiction and what isn’t, but I’m intrigued by picture books with titles that, while being amusing, also manage to warn the reader of authorial interventions into history.

Sometimes parentheses are used to comic effect:

Apples to Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narrative of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains by Deborah Hopkinson

Inky’s Great Escape: The Incredible (and Mostly True) Story of an Octopus Escape by Casey Lyall

Clara: The (Mostly) True Story of the Rhinoceros who Dazzled Kings, Inspired Artists, and Won the Hearts of Everyone While She Ate Her Way Up and Down a Continent by Emily Arnold McCully

For some reason–maybe because ballooning started in the 1700s and there aren’t a lot of primary source documents?–hot-air ballooning shows up often in these caveat-dotted titles.

Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride by Marjorie Priceman

A Voyage in the Clouds: The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785 by Matthew Olshan

Other books keep the caveats right out in the open, not hidden inside parentheses.

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash: The Mostly True Story of His First Invention by Barb Rosenstock

George Washington’s Birthday: A Mostly True Tale by Margaret McNamara

How the Cookie Crumbled by Gilbert Ford examines different stories floating around and analyzes the likelihood that they’re true, teaching critical thinking in the process. And the full title sets the reader up for what’s happening inside the book: How the Cookie Crumbled: The True (and Not-So-True) Stories of the Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie.

As a reader, I love it when the title lets me know whether I’m launching into nonfiction or not. I wonder whether explicit titles like these help librarians who are trying to figure out how to shelve their books.

Still working on my upcoming title, but I’m pretty sure it will include some comment about the truth value of the story inside the covers!