The Secret Weapon in Your Nonfiction Book: A Conversation with Annette Whipple on Back Matter That Actually Works
Ask most first-time nonfiction authors about back matter and you’ll get the same answer: a glossary, maybe a bibliography, perhaps a short author’s note. Technically correct, but according to Annette Whipple, that’s just the beginning.
Whipple, author of nearly 40 fact-filled books for kids including Flick: The Truth About Lizards, joined me on the Nonfiction Kid Lit Craft Conversations podcast for a deep dive into one of nonfiction’s most secret weapons. The conversation is practical, warm, and full of surprises, including how an abundance of back matter ideas once led to a full-size foldout poster as part of the book jackets in Annette’s hardcover books.
Back Matter Is More Than Extra Pages
Early in the episode, I frames back matter with a useful analogy: the main text is an appetizer, designed to pique curiosity and draw readers in. Back matter is the rest of the meal. It continues the story, goes deeper, and gives that extra-curious kid somewhere to go next.
Annette builds on this, noting that back matter’s role goes far beyond providing extra information. Done well, it engages readers in a completely new way: through activities, visuals, resources, or creative elements that the main text simply can’t accommodate.
“Back matter can do so much more than just provide some extra information. It can really enhance, it can really supplement the text and it can get kids engaged in a new way with whatever topic it is that we’re excited about.”
Back matter also serves multiple audiences at once — children, parents, teachers, and librarians though Annette is clear that the child reader comes first. The text can be denser than the main book, which is an invitation to go deeper without overwhelming the picture book format.
Inside Flick: What Rich Back Matter Looks Like
To make things concrete, Kirsten and Annette walk through the back matter in Flick: The Truth About Lizards.
The book opens its back matter with a question: “Can I have a pet lizard?” It’s a question readers will naturally have, but it doesn’t belong in the main text (which focuses on lizards themselves, not pet care). By putting it first in the back matter, Annette immediately invites continued engagement on the reader’s terms.
From there, she moves into “Scaly Superstars,” a showcase of 12 lizard species that didn’t make the main cut, each with fascinating traits. Then comes the section Annette is perhaps most proud of: a STEM activity called the “Terrific Tongue Test,” where readers use party blowers as stand-ins for a lizard’s tongue and compete to “catch” bugs drawn on paper.
“With these animal books, I really like it to be a STEM activity. I introduced it with a chameleon’s tongue reaches its prey with precision and speed… and then the challenge is: test your tongue speed and accuracy.”
The book wraps up with a glossary, websites, and reptile organizations, the more traditional back matter elements, appearing after the more creative pieces have already done their engagement work.
Planning Back Matter From the Start
One of the most practical takeaways from this part of the conversation is Annette’s approach to capturing back matter ideas during the research and drafting process, rather than scrambling for them at the end.
She keeps a dedicated “back matter ideas” page in her research journal, jotting things down as she goes. And whenever she cuts content from the manuscript — a sentence, a paragraph, even a fully drafted section — she moves it to a separate document rather than deleting it. That saved content often becomes back matter later, or points toward a back matter idea she hasn’t fully developed yet.
She also shared a clever visual trick: moving pieces to the bottom of the document and changing the font to gray. That way it’s still there if she wants it, but her eye naturally skips over it while she’s working.
The underlying principle? Back matter shouldn’t be a last-minute addition. It’s part of the book, and treating it that way from the beginning makes for a stronger, more cohesive manuscript.
The Editor Conversation and the Poster That Surprised Everyone
Annette is refreshingly candid about the fact that back matter is a negotiation. She labels her back matter as “optional” when submitting, and sometimes offers more than is needed knowing some of it may be cut. As she explains here, this abundance mindset has sometimes led to unexpected results.
In the case of her Truth About series, Annette’s overflowing back matter ideas apparently inspired the publisher to create a full-size foldout poster for the hardcover editions, something she hadn’t planned for at all. The owls book got a “superpowers” poster; the lizard book features camouflaged lizards across an illustrated spread; and her personal favorite, the frogs book, shows a glass frog with transparent skin, organs visible, so detailed you can see the blood pumping.
“I think that happened because of the back matter that I had included. And remember, these full color foldout posters were born of an overabundance of beautiful back matter.”
The takeaway for writers: be ambitious. Submit more than you think will make it in. Let the editor weigh in. The conversation between author and editor often produces something neither would have arrived at alone.
Why Educators Care and Why You Should Too
The classroom connection is central to the staying power of nonfiction picture books, and back matter is a key part of that equation.
A well-designed STEM activity doesn’t need a full teacher’s guide to be useful. A teacher who reads the book the night before can pull the back matter activity into the following day’s lesson. Annette recalled a moment of regret when she realized she hadn’t included a STEM activity in her dog book, a gap she’s since been careful not to repeat.
The goal isn’t to replicate a teacher’s guide (which Annette also creates separately for many of her books). It’s to give educators a foothold — a cross-curricular connection, an engaging question, a hands-on challenge — that helps the book fit naturally into classroom life.
The Checklist Question and the Creative Permission
When Kirsten asks Annette if she has a mental checklist for evaluating back matter, Annette’s honest answer (watch here) is: not quite, but maybe she should create one. Here’s the distilled version of what she does think about:
- Is there an opportunity for engagement — an activity, an online resource, a challenge — not just more information?
- Is the back matter visual? Does it feel like it belongs with the rest of the book?
- Am I repeating things from the main text, or am I genuinely adding something new?
- Could a teacher or librarian use this without a separate guide?
- Am I having fun? Because if the writing is fun, readers will feel it.
Watch the Full Episode
This conversation is worth watching in full, especially for the poster reveal at the end. You can find the episode here:
And if you’re ready to go deeper on your nonfiction writing craft, Kirsten’s Reimagine Insiders community guides writers through a full children’s nonfiction project across the year — from idea generation through submission-ready manuscript. Learn more at writers.kirstenwlarson.com.