Understanding multiple perspectives--how different people see one another and events now and in the past--is often cited as a goal of social studies educators. This article describes one way to encourage children to consider a variety of perspectives on a person's life story, using a literary model as a guide to thinking about the past. The book selected for this exercise was "Talkin' About Bessie," a fictionalized account of a wake--the day when family and friends gathered to mourn Bessie Coleman's death. It is a series of brief descriptions of Bessie "written" by many different people who knew her, and shows how different people saw Bessie in different ways. After students had read the book and discussed its narrative style, they were then given the assignment of composing a similar biographical account, applying the same literary technique to another historical person. This exercise in questioning historical material and writing original interpretations based on evidence and sources proved to be beneficial activities for elementary school students, illustrating that which perspective one chooses to take makes a difference when learning about the past. (Contains 9 endnotes.)