Good afternoon, everyone and
welcome today's today's webcast a
conversation would be 2020 Jelsa
Excellence and nonfiction finalists.
Brought to you by School Library
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Bridge Harper Collins Macmillan Norton
and Random House Children's books.
But my name is NASA Willoughby
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And for today's discussion will be talking
to the following authors about their books.
First up is the Great Naginski God's dance
written and illustrated by Lynn Curly
and published by Charles Bridge team.
Our second is 1000 sisters the heroic
airwoman of the Soviet Union in World
War 2 were in by Elizabeth Wein.
My balls are in bright an imprint
of HarperCollins publishers.
Our 3rd is torpedoed the true story of
the World War 2 thinking of the children
ship written by Deborah Heiligman.
And published by Henry Holt,
an imprint of Macmillan Children's
publishing group.
Our 4th is free lunch written by
Rex Ogle and published by Noreen.
Young readers an imprint of WW Norton.
And company and last but not least a
light in the darkness, Genesis Kurczak,
his orphans and the Holocaust.
Hi Albert, Marin,
an published by Alfred a knopf an imprint
of Random House Children's books,
a division of Penguin Random House.
In a light in the darkness will be
presented on behalf of Michelle Fry
Executive Editor at Knopf books
for young readers.
Our first author up is Lynn Curly.
Hello everyone, I'm so happy to be
here and honored to be included in
such excellent company I've got some.
Images to be showing you while I do
my little talk here basically to show
the quality of the design of the book.
We spent a great deal of time.
On the graphics of the book,
the beautiful typography and we
have a mixture of paintings vintage
photographs and archival art.
To serve as illustrations.
Born in 1889,
US Love Naginski came of age in the
era right before the 1st World War.
He was a ballet dancer with impeccable
technique a great artist who radiated
extraordinarily powerful charisma on stage,
he became a gifted choreographer.
Touched with undeniable genius.
When he was only 20 years old,
he became world famous literally over
light as the star of the Ballet Russe.
The most important and innovative theatrical
enterprise of the early 20th century.
He performed an choreographed
ballets to some of the very
greatest musical masterpieces,
composed in that era.
This is why his life is important.
In spite of his artistry and Feign Visions.
He was painfully awkward in social situations
to the point of being regarded by some.
As an idiot savant.
He was obsessed with sex,
but deeply conflicted.
Beginning in his late teens he entered
into homosexual relationships with
older men first with a Russian Prince
and then with Sergei Diaghilev.
Who is Justin beginning his storied
career as a ballet impresario?
It was Diaghilev?
Who took nijinsky with a belly rooster Paris.
And made him a star.
But Majewski was not exclusively gay.
He also sometimes sought the services
of female prostitutes and eventually he
renounced his homosexuality an impulsively.
Married a young woman he scarcely new
and eventually even fathered children.
But. During his years with the ballet,
Russe living openly as the
companion of Diaghilev.
He was 1/2 of the most famous.
I'm notorious gay couple of
the entire Edwardian era.
The whiff of scandal became part
of his legend and as a result,
he has in retrospect, a covenant.
Exceedingly important gay icon.
This is why his life is particularly
relevant to many people today.
Resume skis actual career with the ballet.
Russe lasted only for 5 years,
but that was enough to secure his legendary.
Almost mythic reputation as
the greatest of all dancers.
He was a choreographer of startling
originality hailed by many as
the inventor of modern dance.
When he married Diaghilev outraged
and humiliated fired him visions.
Keys career was effectively
over within a year.
Europe was engulfed by war and he was
confined in a kind of house arrest.
As a prisoner of war.
Majewski was totally dedicated to his art,
but without a job he was completely
unequiped to fend for himself.
There's a free agent.
Eventually,
his internal conflicts,
the unrelenting carnage of the
war years of inactivity when he
should have been in his prime.
A difficult self involved wife and
perhaps even a genetic predisposition
tipped him over the edge.
At the age of 30.
Vision St went stark raving mad
living the entire second half of
his life as a semi invalid lunatic.
He experienced the grandest Heights of
artistic and professional success and
the profoundest steps of personal tragedy.
This is why his life is so
incredibly fascinating.
In the early 1970s,
I was a young man living in New
York City trying to establish
myself as a professional artist.
I was inspired by vintage photographs
of New Ginsky to make a series of
life sized paintings of dancers
from the Ballet Russe.
A one man show of these paintings in 1974,
was my first real professional success.
Subsequently,
I made my living as a Gallery artist
and gradually I made a second karere,
a couple of decades later,
as an author illustrator.
In 2008,
Majewski once again became my subject.
As I worked on this new series
of 6 paintings.
The idea to call to make
a book about the jet ski.
And then as I worked on
the manuscript ever so
gradually the project evolved from
being a picture book for older kids.
So the final result of fully
rigged illustrated biography for
young adults with both my old an
my Nuna Jenski paintings included.
After 45 years as a professional artist
Mycareer as author illustrator has
merged with my career as a painter.
And my work has come full circle.
Thank you so much Lynn Next, Elizabeth
will briefly talk about 1000 sisters.
Hi I'm Elizabeth when I'm
talking to you from Schottland.
And a thousand sisters is my first
non academic venture into nonfiction.
I was actually asked to write
it by my editor at Bolton Gray,
who had heard about the night which is.
This amazing group of.
Women who Flu and drop bombs in tiny little.
Planes basically made out of balsa
wood and fabric on the German
frontlines during World War 2?
And she wanted me to.
Write a book about them,
and I more or less started doing the
research for it and discovered that.
You really couldn't write a book about
the night which is without writing
a book about their sister regiments.
Because they didn't just fly these
little old-fashioned plans as bombers.
They had fighter planes fighter
pilots flying from.
They also flew very state of
the art dive bombers.
And eventually I ended up going to Russia
with a friend that I met on the Internet.
The first time we met in real life.
Was in a hotel in Saint Peters
Berg and there is a picture of
us during that during this?
I'm using strip her number low and
she is also young adult writer.
She has book coming out this.
This year on Russian women going into battle.
It's called open fire so.
But that's just that picture is really
not anything to do with research and
not anything to do with the book,
it's just to entertain you.
This is more to the point.
This is one of the scenes from the.
Moscow Metro.
It's a barrier leave and it shows.
Men and women working together building
planes during the Second World War
and one of the things that was.
Really astonishing AB to me
about the Soviet Union.
Once I started digging into it was that they?
Did a good job of?
Having.
Equal education for boys and girls
in the 1920s.
It was part of what they called
the Stalin Constitution.
Which was incorporated in written
out in 1936 and?
As a result,
girls really entered into all the
fields that boys were able to enter
into and under solid they had to
engage in paramilitary activities
after school one of the things that
they could learn to do was fly.
And about 1/3 of the qualified pilots in
the Soviet Union during the 1930s were women.
Which is not a statistic that is remotely
equal to anywhere in the world today?
Marina Ruskova.
Turns out to be kind of at
the forefront of this.
Phalanx of women pets and she was revered
pretty much as a heroine in this union.
As a navigator long before she was a pilot.
For smashing a long distance flight
record to Smithereens and she
was really hailed by young women
who were flight instructors or?
I wanted to learn to fly.
And when war broke out.
Add when the Germans invaded Russia in.
1941.
Girls all over I say girls they were
many of them in their teens,
but young women,
all over the Soviet Union.
Wrote to her begging her to
find a way for them to.
Help their country and to fight in the war,
everybody wanted to be sent to the
frontline they were incredibly patriotic.
And she For reasons had Stalin's
here and we don't really we don't
entirely know why but she was.
Pretty highly placed as well as
being a celebrity and she got the
go ahead to form 3 flight groups.
The 120 one 122nd air group was the
background for these flight groups.
And within that was the
training group and she then.
Was able to have 3 regiments?
And the first of these in order they
are numbered exactly the way the
Mens regiments are numbered this.
Where is the 586 fighter aviation
regiment there you see all the young
women getting ready to fly obviously
it's a propaganda picture but.
Essentially, there in uniform, there.
In their flight gear and they're
posing in front of one of the
fairly state of the art planes.
Jack one that they would have been flying.
Then. There was also the 587th which
I'll get to in a moment but the 588.
Was the night bomber regiment and
they were the night which is the ones
that everybody that everybody has
heard of if you've heard of them.
These women were basically
flying harassment missions.
They weren't the only flight regiments
doing this there were also plenty of
Mens regiments who did the same thing.
But they organized themselves
a little bit differently,
an what really strikes.
Everyone's imagination is how
they teamed up together.
So that they?
That they would fly in
little groups of two and.
One plane would distract the
antiaircraft guns and the search
lights while the other plane cut
its engines undercover of darkness.
Slip down as low as they could
go drop their bombs on the.
German troops that were camped on
the front lines and then started
their engines again and flew away so.
Never saw them coming and then they
would and then the other plane
would switch round with them.
It was very dangerous.
But it was also really bad for the
German morale and it was the Germans,
who named them knocked accent
night which is because they?
There are a number of different reasons
why we think they might have done this,
but essentially it's because they would
swoop in. And they could hear the?
Wings of their planes.
Um making a sort of flapping noise
that they thought maybe sounded like
broomsticks slipping in the night.
This is what they were flying they
were really they were training
aircraft essentially?
And the They were also flying in
those are open cockpit planes an
they were flying in like ridiculous
conditions and one of the things
that I thought was amazing.
When I was doing the research for this
was that the winter of 1941 to 42.
With the coldest winter ever recorded?
In our history,
so it's almost like it's almost like that,
Allah see that.
People had to deal with the coldest
winter ever in the middle of war time.
So these guys were flying with
nothing on there, you know.
With the wind on their faces
the woman in the middle of that
picture is rice are in Nova.
And it was her son an awfully
sciatic who actually gave us
permission for these pictures,
so I just wanted to mention that here.
The 587th dive bomber Aviation Regiment
through these state of the art dive bombers.
Add Marina Ruskova.
Was supposed to be their leader?
But she was killed navigating in
poor weather in winter of 1943?
On her way to join that regiment
and she's buried in the Kremlin.
Wall right behind Stalin and that is a?
So a picture of her grave on
the on the left there.
And just to finish up,
I this actually my favorite picture
out of the out of the whole group.
And every picture I've ever seen
of them that on the left is ready,
Sarah Nova again at the same.
Woman that you saw in the winter flight
here earlier and they are having a reunion.
They really organize them themselves.
They didn't really get any military honors.
But they were very proud of
what they did what they had done
and they would meet every year.
There obviously.
Now in their 90s if there are few
that are left, but Every year from.
The time that the Soviet
Union relaxed its grip on.
Such things a little bit after Stalin's
death until they finished their lives.
They remembered what they've done.
So that's me.
Thanks so much Elizabeth Next up?
Jabra will talk about Turkey tote.
Hi everybody, thank you so much for
having me I'm thrilled to be here
and in this amazing company and.
Boy, World War 2 amazing just plethora
of stories in World War 2? So.
And what would we do without editors.
Uhm I was just finishing my first draft,
my first full draft of Vincent
and Theo when I had.
Lunch with my editor Laura Godwin
and she asked me what I wanted to
do next and I gave her some ideas.
None of which she particularly liked
and then she pulled out of her purse
her phone and she showed me this.
Photograph of a child size custom made red.
Life jacket and she said she saw
this in an exhibit at the Imperial
War Museum in London,
the exhibit was about children.
In war and it was about a
particular ship that was Torpedoed.
Maybe I might want to go home and
do a little research about it.
That so I did an I must admit that I
was thinking it doesn't really sound
like my kind of a book 'cause I tend
to focus on one or 2 people and.
You know go very,
very close in but as soon as I
started researching I knew I had
to write this book so.
The scene for you,
it is the summer of 1940,
Hitler's invading all over Europe
pushing himself.
Thoards England threatening to invade
England on land and in the meantime
bombing England and not just the big cities,
but The towns and villages
everywhere kids families would wake
up and their house might be gone.
There school might be gone.
There church might be gone.
Parents were beside themselves.
How would they save their children,
now rich people could save their children.
They could send them off to live
with relatives or friends or?
Make other arrangements,
but what about people who didn't
have money so number of members
of parliament were thinking along
those lines aanmai established.
This government program called the
children's overseas reception board.
This is a obviously a staged
photograph with the guy in the
middle Jeffrey Shakespeare,
Yes, a relative of William.
With the head of the program and
these are some children who are
happily going off to Canada, an?
So the idea of the core program was
parents would apply they would send
their children away for they did not
know how long because how long was the war,
Gonna laughed.
So, in times of war,
not people.
Impossible in heartbreaking decisions
are made but for most of the parents who
applied for their children and got some.
An to the core program.
The worst thing they had to go through
with being separated from their children,
which was horrible,
but they?
Eventually got their children back and
that was true for thousands of children.
Until my ship.
The FS city of Benares sailed on
Friday the 13th of September.
And this is what it looked
like before the war
it was sort of donated to this program
by the element lines and they painted it.
Grayish Brown, they put guns for and aft,
but it didn't look like a warship
it wasn't an ocean liner.
And it was torpedoed at 10:00 o'clock
at night. By a German U-boat.
It was a raging storm there were a
hundred children on board most of whom.
That government program.
A10 of whom were not including the
little boy in the red life jacket
and most of the children died.
So while that may sound like a
tragedy and it certainly was uhm.
There were many, many,
many reasons why I wanted to write.
The book.
Not the least of which was that in the end,
I found it a very life,
affirming experience and I can
talk about that more later.
But as a researcher and as
a primary source junkie.
I was very, very happy at how many
primary sources were available.
To me interviews done by the
Imperial War Museum.
I was able to order all these records,
I found journals, I found.
Autobiographies an personal papers eventually
and eventually tored the end of the process.
I was able to interview
the remaining 2 survivors.
One of whom is that little girl on
the left in the pigtails that Sonia.
Here she is when I was
interviewing her in England.
She lives with her mother brother and
her sister Anne, they all survived.
She was 89 years old when we stayed with her,
she's now almost 91 she insisted
we stay with her.
Uh we went through.
Her scrapbooks, I talked to her.
She let me hold an artifact that you
could read about in School Library Journal.
Uhm the other person I was able
to meet was this guy John Baker.
John Baker story is very different from
Sony's because his older brother died.
It was a real tragedy for him.
He's never quite gotten over it.
But we are still very much in touch.
We FaceTime all the time. Ann.
Also, while I was in England.
I just had to share with you.
This these are the personal papers
of one of the greatest heroes
in the book and that is.
A school teacher who kept 6 little
boys alive for 8 days at sea.
By telling them a continuous
story and through Sonia,
who knew her niece in law.
I was able to go through papers
that nobody else had ever seen,
including letters that those 6
little boys wrote to her.
For the rest of her life.
So one more word about my processes
courses after I did all the research.
I had to actually turn it into an?
Book with using this huge cast of characters,
an I wanted people to be
able to really focus on.
Each character that I was
writing about so this is just a
picture of my bulletin board.
In the middle of my process trying to
I'd like to have all these things around
me, so I just wanted to show you
a picture of my Bulletin Board,
an later on, I can talk a
little bit more about how I.
Focused in on who I would write about
and how I would write about them.
Thank you so much.
Thank you Deborah next Rex
will talk about free lunch.
Hi everyone, I'm ready to go.
I'm the author of a nonfiction memoir,
Free lunch and I just want to
say it's an honor to be here,
especially among such.
Amazing authors and amazing books
and it's just really awesome.
So I guess I study about my book
pretty much is a true story?
It's my story.
About my first semester in middle
school during which I had an actual
bowl haircut makes my book deals
with the usual teenager stuff.
Making new friends trying to find a
place to sit during lunch wanting to
try to try out for the football team.
Being annoyed by My baby brother,
but also touches on with difficult issues
like poverty and domestic violence.
My parents were both unemployed which
meant when secondhand clothes not being
able to get school supplies skipping meals.
And, of course,
going on the schools,
free lunch program,
which was massive source of
embarrassment and shame for me.
Because I I tried to keep it a
secret from my peers 3 months was in
the story that I wanted to write.
But it's one that I I really felt
that I needed to.
Last year,
there were over 30,000,000 kids
in the United States on the free
or the reduced lunch program.
And equally if not more disheartening
is that researchers estimate between
3.3 and 10,000,000 children exposed to
adult domestic violence every year.
When I was young,
there was almost no wear that I felt safe.
I wanted to escape and sometimes
I do that with friends and.
Sometimes I did that by getting into trouble.
Uh sometimes I went dumpster
diving in this dumpster.
Which you know it was just my way
of hoping to find some treasure
that might make my life?
A little bit better.
I know that might sound leak but
my home is a war zone.
We lived in government subsidized housing
in just a stones throw away from the school.
Uh.
If you look at that picture you can see
the football field in the background.
I would slink by.
Head down shoulders folder just embarrassed
in the sharing of where I lived.
There is violence at home and at
school and my financial situation.
Just so depressed on me that I
would not fired because I didn't
have what everyone else had.
I went to a very rich school
district my mom did that,
said that I could get a good education.
But that just made it harder.
It's got a little bit better when
my mom finally got a job at a local
Chinese restaurant pictures here.
But only so much violence
kind of stuck around.
But I haven't my boy love my grandmother,
who always pushed me to keep
bettering myself to education.
She's from Mexico.
She grew up with a lot less
than I did an she also took me
to get my first library card.
So thank God for her and thank God for
the folks at the Grapevine Public Library.
'cause they were all smiles.
And book recommendations all the time
and that helps more than I can say.
All in all,
I wouldn't say that I had the most often
childhood but it could have been worse.
And I know there are a lot of use
out there right now who are suffering
through even more difficult situation.
When I grew up with and that's
why I wrote free lunch.
I wanted young readers going
through similar things to know.
1st and foremost that they're not
alone in that through everything
there is only one thing.
There is one thing that people
cannot take away from you and that's
ability to stay strong and hope.
Sensibly strive to.
To be a better person.
Thanks so much Rex an next Michelle will
talk about a light in the darkness.
OK, Hi Everybody, Al can be here today.
I'm happy to tell you about a light
in the darkness. On his behalf.
Uh. Ganesh core Jack maybe
the most remarkable person.
You've never heard of in Poland in the 30s.
He was really the doctors.
Doctor today a pediatrician here a radio
show and was a well known author who
dispensed advice about child rearing.
His philosophy of children with this
and this is a quote of his children
are not the people of tomorrow.
But people today.
They are entitled to be taken seriously.
They have a right to be treated by
adults with tender Nishan respected.
Equal they should be allowed to grow
into whoever they were meant to be
the unknown person inside each of
them is our hope for the future.
He was far ahead of his time and
his ideas ultimately became the
foundation for the United Nations
declaration on the rights of children.
Ann McCord acted with his 50s wasn't
a lucrative private practice,
he started an orphanage based on his ideas.
Where are the kids had a voice in one
of my favorite stories is that he
helped the kids create a constitution an?
Children's parliament that outlined
the code of laws,
and consequences for the violation
of those laws and the main point
of this wasn't punishment.
But to teach the children respect
for the law and for people's rights
and a child could bring.
Charges against anyone, including staff.
And in fact, Core Jack himself 5 times,
was brought up in front of the children's
parliament 4 times he was acquitted.
But on the 5th kind,
he was convicted,
he had playfully to the little
girl on a tree branch.
Anne laughed when she asked to come down.
And the children on the parliament
convicted him an when the little
girl heard the conviction.
She burst into tears and ran into his arms,
she just wanted justice to be served.
And he accepted his punishment.
Corey Jack was Jewish Annezin Nazis
rose to power and invaded Poland.
He had many opportunities to
flee based on his stature.
But he turned them all down because he
couldn't imagine leaving the orphans.
He knew what their saying would be any
wanted to gently prepare them for it.
He knew that meant he die with them,
but there was no other choice
for him to make.
So as they became confined
to the Warsaw Ghetto,
he stood by their size and when they
were finally called for the train.
He dressed the children in their
Sabbath finest and marched somber,
dignified through the streets with
them and they were sent to Treblinka.
Where they all perished?
This book tells an incredibly
moving story about a great man,
but I'm not out,
so I can choose his horn a little bit here.
It's much more than that when
you're dealing with an almaran book.
Al uses this book to crop contrast.
Korshak his life and his ideas
about children with Adolf
Hitler, his life.
And his ideas about children.
Unlike Corey, Jack Hitler believed
that children were nothing more
than tools of this date and his
grotesque policies reflected this.
From the mandatory Hitler Youth Group
to the lebensborn breeding program
and I thought I knew quite a bit
about Nazi Germany before I began.
Working on this book,
but there's so much here that I never
knew like about this breeding program
where young woman could go and choose.
A young man to sire her Aryan children.
Totaly creepy throughout Marin draws
readers into the Warsaw Ghetto,
what it was like to live there.
How it was run?
How would you within an
pools without responded?
And who worked to save lives
who tried to enrich themselves
on other people's suffering.
And how one man team to represent
the conscience and soul of humanity.
This book will wrench you apart,
but it will also show how even in
the darkest hours. There's a light.
In the darkness it's really
gripping perspective on World
War 2 an unforgettable portrait
of a man whose compassion.
Reminds us what is possible?
It's eerily timely and has
important lessons to share about
authoritarianism and totalitarianism
as well as integrity and kindness.
Um.
It's really perfect for anyone interested
in World War 2 and the Holocaust and
humanitarian response is in times
of crisis an extraordinary heroes,
I know.
I really responded to it on
on that level an al really put
his heart and soul into this.
Thanks so much Michelle Ann.
Thank you everyone for
talking more about your books.
So at this question,
we're going to go to the Q&A with
our authors first up is Lynn.
Highland. Hello.
So you were in an illustrated
several books about historical
monuments and landmarks,
including the Statue of Liberty
and the Seven wonders of the world.
But this is kind of a different
Ave for you in terms of subject
in genre so is wondering.
What inspired you to write a
biography namely one that focuses on
the world of ballet and one dancer?
Regency's legacy.
Well, when I started out as
a a book author illustrator.
I was in my 40s are ready by that
time and I had a A career as a
Gallery artist behind me and dumb.
It was. It became evident that
it from my experience in the
book business that after one job.
You're sometimes lead to another
job based upon what you did before.
So my my books that had to do
with architectural monuments.
Kind of became a theme in which I
got typecast, not necessarily what
I wanted to do continually but.
That was the next job and so
I would go to that.
But I had a lot of other interests
always from an early age.
I loved in studying music.
I have an advanced art history
degree and so I know a lot about
different areas of of art in from.
All over the world and then when I
became a professional artist Naginski
and his circle was the subject of one
of my very first exhibitions of paintings.
When I was a very, very young man,
I did some research,
then and do a bit about
Naginski's extraordinary life.
But then 40 years later,
after having written and illustrated 13
non fiction picture books for older kids.
I returned to Naginski as the
subject for some new paintings and
then it was at that moment that I
decided to attempt a biography.
In the beginning, I think I said,
before it was shorter and it's
skewed more to middle grade.
But as I began doing multiple rewrites
in conferring with my editor the
product expanded into a proper.
Fully illustrated biography for young adults.
Thank you. And kind of
moving into the actual.
Content in an editorial process of the book.
Uhm you know, one thing I really
appreciated about it was that.
Even though you're talking about
the personal history of Magine
Ski and um know his sexuality.
Ann. You don't really I guess
dumb it down for you know the.
The audience uhm you know
it's very honest and open,
but it's still appropriate for that.
I guess age demographic.
So what I was doing some background
research on your career.
I came upon a Q&A that you did with.
Publishers weekly and 2019 and
you kind of talked about how you
approached the topic of his sexuality.
And he said,
I showed the second draft to you.
Londa Scott at Charles Bridge and
we talked about the sexual content.
She said. Keep it Frank but not Felicia.
We actually work through 6 drafts
before the manuscript was finalized.
And so I was wondering you know
what sort of editorial choices where
exercise to keep the book Frank.
And not salacious and when you're
writing a bio bio graphical work?
How does the narative change
when certain details?
Or omitted.
OK, when I started this book,
I was the client of an agent
who was very old school, he has
subsequently Unfortunately passed away.
But in the beginning as I said it was
tilted toward the MG instead of why a
his advice had been to tread lightly.
On the details of the sexuality and the.
The sort of brutal details
of new jet skis insanity,
but but later as I was working on the book
and it had been sold to Charles Bridge.
We decided to go for the A Category
very definitely and the first
decision that we made was too.
Beef up the information about the
sexual content and to simply present.
It factually non sensationally,
but to mince no words and to just
sort of tell it like it was.
And we both felt that way.
My editor and I and we felt
that in today's environment.
Everything has changed so
much in today's environment.
This information was crucial really,
for the integrity of the book.
It's one of the reasons that
the jet ski is famous.
It really wasn't that hard
to find the right tone.
The six drafts did not have
to do with the sexual content.
It had to do with cutting and
adding other things to the book but.
I was just sort of able to.
To sit and write write it the sexual
content to just kind of write it and
it didn't require a lot of effort,
really it just sort of came out that way.
I've written books for younger
younger kids and then this why
a book but I just write.
It comes out the same way.
I don't know how to?
I don't know how to style writing,
I just right and the way it comes
out as the way it comes out?
Hum.
The other factor about the sexual
content is that I'm 72 years old.
Now I grew up in another time,
and place.
When this kind of frankness would
just simply not have been possible.
And so I just followed my own gut
feeling about it and it worked out fine.
The other part of your question
is about deciding what to include
and what not to include when you
do a biography and.
This is a very succinct compact book I mean,
there all kinds of all kinds
of episodes in the Gypsies,
like that I did not touch on.
In the beginning stages of the book.
There was an entire page about the
famous incident of Bloody Sunday
in Saint Peters Berg in January.
1905 when the population of Saint
Peters Berg rioted demanding
that those are open,
food banks and things for them
'cause it was the beginning.
It was in the middle of the war with Japan
and there were scarcity of items visions.
He was out and about that day and
he actually was slightly injured.
And a friend of his actually
disappeared and was never seen again.
But in the end,
we decided to completely cut it.
It didn't advance the narrative.
But actually kind of stopped the
narative cold and it required a lot
of explanation to include it to.
To show what it really was so we simply
cut it out completely so that's the
kind of decision making you have to do.
Thank you, yeah,
and one of the things again.
I notice while reading the book that
I think story, but I never felt like.
Islands missing like essential
parts of the narrative uhm,
you know, but when I did.
Finish it and maybe want to research more.
Yeah, so I think that thank
you for thank you for that.
But there are several big I'm sorry,
there are several big
biographies envision ski.
And they're all really,
really convoluted and they digress.
They have lots of extraneous information
mine is the only biography now that has.
His life laid out in chronological
order in a very, very compact way,
and I think that's really the
contribution that I've made to any.
Studies of Majewski is by putting
the information there in one place.
Definitely.
And because the illustrations are you know.
Another component of the book that.
It certainly wouldn't be the same as an.
We didn't have them and I was just
wondering briefly if you could just
discuss kind of like the artistic process.
Behind the illustrations that you
chose UM like how the paintings,
influenced or guided the
narative you decided to tell.
OK um let's see.
I've got some notes here.
That's really difficult paper
writing and painting are
completely separate activities.
The paintings in this book really do not.
Advance the plot they don't advance the
narrative there meant to be sort of
set pieces of vision ski in costume.
In particular, particular ballet,
which is arranged in the book in the form
of a painting is shown on a page opposite.
A page describing the ballet and it's
presented in graphically as a sort of.
Ballet program and after after
a chapter of narrative.
Then you turn the page and you come
to one of these ballet programs.
You can stop you can Ponder this
ballet look at the image and
then when you finish with that,
then you turn the page.
And your back into the narrative.
It was a way to break up the
book in to make it into segments.
So that it wasn't a big long
smog through through a plot.
Right.
All right uhm
right. You can you can
tweak things infinitely you can
always improve a sentence you
can always improve a paragraph?
It's kind of you stop when you stop
with the painting if you overwork it.
It can just die on the Vine it can
turn sour it can look over work.
So you have to stop a painting when
it's done when you right you can
keep editing you can keep revising.
As all of you know when you
work with editors.
Yeah.
Um so thank you Lynn
illuminating. Insight and say
your process and the book.
Next step, I'm going to speak with
Elizabeth about 1000 sisters.
Elizabeth can you hear me?
Yes, I can. Very high.
So. To start over discussion you're
critically acclaimed novel code name Verity.
Deals with themes such as bonded friendship.
The bravery of young girls in life and
death situations and the horrors of war.
So how did these themes
play out in 1000 sisters?
And how do you think these 2 works
near each other if they do it all
despite the former being fiction.
And thousand sisters being non fiction.
Well, I. I don't think I really
thought about those things when
I was writing code name Verity.
I had had 12 year old daughter at the time.
And I was just kind of frustrated at.
How? Nothing seemed to have changed.
I grew up listening to free to be.
You and you think that I could do
anything as a woman and suddenly.
She was being forced to wear pink
underwear 'cause that was all that was
available and so I kind of load it.
Just to just.
I said put something else out
there as you know, there have been
strong and brave woman throughout.
History and I think I highlight these
things not because they are unusual,
but because they're real and their lasting.
And. You ask about the similarities
between Courtney Verity and.
1000 sisters Anne if they mirror each other.
An honestly I never thought about
it until you asked it.
But clearly they do,
and I think that that actually highlights
rather than sort of you know something.
Hardwired in me where I have to
write strong women or whatever.
I think it actually highlights
something that is a difference in.
In fiction and nonfiction
because code name Verity.
When I first started writing it,
I wanted to be a story about these
pilots about the Russian woman.
Combat pilots and Very early on
worked out that I didn't know
enough about them culturally.
I didn't have enough cultural
understanding to write this story from
inside a fictional character's head.
And I think a big difference between
nonfiction and fiction is that you.
With nonfiction you can write as an outsider,
but it's a lot harder to do that
with fiction and I'm sure that
people will fight me about this but.
That's that's my experience
of of writing code.
Yeah, thank you. So obviously a book
like this requires a lot of research
and looking at primary sources.
So I was wondering you know during
that research process what was
something new that you learn
that surprised or shocked you.
Uh and this discovery kind of change
your perception of your subjects,
um in particular, Marina Raskova.
It was it was really unfolding process,
the more I learned the more I
was surprised I started out.
By reading some of the.
Basically, their interviews
autobiographical interviews,
so there are a couple of collections.
Actually, there's like 2 or 3 collections
of people who interviewed these women.
In life. And they are available in
English and so each. Absolutely.
Airpro weather should be a pilot or a
mechanic or a navigator or whatever.
Each one gets.
Her say for a few pages and what I found was
that there were loads and loads of these.
But these women talking about their
amazing experiences in more time,
but I didn't understand how they got there.
And So what I had to do before I
can write this book was go back
and do quite a bit of research.
The Russian Revolution and the infant
Soviet Union and what I found I
kind of gave away and what I said.
Earlier was that they had they had
real gender equality in education
and was one of the tenants that they?
Setting so we know decided they were
going to go forward with an it meant
that girls could do things like fly.
If they felt like it.
And so that kind of changed the
way I looked at it and then as
I was reading about an.
Learning about the Soviet Union in
its early years I also realized what
I really had to understand before
I could write. Any of this was.
How they could live under such a repressive?
Awful.
Gime and be so devoted to it
at the same time.
And one of the one of the narrators
won't start one of the Navigators says we
are a generation not of this universe.
You can't possibly understand what they
went through they lived in terror that.
You know 15 year olds would get arrested
and stuck in jail people were being.
Killed by the millions during the
Great Terror in the 1930s and yet
they really loved their country.
So that was something that I had a
hard time getting my head ram and
it certainly did influence the way.
I my perception of Marina Ruskova,
you know,
she wasn't just somebody who was you know,
having a good time.
Why I mean if you compare her to her
American and British equivalents?
Amelia Earhart and Amy Johnson,
she was working for the government,
she was she was flying through
the government.
And everything that she did
was being watched all the time.
So that was it was,
it was certainly opening in terms of
just how I had to get my head round.
A different way of thinking.
Yeah, um you know, I'm before
reading your book I you know had.
Little knowledge of you
know the female Soviet.
Your pilot unit and.
That definitely was one of the aspects that.
Put out to me that despite such
repressive conditions from the
government in this oppressive regime.
They were definitely devoted and loyal to.
Their country and you
know that kind of thought,
as an honor to be able
to do this on behalf of.
The Soviet Union.
Yep, they were saying
they continue to amaze me.
Yeah. Almost thank you so much
for speaking with me an A.
Thank you, yeah, so that could come up.
I'll talk with Deborah about Torpedoed
Deborah are you there, I hope so.
I'm here. Hawaii Hawaii.
So earlier in your presentation
you showed us that wonderful Sora
of photographs and research that
you had conducted for this book.
So I was wondering if you could just
dive in a little bit more about your
research process you know like?
How did you know where to begin 'cause I can?
Imagine there's so much material
to kind of sort through.
And how did you decide what was
essential to the overall narrative?
Sure, um it was huge.
It was a huge,
huge lot of stuff to think
about and like I said.
Earlier, I really wanted.
Um leaders to be able to sort of identify
an attach themselves to certain people.
Mostly the children because
I was writing it for kids.
I wanted to really focus on the
survivors more than anything else
can you all hear me?
I can hear you OK there's just a weird noise.
I'm hearing sorry anyway.
So I really wanted to focus on the survivors.
Because. You know it's for kids,
but of course, I also wanted to show
the tragedy and the death because.
That's the that's the truth,
so I showed you my bulletin board before.
I'd like you to see.
Another shot of the Bolton bored uhm so
there is a very sad story that I read
about very early on an reading about.
What happened on the city of Benares
and that was there was a family
of tan their house was destroyed.
The night before 5 of the
children were due to go show up.
Uh for this ship and they were
actually on the waiting list,
and when they woke up in the morning.
Their house was destroyed their
suitcases that had been packed.
Were gone but the parents sent them
anyway in the course of the event
all five of those children died?
So for the longest time I said to myself,
I'm not writing about them.
I can't stand it.
It's just too sad.
But of course, then I realized that.
I had to write about them because
if I didn't write about them.
I wouldn't be honoring them and.
Also I wouldn't be showing the truth.
An I also would not be able to contrast,
the tragedy with you know the
stories of those who survived.
So,
in thinking about the narrative
in the beginning,
I was also very concerned that
children and teachers and librarians
should understand how parents could
possibly make the decision to send
their children away so for the
first year I was writing the book.
I started in 1939,
when Hitler first invaded Poland in
World War 2 began uhm and I had.
Stories from all the kids in the book
about where they wore when the war
was announced in that's how I started.
Anne I realized after about a year
or year and a half in that that
was just going to be too slow.
So once I realized that I was going
to write about the grim and family.
I knew I had to start with them.
So you'll see that I start with agreement.
In their underground shelter and
then coming out and saying that
their house is destroyed,
so it serves a lot of narrative purposes.
The other reason I knew I really
had to use the Grimmons was because
we had amazing primary source
material 'cause those girls.
Wrote home from the ship describing
how wonderful the ship was and how
great the meals were, and how much fun.
They were having.
And, of course,
the letters arrived home in the
kids never got back home,
so you know when you.
When your writer on your writing a narrative.
There's so many different things
that you're juggling and you're
thinking about storytelling and you're
also thinking about your audience
and you're also thinking about.
What are the sources that you have
so this is just one example of
how all of that went into play?
One more visual.
I want to show you 'cause I know a lot
of people out there are interested
in writing in the writing process so.
Because when you're researching is
all of us have done an in this whole
panel you get this so much material.
And you know your job is not to show off
your research your job is to tell a story.
Also, your job is to actually get
the book done so, if you stop to
research every single solitairy.
Question that you have in
every single Solitairy Point,
you have to make you pretty much
won't ever get your book done so I.
For this book,
I got this little notebook and every
time I had a question I wrote it down.
And in the afternoons when I was
too tired to write I would hit.
The questions from some of the time and
some of the time the questions will
get answered in the process, but I?
Like to show this to schools and
teachers and kids by the time I was done,
I had 236 questions. Um.
So that's the story and that
is one piece of my process.
Of course I could talk more,
but we have other?
Other questions and other people,
so I'll stop.
Uhm yeah,
um Ann I know where pressed for time,
but also I wanted to ask you.
You know when writing about
something like this that is kind of
such a harrowing and heartbreaking
moment in history.
How do you decide you know how to draw
the line between sensationalism and
kind of just straight up reporting?
And in particular for this book?
How do you infuse like hope or a
sense of hope into situations where?
It kind of seems hopeless.
Right well this book was a gift
to me because even though there
was so much tragedy.
Everywhere I looked when
I was doing the research.
There was hope. There were people.
Ordinary people who became
heroes 11 year old boy.
The boy bread lifejacket Colin,
who became such a hero.
Um the people who sacrificed
their own lives for other people
sort of like the opposite of the
Titanic when we hear about nobody.
Helping anybody people just went out
of their way time and time again,
I would find these stories of people.
Going out of their way to help
others or just becoming such good
friends that they pulled each other.
Along like the 2 girls who were
on the overturned lifeboat for 19
hours and kept each other alive
clinging to the keel.
Just by their sheer presence.
And then of course,
there was the story of Mary Cornish,
who saved those little boys by
telling them a continuous story.
And I think that what kids and
anybody who reads this and learns
about the story will see is that
you just really never know.
What you're capable of until you're
put in the situation and you never
know what other people are capable of.
So while I was showing the horrors
that this event in people buying
horrible death, it was just.
Easy to show the beauty and the altruism
in the community because it was all there.
So you know, writing nonfiction
it's harder in some ways because
you can't make anything up.
But when you have a story like this,
where you just have to find.
The jams and the story just
has so many gems I was just.
I found it life affirming to write it.
Even on the days when I was
writing the sad stuff,
so it made me feel better about
humankind not worse so I hope that.
Comes across in the book.
I certainly think so.
So thank you. Thank you.
Going to move on now to Rex
and will talk about free lunch.
Are you there? I am Hawaii.
So you begin your career at DC
Comics where you worked on title
such as Justice League Teen Titans.
And Superman Batman.
So this obviously is a memoir,
which is different than working on comics,
so how did your past experience kind
of inform your creative process?
With free lunch and how did the act of
storytelling within comics translate
to writing a memoir if at all?
I mean, I grew up rooting for comic books,
Anne Pros Books and I mean,
like I'm just
blown away with. How cool it is to
read comics now at least the light
comic book characters 'cause when I
grew up that was not the case. Um.
And I still love both despite the big
difference in the format and then with
posed to authorize the officer really engage.
The five senses and with
comics and graphic novels.
There's a particularly easy for
young readers because the visual
stuff is already out there,
so I think that visual sensibility
really helped me as an author.
Because as an editor,
I was always thinking in that
space and now as an author.
It really pushes me to kind of paint.
Virtual.
Experience for the story that I'm
trying to tell every author does that
and then I'll but I really wanted to
engage young leaders by putting them
in the shoes my 12 year old self.
And I'd like to think that my history
with comics just with that heavy
heavy almost easy visual medium.
Help me to be more visual is a letter pose.
Um in your book discusses
some pretty heavy issues.
You know like poverty childhood
hunger and domestic abuse. Um.
Why did you choose to write about these
issues specifically for a middle grade
audience rather than away audience?
And how did you find the balance between
writing frankly and openly about some
really uncomfortable and painful memories.
One of them that really stood out when
I was reading was the chapter called
lunch money when at the very beginning.
Your classmates notices the black eye
is that your mom had had given you.
So I'm just wondering about you know
how do you kind of neat the emotional
capabilities than each demographics of?
These particular readers.
Although
it's funny, you ask about the audience
because when I first submitted the
book the agents almost. Years ago,
I got the same note from a lot of people,
which we have interiors,
too, dark for the age group.
In a few of them asked me to age,
it up and naked young adult,
but that would have been.
Changing my memoir into a piece of fiction,
which I was kind of purposely
avoiding because for me,
I grew up without being
able to read these stories.
These real stories about kids going through
stuff like you read stuff about adults.
But you can't read stuff about kids and as
a kid I wanted to read stories about kids.
And then finding the story about kids
going through the same thing I was
going through is really, really hard.
Um. And so I yeah,
I avoided that and I wanted young leaders
to read my story and say you know.
Oh, he he looked at that and it
survive that then then so can
I and if it were fiction.
I think that?
Impact would have been a little bit less
that's for writing about painful topics.
Let's just say that it was easily
the hardest thing I've ever written.
Hum and I knew it was hard for me to
write yes, it would be hard to read but.
I don't think that adults give
kids enough credit because yes,
we want to protect their innocence
and I mean, I've got.
Great nieces and nephews.
I totally get that I don't want
some of them within free lunch.
But.
Not I don't want to move into the loan.
I want to read it with them,
so that I can give them contact sports,
and I can.
Start a conversation with them
because we have to remember that,
they're growing up in this world
that social media in there.
Internet they're exposed to
horrible things every day,
whether their parents know,
or not probably the parents don't
know because there hanging out with
kids and then looking at stuff
that they shouldn't be looking at.
You know ultimately if an 11 year
old can be beer beat up at home or
if you can be bullied in school.
Or if a kid can be shot in the
street by police officer for the
color of their skin.
I think we need to give kids,
the bandwidth to choose what they
are comfortable wanted to read.
Some kids won't want to read it
and that's totally fine.
My feelings aren't hurt,
but I think there are kids out
there going through similar things
and it should be OK for them to
have a book like that.
Yeah, I I definitely agree with you and
I think you bring up a great point but.
Uhm you know for some adult.
Readers are educators,
they might kind of underestimate the.
Uh the maturity. Certain meter is in
with your book I think it's an asset,
but the voice so perfectly captures that.
That particular age group and I think it's.
You know. Would help the readers
kind of connect emotionally too. Uh.
So that age and I think if it had
kind of been aged up to YA or adult.
That emotional connection may not have been.
The same anyway, yeah.
OK. Well, thank you so much
for talking about free lunch.
I'm going to move on now
to Michelle to talk about.
Light in the darkness.
I'm so I'm so as an editor,
you know you've worked on a variety
of books from picture books, too.
Children's fantasy novels
to why a nonfiction.
Um what can make a work of history,
such as the light in the darkness
feel those timeless Ann.
Relevant to the current kind of
like socio political climate
and personally as an editor?
How do you ensure that history is?
Accessible but also interesting
to young readers.
Well, I think we really what you're
hearing today from everybody is that
all of these stories are human.
Interest stories and that's really
what's timeless about all of them and
all of these explorations of history and.
Ultimately,
I don't think nonfiction is that
different from fiction and certain
important ways to me as an editor,
obviously there's a tremendous.
Level of research that goes into nonfiction,
but it's really about a good story.
Well told and that's always my job as
an editor is to make sure that that
happens in the best possible way.
And.
As far as kind of the timelessness and
the relevance to contemporary life.
That's something I know al puts a
lot of thought into in terms of his
subject matters and he also has.
Very kind of eerie way of having
historical issues that he's exploring
kind of reappear in contemporary
life when he's writing the book.
And I know that he wanted the kids
to think a lot about totalitarianism
and authoritarianism as he was.
Writing this book,
he also really likes to be careful
not to draw conclusions themselves
and he wants to kind of point.
Out certain parallels but let kids
reach their own conclusions by giving
them the information that they need.
Thank you. Ann. I guess also kind of.
Diving or related to to what you just said.
I have noticed that al had been quoted
as saying kids are very bright.
I'm not going to write down.
If anything I'll have them read up to me.
So I guess under half of Allen
your experience is an editor?
How does this viewpoint guide the writing an?
Editorial decisions.
Um for these types of nonfiction books.
An especially a light in the
darkness and do you think children
are never too young to learn about?
Jax is war genocide and racism well.
I suspect this without before
this web and R and he did very
clearly say kids are very bright.
And then a lifetime of teaching
at different levels caught him to
respect their intellects just as
core Jack learned from his own.
The century ago and he really believes
children are more mature and resilient
than we might give them credit.
For one thing that amazed him
in researching the bulk lips?
How even the little ones coach
with the hardships of Ghetto life.
And in this very famous poem called
song of the murdered Jewish people and
the poet talks about a 5 year old girl
who coaxed her little brother into eating.
Hard bread crumbs dipped in marmalade
and she was able to kind of find
a way into the difficulties of
that life and help her family.
True it in her own way so he
doesn't think he's there,
ever too young to learn
about heavy subjects even.
War and genocide and racism, but he said.
To me and if you know al this is very real,
he said history is not.
Unicorns and lollipops so he
would qualify that though.
I think by saying that heavy subjects have
to be recounted in an age appropriate way.
So, in a light in the darkness for example,
he went into details about
Hitler's ideology his racism.
Get a life in the Holocaust,
including the extermination camps,
but he did omit certain
elements because they were in.
Really,
in his words,
so horrific Lee disgusting.
Maybe turn off San that applied
to the illustrations as well.
He was very thoughtful about what
illustrations used and he certainly
wanted to show the devastation,
but some images were just too awful to ship.
Yeah,
well. Thank you so much for talking
about a light in the darkness.
And it looks like we've reached the end
of our web cast for today. So thank you.
Everyone for attending this webcast
will be archived and will send an
email to let you know once available.
Which is usually about 24 hours?
He can find this webcast another
archives and upcoming webcat and
the events? In
Pdsection@flj.com. And thank you
again to all of our authors, Anne.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me.