2010 ended in a frenzy of work as I tried to finish up the revisions of two manuscripts. I wanted to start the new year working on new projects. And for the most part I succeeded (We all know that a book is never really finished; there are always questions to answer, a caption to rewrite, etc., etc.). But there I was last week trying to put together a book proposal and finding myself frustrated.

*

On the surface, the book will be about Vivien Thomas, a brilliant African-American man growing up in the Jim Crow South who wasn't able to finish medical school because a bank failure wiped out his savings. Fate led him to a job as lab assistant (his job title was really janitor) with Alfred Blalock, an equally gifted white surgeon and researcher who recognized Thomas's intelligence and drive. They had a complex thirty-four year long partnership that ushered in a new era of cardiac medicine and helped launch modern heart surgery.

*

Information on their important work and their working relationship is reasonably easy to come by. They were known and remembered by hundreds of colleagues and students. And Thomas's autobiography is a extrodinarily detailed study of what they did together and how they began to rely on one another to advance various medical research projects. And we know something about each one's personal life and feelings. For the most part the latter information is all surface, the obvious, observable things that make up the framework of any biography. But for me something vital was missing.

*

I wanted to know what Thomas felt about his place in life and in Blalock's laboratory. What he really felt. Did he feel trapped, abused, frustrated, angry, disappointed? Was he ever sad about how his life had turned out or annoyed at how his hard work was rarely acknowledged in the world of medicine outside Blalock's lab? There is nothing in his autobiography to suggest deep resentment; in fact, he comes across as remarkably even-tempered and content. Saintly even. But below those calm waters there could have been (should have been?) some swirling current, some bitterness or distaste or confusion. Or maybe there wasn't; maybe Thomas was able to accept what had been dealt to him through some powerful, inner calm. And what about Blalock? What did he really feel about Thomas? He liked and respected him, that much is clear? But what else? Never once in their many years together did Blalock invite Thomas or his family to dinner. And when Blalock celebrated his 60th birthday with a grand party attended by scores of his peers, Thomas was there -- as the bartender. Was living in the South and unbendable social customs the answer? Or was there something else? It's this deeper connection between the two men or the lack of it that I wanted to find.
*
Searching for this information wasn't what was frustrating me; that's half the fun of putting together a book. It was that without knowing what I might find, I wasn't able to 'see' the shape of the book or even envision a loose narrative line.

*

That's when I had the dream.

*

In it I was standing on NY City subway platform, waiting for a train. A man appeared nearby and I nodded to him and said, "Happy New Year." He smiled and answered, "Out with the old, in with the new." I recall thinking that was an odd response when the light of an in-coming train appeared and the platform began to shake. The next second a beautiful, old-fashioned Santa Fe streamliner went sailing past almost soundlessly, a great, improbable blur of shiney silver metal and running lights. Where did it come from, I wondered. I leaned out and saw its red lights fading, fading, fading away as it sped up the tunnel. And where was it going? Certainly not to the 72nd Street station. Somewhere distant and exotic and unknown.

*

And the next day when I went back to the proposal, I remembered that streamliner and its disappearing up the tracks and suddenly the route my book would take becam

‘Tis the season for both gifts and good wishes. Sometimes the two are one and the same. Still good wishes don’t always sound so pretty.

1. I, like so many people, am confused and outraged by the article in the New York Times about certain parents deciding to bypass picture books as quickly as possible to move on to chapter books. (Full disclosure—I write picture books.) This reported trend reminds me of a past fad using flashcards with quasi-verbal kids in an attempt to catapult them into SAT courses about the same time they finished toilet training. Hey, I’m a parent too; I worry all the time about my kids being well and happy and getting ahead. BUT COME ON!

My first wish? I wish that parents will realize that snuggling with their young child and a picture book, looking at it together accomplishes more than the chapter books I write as well. The child hears words she could never read at her age and enjoys a sophistication of story, relationships and ideas he could never read about by himself. The pictures act as an artistic dictionary, helping that young reader equate the look of a word and the word itself with its meaning via a drawing. Why be one of the seven blind men trying to define an elephant when you can just look at a picture of one? Furthermore we live in an increasingly visual age; why deprive a child of a model of using word and image together from the start?

And finally, we not only learn by doing, we learn by liking what we do. Kids love spending undistracted, interactive time with their parents (at that age, anyway) when the parent and a book are guides into new exciting worlds. They love reading picture books. And once they’ve practiced decoding letters and become used to bunches of them together with spaces between them, they love reading chapter books.

So I wish you guys would just calm down, then sit down and read a picture book to your kids.


2. Many writers here at I.N.K. have blogged about evolution and its detractors. They have been as impassioned and eloquent as I could ever be. So I’ll just start this wish/rant by saying, “ditto,” and move on to the general principal that we have never had better access to good, accurate information.

I wish we would value it more. Enough with “truthiness,” Mr. Colbert! And enough of cherrypicking facts or factoids that simply support our previously held views. I wish people would work harder to dig for this accurate information, find it, actually THINK about it, and use the results to create their opinions. Then let’s talk about how to reduce the deficit or raise our students’ math scores.

In other words, I wish we’d all start ascribing to a wise thought attributed to everyone from Bernard Baruch to Daniel Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.


3. I mentioned in a previous blog that I am currently an author-in-residence in a Boston school located in the middle of a public housing community. There is nothing like extended time in a school to remind you that teachers are heroes. They’ve got a hard job that is everyday and most of them try their best to do it well. I wish society appreciated them more.

As an author, I also wish they would/could use better hand-crafted books (nonfiction and otherwise) in their classrooms. I now understand better than ever how hard it is for teachers to use initiative and personalize the lessons they teach. There are seemingly endless mandated tests beyond the required state exams. Grade level curricula have units that must be covered from, say, October 11th to November 7th and others that pick up on November 8th. Where is the time for spontaneity? For the magic that comes from an inspired lesson or experiment or book?

I wish that we can somehow figure out how to slip more want-to’s in with ought-to’s. I can see from my time at the Perkins School that sparks do get kindled in kids and we just hav

If you scroll on down to last Thursday’s blog, you’ll find Steve Jenkins’ lively rant about the pseudo-scientific gibberish and censorship surrounding the Theory of Evolution. Since 5 (yes, five!!!) of our INK bloggers have written books about Charles Darwin, and since I’m one of the perps my own self, I cannot help but chime in.

Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence is overwhelming. Now that DNA has vindicated just about everything Darwin ever wrote, evolution is a proven fact—you can take that message straight to the bank. And as the unifying underlying principle of all biology, evolution should be taught in schools just as surely as we teach kids about gravity or the fact that the earth revolves around the sun (another maligned “theory” that got a scientist in trouble).

To put it very simply, Darwin showed us how all living things are shaped over time by Natural Selection; if any random change in a plant or animal made it more likely to survive in a given environment, its offspring might end up with the same trait and would therefore be more likely to survive too. And any plants or animals that randomly developed unhelpful traits would be likely to die out.

For example, Darwin discovered that the most spectacular birds of paradise and the most colorful butterflies were likely to lure the best mates and therefore have the most offspring. He saw how pumas that ran too slowly couldn’t catch enough game to eat, while their faster, stronger brothers would capture the most prey and live to reproduce in the bargain. He noted that mammals like bats which had gradually developed wings over a long period of time could catch prey—and escape from predators—better than their wingless ancestors. And anteaters with the longest snouts could reach deeper into an anthill to eat the most ants. And the strongest alligators or rams or stag beetles could win a battle for the best mates and pass their great strength along to their children too. And certain drought-resistant plants would survive to reproduce when the rains disappeared. And so on.

The world continues to evolve right before our eyes every single day. Are there any examples kids can see today? I’m sure that the young contestants Steve blogged about who are writing and drawing their thoughts on evolution have thought of plenty. I've been gleaning a few more:

Hi kids. Did you ever have a horrible earache, but when the doctor gave you an antibiotic, it didn’t work? Whoops. That’s because the kind of bacteria that caused your pain has evolved; back when your medicine was first invented, it used to kill almost every trace of bacteria and kids got well again right away. But a tiny number of bacterium were resistant to the drug and refused to drop dead. They multiplied over and over instead, and by now, millions of their evil offspring aren’t affected by the medicine one bit. And guess what? The ten most dangerous microbes on the planet are now resistant to everything we can throw in their direction. Watch your head.

Hi kids. Did you happen to watch yesterday’s TV show about African elephants, and did you notice their teeny little tusks? Well guess what. Male elephants used to have gigantic tusks so that they could fight each other to win the best looking girlfriend. But poachers killed all the elephants with the biggest tusks and made a bundle selling the ivory. The only elephants that survived to breed had teeny little tusks. They had evolved.

Hi again. Remember how global warming has been killing off our coral reefs and all of the astonishing undersea creatures that live there? Well guess what. There’s actually a small glimmer of hope because some scientists have figured out that certain reefs in the Western Pacific Ocean and near Australia evolved in

Any thoughtful writer has different reasons for writing her stable of books, ranging from a story that must be told to commerce, plain and simple. In a reflective moment, I realized that many of my books are the ones inspired by the child I once was or the adult I’ve become with important things to impart.

Examples from the kid end? I wrote the Brave Kid series for my younger self, stories in which ordinary children show courage in hard times. I found kids who lived in different eras to bring in another element. But my real message was that you don’t have be an expert in the martial arts to be a hero. Being scared and acting anyway is heroic. Standing up against something wrong, even just a little bit, is heroic. Getting through something really hard is heroic. Way back then, I wish I had known that we don’t have to measure ourselves against an ideal or end goal to be brave. Trying is brave.

I made sure to reveal some foibles of Washington, Jefferson and Adams in See How They Run: Campaign Dreams, Election Schemes and the Race to the White House for the same reason. In the service of giving kids a moral lesson, we used to paint these guys as gods (okay, not Adams, no one ever seemed to like him much but Abigail). But we robbed kids of the chance to see that imperfect people struggling to do right is perfectly heroic.

An example from the adult end? I’ve already blogged about why I wrote On This Spot, a book that describes a specific place in New York City from present day all the way back through geologic time. In this post, I explained that I was inspired by overhearing a young girl who was very upset and couldn’t quite fathom that things would change. (http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/2009/08/sometimes-truth-finds-you.html)

What an important lesson that one is. It’s the one that inspired the “It Gets Better” Project in reaction to the rash of suicides by gay teens. Sue Macy wrote a great post about this project that has people on youtube telling their own stories to stricken kids to say, in essence, “Hang on, things change.” (http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/2010/10/making-it-better.html)

Last thought. Many of my books, serious or funny, have an uber-message the adult me wants kids to know. It boils down to: Hey Kid, you think that the world you see, hear, touch is THE world. Well, it’s just one part of it. Your truth is a truth; but there are others too. Check it out!

Authors out there, I’m curious. What are some of the deeper reasons behind your books? Is there a pattern? Some message important to you that you keep trying to get across?

The other day I got an email with the name, “Cora Frear,” in the subject heading. This is the title of an early chapter book in my Brave Kids series, named after a young Iowan girl caught in a raging prairie fire with her father at the end of the 19th century. I opened the note to discover that its writer, Tracy, had just discovered this book published in 2002. My heart skipped a beat when I read the line, “Cora Frear Hawkins was my grandmother.”

You know that dream in which you find yourself taking a test you had never studied for? That classic anxiety that you are going to be caught for being sloppy or wrong or less than? I’m long past taking finals, but, in many ways, publishing nonfiction books is like an exam.

Did I get it right this time? In a flash, I went through the check list: I got my information about the event straight from Cora’s published memoir, Buggies, Blizzards, and Babies. I researched the period details so I could describe the family’s possessions accurately and use the right vocabulary. I spoke to a historian, a botanist and looked at photographs of tallgrass prairies so I could picture the setting and stock it with the appropriate flora and fauna.

After this defensive reflex, I went on to read the rest of the sentence…“and I thought I would write to you and let you know I am glad for your interest in her story.” Phew. I kept reading. “The publication of Buggies, Blizzards, and Babies was a vivid part of my childhood, since my Granny was so proud of publishing her first book in her 80’s. Having a published author in our farm family was a big deal!”

The rest of the email was a delight. Tracy (mother of Cora’s 3-year-old great-granddaughter) is currently publishing a book of her own and reflected on “what different worlds each generation of young females has occupied, and the implications for writing and sharing one’s written words.” She also wondered why and how I had ended up writing about her grandma.

Dodged the bullet again. With relief and pleasure, I too reflected on the implications of sharing one's written words. I also answered Tracy’s email and put an inscribed copy of Cora Frear in the mail.

This was one of those months when I began to fret as my day to blog drew near. I couldn’t think of anything to say—except, “I don’t have anything to say,” which I actually spent some time trying to develop into an interesting theme. (Advice for writers—it didn’t work for me!) Then I woke up two days ago realizing that the previous day's events gave me all the material I’d need.

1. I read about Discovery’s successful launch. I already had known this would be the last nighttime takeoff, starting a countdown of only three more launches before the Shuttle system is dismantled and perhaps the astronaut program as well. I thought about how ironic it was that this last nighttime takeoff was also historic because it was the first time so many (4) women were in orbit together. As someone who has written about space travel in several books, I’m deeply saddened. Humans going to Mars or even the Moon—not the best use of our national money right now. But the space program gives us so much more. It once produced what’s now called “the Sputnik Moment,” an event that excited educators and kids about science and it can give us one again. Furthermore the research that got in space has spun off whole industries from medical imaging and cordless tools to TV satellite dishes—and high tech research, manufacturing and implementation is what’s going to save this country’s job base and economy. Don’t get me started…

2. I attended a meeting in my Boston neighborhood where residents talked with library trustees about the proposed closing of up to eight of our city’s 26 local branches. Boston, like everywhere else, has huge shortfalls and the library is in trouble. I wanted to make sure a critical mass attended and was delighted to be part of a crowd at least 500 strong. I didn’t try to speak, others said it all. The branch library is our diverse community's melting pot. Libraries are the resource of a civilized society. And in hard economic times, they are needed more than ever. Book circulation is up in Boston by 31 percent. Seventy-seven million Americans nationwide use the library for their Internet access, including their all-important job searches. Keeping libraries open is a moral imperative for real democracy.

3. Then I went to a friend’s for dinner. Another guest, in charge of the computer system for one of our hospitals mentioned he had just signed up again for home delivery of the Boston Globe after reading it on line for years. "I just like the feel of it," he said, "the tradition of turning its pages while drinking my coffee."

Seems like a mishmash of experiences, doesn’t it? Information usually does until you work it through to make sense of it. Here are the reminders for nonfiction writers that popped up in my day:
*Trust your subconscious, it’s busy working and will come through for you.
*Re. the space program and the day in general: some of the best ideas sneak in while you’re looking for something else. Never be so focused that you don’t notice.
*The paper v. e-version of the newspaper? Luddites must realize that the world and its technology are changing and that has value. Techies should savor the unique pleasure of traditional forms.
*Libraries: We need them. They established our course as readers and writers as kids; we use them to do our research now. And they need us as authors, patrons, and champions. They not only buy our books; they also introduce generations of kids to our ideas. We owe them. Big time.

As David pointed out two days ago, “facts are a squirmier subject than many people realize.”

When he was four-years-old, Iqbal Masih was sold to a carpet thekedar (employer or boss) for $12, in Pakistan. Like millions – and millions – of children throughout the world, he worked long hours in a dark, airless, carpet “factory,” sometimes chained to a loom, often beaten, poorly fed. At age twelve, Iqbal was set free with the help of the Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF), a non governmental agency (NGO) whose focus was liberating slave laborers. Iqbal was a remarkable boy. He became a spokesperson for the reform movement in his country and personally helped save thousands of other enslaved children. For his efforts Iqbal received the Reebok Human Rights Award.
He traveled to The US where he spoke at a black tie gala, was “Person of the Week” on ABC, and made an impression with students his age in elementary schools. Iqbal returned home and was murdered.

Who killed Iqbal Masih?

The BLLF believed that their poster boy was a contract killing paid for by carpet dealers who were afraid that his campaign could put an end to cheap, bonded labor. Another NGO, The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an organization that takes on a broad range of human rights abuses, also investigated the crime. They concluded that the killer was a neighbor, high on bhang, who was caught having sex with a donkey. Yes, you read that right. Try finding language to describe donkey-love to an eighth grade audience! As the report describes it, Iqbal, his cousin, and a friend were biking down the isolated road and saw the neighbor mid act. They teased, he shot. The neighbor, in fact, confessed to the crime. Later he recanted his confession.

Both NGOs came to separate conclusions. Who was right? How do we, as writers, determine truth when it is ambiguous, or when there is unsubstantiated evidence?

A breakfast conversation with my husband:
Bailey: There’s a difference between what the truth is and how we know what the truth is. We know, for example, that Darwin published The Origin of the Species in 1859. There is no reason to doubt this fact.
Susan: But when I wrote Iqbal’s story, there was conflicting evidence, evidence that constantly changed. Also, there were special interest groups who had different stakes in the outcome.
Bailey: That’s the problem. At what point do you decide to go with one version and ignore others?

Well, writers … how do you decide? This is one of those slippery slope issues we often face. When I wrote Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery, I had access to materials from both human rights organizations. I spoke with lawyers, rights activists, and people who knew Iqbal. Still, I was unable to reach a confident conclusion. This was the first time I centered a book about a person I had never met. It was nerve wracking. For me it is far easier, safer, to interview a subjects and then write in their voices. I become the conduit for their thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Their facts are the book’s truth. Evidence does not have to be weighed to make “fact” decisions. Sure, there are some issues of truth that need to be addressed – inconsistencies and contradictions – that I may not have picked up during the interview, but I could always go back to my source. After doing interviews for No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row, I found a bunch of inconsistencies. But, for the most part, I did have captive subjects. Awful pun, please forget I wrote that. At any rate, my imprisoned subjects and I wrote letters back and forth until we were both certain that what was said was exactly what was meant. Their truth was the truth I was concerned about.

Iqbal was dead and my sources disagreed with one another. What to do? I decided to write both conclusions. Writing both narratives and giving them equal weight turned out to have an unexpected benefit. The readers now had opposing material for debates. And they did. In the classroom and privately. With passion and conviction.

Darwin published his book in 1889. My husband and I had cereal and fruit for breakfast. Two truths! Who murdered Iqbal? Only the killer knows for sure.

Susan Kuklin

The truth may be out there, but sometimes you don’t know in advance what you’re looking for. One of my favorite places to find fascinating cutting-edge information is Science magazine. Recent articles describe how an archive of spy satellite photos is giving scientists more detailed data about Arctic ice; how plant “phenomics” may accelerate plant breeding; and the use of gravity to more accurately survey coastlines (July 24, 2009 issue.) The AAAS* website has a lot to offer as well, with reports about disease prevention efforts, neuroscience issues that affect the judicial system, and how early humans treated stones with fire to make better tools. The special section for kid-friendly science news has articles such as How the turtle got its shell, and DNA does yoga (creating new DNA shapes for use in nanotechnology.)

*The American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most people are aware of the online New York Times (free registration required) but what I find extremely handy is the email subscriptions you can choose from with headlines on the arts, books, health, technology, and much more. It’s easy for me to get buried in my work cocoon, so these missives are an easy way to stay in touch with new information that might be worked into an existing project or possibly inspire a new book.

Like most of us, I’ve accumulated bookmarks galore in my web brower, but how often do I actually return to a site? RSS feed readers have been around for a long time, but it took me a while to realize you can create your own custom “research assistant” based upon your interests. Many mail programs have an RSS subscription feature built in, or you can use Google Reader or one of many others that are available. So, let’s say you have an interest in archeology or diversity issues or music…as you rummage around on the Internet there are many blogs and sites on virtually any topic. Those with RSS feeds can be added to your reader, then you don’t have to go visit the actual site again; updated content is delivered to you instead. (One caveat: as usual with online info, you have to be careful about the accuracy of some sites!) I have built my own arts and crafts “magazine” using this technique by subscribing to the blogs of artists from all over the world... fun stuff!

What are your favorite ways to browse for the truth?

I went to a Catholic wedding recently. I’m Jewish, and I’ve gone to many weddings in my life, Jewish and Christian, but this was only my second Catholic wedding. The first was when my beloved fourth grade teacher got married at the end of the year. (She is the teacher, by the way, who affirmed my love of books by, among other things, having a bathtub in the classroom for us to read in—-dry and dressed, of course.) I remember only a few things about Miss Ryan’s wedding: it was in a huge cathedral and I sat in the back. Miss Ryan looked beautiful. When I saw her afterward she said to me, "Are you surprised to see your teacher as a bride?" I shook my head no, even though I knew that was not the right answer. She looked like a princess every day. (I have confirmed this fact with former classmates.)

Anyway, to get back on topic (see, teachers, what a huge influence you have on us kids!)--I am fascinated by religion—I majored in religious studies in college, I wrote a series of books for National Geographic “Holidays Around the World,” and I wrote about the religious differences between Charles and Emma Darwin. So maybe that’s why as I sat in the beautiful service, I knew I had to get more information. Or maybe it’s that I write non-fiction books for kids as a living, and I’m always wool gathering, always looking for the truth. So last Saturday I came as a happy friend of the mother of the groom, but I was also there, apparently, as a researcher. What was much of the assembled saying in response to the priest? What was the priest saying to himself over the wine while the soloist sang? What is that altar for, as opposed to that one? I watched as people went up for Communion and I wondered why some took the cracker from the priest’s hand and others had him put it directly into their mouths. When the service was over, and everyone else filed out, I got my husband (who writes non-fiction for grown-ups) and a (lapsed Catholic) friend to go up to the priest with me. To say we interviewed him would be stretching it. We didn’t pull out tape recorders or notebooks, though we had notebooks with us, as we always do, and I was tempted. We asked him lots of questions, which he answered willingly and with enthusiasm. (I forgot to ask him about the communion cracker taking. I will have to look that up. Or maybe someone here will tell me first.) We talked to him for a good twenty minutes, which really enhanced the experience for me. I don’t know if I will ever use this in a book, or where I will go with it, but I am so glad I asked the questions. The priest was glad, too.

When you write non-fiction, it’s very hard to turn off the need to know. And why should we? You can never tell when something might spark an idea for a book, or fit into the one you’re writing, or might write years later, or end up as deep background for something else. When I went to Down House in 1999 I didn’t know I was going to write a book on Charles and Emma Darwin. But I loved what I was seeing and so I took notes, took mental and actual snapshots, asked questions of the tour guides, and bought a great book from the gift shop. Because I had that non-fiction writer's head on that day, I had a leg up when I sat down to write Charles and Emma years later.

But to be honest, I almost always have that head on. I take notes when I go to museums, when I see something of particular interest on a street corner, or in the country. I questions of everyone I meet: scientists, painters, architects, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, cab drivers, chefs. It turns out Charles Darwin posed questions to many different people while he was figuring out his idea of evolution by natural selection. He thought it best to go right to the experts: farmers, pigeon fanciers, his hairdresser, his friends who gardened, Emma, his children, the vicar in Downe. He wrote their answers in his notebooks and used them later as examples in his argument. I'm no Charles Darwin, but if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for me. And you.

When I told my son I was working on this blog post, I said I thought it could be really helpful for teachers. They could tell their students that real authors ask questions wherever they go, and so should they. It’s a great way to learn. Aaron nodded, and said, in his 23-year-old understated way, “Some of us live our lives this way just because it’s fun.” Yup.

"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so." Mark Twain.

So. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin gave one of Jack Nicholson’s characters a pretty pugnacious question to pose: “You want answers?" His interrogator (Tom Cruise), thought he was entitled to answers. In fact, he wanted the truth! What he got was the famous reply: “You can't handle the truth!”

Can any of us? I reckon we have to catch it first."Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails." That was Clarence Darrow's take on the big T. 'T is B & B is T,' so said John K. And Galileo? "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." The subjects of one of my books [out of print, the world being a hard, difficult place], Mark Twain and the Queens of the Mississippi, said, "When in doubt, tell the truth." But our theme in this steamy month of dog days is not the handling, the telling, or the understanding of the Truth, but that chase, the search. And to my mind, no one spoke of the search more compellingly than the subject of my 2008 book, The Groundbreaking, Chance-Taking Life of George Washington Carver AND Science & Invention in America.

"Would it surprise you," George once asked a visitor who'd been noticing all of the scientific and artistic things he'd done, "if I say that I have not been doing many different things: All these years I have been doing one thing...seeking Truth. That is what the scientist is seeking. That is what the artist is seeking; his writings, his music, his pictures are just expressions of his soul in his search for Truth."

Yup. Thank you, Professor Carver. I have nothing further to add. That's about all the truth I can handle for now.

Another installment in this month’s theme, “Searching for the Truth”

One thing about truth—sometimes you search for it and sometimes it just finds you.

Once I was in line for a movie behind an eight-year-old girl and her mom. The girl was spitting mad, declaring every which way that she was never going to talk to Allison again. The mom and I glanced at each other with a suppressed smile. At that moment that little girl truly believed her friendship was over. It was her reality. But we adults both knew those two would be BFFs again the next day, giggling at the lunch table.

I don’t know about Mom but I wasn’t laughing at the kid. I was thinking that this shortsighted sense that “what is now always will be” is part of the human condition. I thought I’d never wear pink. That New Orleans was “The Big Easy.” That there would always be icebergs in the Arctic. Millions of people have walked down the aisle and promised to love each other forever—and meant it.

“Now is not forever” is a really important truth, but an abstract one. The old parental proclamation, “things will get better,” never reassures or gets to the heart of the matter. I wondered how you do get to the heart of it without pontificating.

That’s how my book, On This Spot, was born. It begins with a spread of skyscrapers and rooftops and the words, “This is New York City.” The next spread talks what a big and vibrant city New York is and then in the lower left corner, the words “but on this spot…,” the soon-to-be refrain starts the tale. Turn the page and it says, “175 years ago…New York was a different city,” and then talks about a place where chickens were raised in backyards.



With each spread, the spot that is now New York City transforms—becoming a home to Native American and cougars, then wooly mammoths, then glaciers a mile thick, then dinosaurs, then the highest mountain range ever, then a tropical sea, drifting back to the beginning of geologic time.

As many people reading this blog know, picture books are most often 32 pages. By the time that I had gotten back to New York As Rock, I had used up about three-quarters of book’s space allotment. And it was only then, in the second to last spread when I (mentally) turned to that little girl at the movies and answered her by writing, “Things change.”

Was she ever going to read that book? Of course, not. Will most kids who do read the book think beyond the wow factor and the fact that there were dinosaurs in lower Manhattan? No. But I wrote the thing hoping that some kid would read the story—and it would open the door, even unconsciously, to that truth that I found so important to tell.

Another installment in this month’s theme, “Searching for the Truth”

In thinking about this month’s theme, I immediately came back to a story I related in a post last year. When reporter Nellie Bly was 23 years old, she had herself committed to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island in New York so she could tell the world about the horrors visited upon the inmates there. This was in 1887 and there were many horrors indeed. The living quarters were bare and poorly heated. The food was cold, tasteless, and sometimes spoiled, with spiders or other insects occasionally writhing around on the plates. The sanitary conditions were awful and many of the nurses were tyrannical, refusing to treat their charges with human kindness or to show any signs of sympathy whatsoever.

After 10 days at the asylum, Nellie secured her release with the help of her editors at the New York World. And then she shared what she had seen with the newspaper’s readers. On October 9 and October 16, 1887, Nellie took readers “Behind Asylum Doors” with a total of 17 columns of detailed prose chronicling every aspect of her incarceration. After other newspapers picked up the story, the city launched an investigation that resulted in improvements in the way the inmates were treated and a sizable increase in the asylum’s budget.

Nellie Bly pioneered this sort of “stunt journalism,” where an investigative reporter injects herself into the story by going undercover and writing about her experiences. At a time when women were rarely assigned anything but society and fashion articles, Nellie regularly put herself at risk to uncover crimes, corruption, and other abuses. Though her story has been told before, I was anxious to take my own look at what drove this woman to search for and report the truth in such dramatic fashion. The more I learned about her, the more fascinated I became. My biography of Nellie Bly, Bylines, will be out from National Geographic in October.

Though technology has made it possible to spread news (and gossip) instantaneously today, it’s fortunate that there are still many journalists on newspapers, magazines, and even TV news shows and Internet sites who doggedly investigate stories to get at the truth. One such investigation that affected me deeply was accomplished not by a writer, but by a photographer. Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography for his “provocative, impeccably composed images of despair after Hurricane Ike and other lethal storms caused a humanitarian disaster in Haiti,” according to the citation by the Pulitzer Committee. Shooting in black and white and using only spare captions, Farrell managed to convey the poignancy and drama of lives forever changed by nature’s violence. It’s impossible to look at his photographs and not be moved. If you're interested in seeing them, they're available on the Pulitzer Prize Web site.