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I came late to the family of I.N.K. bloggers, and the fatigue of posting hasn’t quite caught up to me yet. Even so I’ve marveled at the creativity and fortitude of the old-timers. You’ve made it look easy to create fresh, thought-provoking material. Well done, everyone!
One frequent question children ask me during school visits is, “Do you get writer’s block?” Even young scribes have heard of this affliction.
“No,” I tell them. “I’ve got deadlines to meet. I don’t have time for writer’s block,” and I’m not just cracking a joke.
So here I sit, writing later than I’d like because I spent the day working on a deadline. Now, with the windows open and darkness newly upon us, I’m thinking about all the places where I’ve created books. Tonight I write from my fourth office space, a second-floor chamber with a wall of wooden window portals that became my creative home last year. It and my life today are miles away from the country home where I started writing when my children entered school.
I remember feeling slightly superstitious when our family moved out of this home a dozen years ago. Would I be able to write as well, or even ever again, away from the nature-inspired views of my original office? Maybe the two books I’d written from that site would become my entire body of work. When Book Number Three took forever to take form at our new city dwelling, all my anxieties seemed about to come to pass. And yet, after settling in to that 2nd-floor tree house of an office, I managed to birth not just a third book but five more.
Then came another move and another office, this one located without countryside panoramas or a tree house perch. Yet even from there, with my sons off in college and beyond, the books continued to flow. Others have followed since from my latest roost. May it always be so.
Wherever I land next, I’ll maintain a home on the Internet. These days you can find me post-I.N.K. through my website,
www.AnnBausum.com, and at my
Facebook author page. Plus you can watch for my upcoming title about gay rights history and the Stonewall riots of 1969, to be published next year by Viking. A 50th anniversary look at James Meredith and the 1966 March Against Fear will follow from National Geographic.
And so the writing life continues. For me. For other I.N.K.ers. For the rest of those folks who feel most at home when they ignite paper or pixels with words.
Thanks Sue Macy, Marfé Ferguson Delano, and Linda Salzman for encouraging me to join the I.N.K. family, and thanks to everyone for creating such a valuable body of work.
May the words just flow and flow for all.
Submitted by Ann Bausum
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| Stubby's story appeals to all ages, from young... |
One of the best parts about researching a book is that I don’t know what I’m going to find. Each project is like a mystery, and I have the fun of solving it. Researching my new twin titles about a World War I service dog named Stubby proved especially challenging because so much of his historical trail had gone cold.
This stray dog turned soldier had gone from being one of the most celebrated participants in World War I to being forgotten by almost everyone. A few loyal fans have kept his story alive on the Internet--alive and evolving, I should add, which created one more layer of mystery--but most people who happen across Stubby's remains, which are mounted and on display at the Smithsonian, have no idea of his exploits. It became my job to sort fact from legend as I worked to revive the war hero's story.
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| ...to young at heart (above, adult title). |
My favorite surprise by far during my journey as history sleuth was the discovery that Stubby's best human friend, a fellow soldier named J. Robert Conroy, had descendants. When I began my research, I asked Smithsonian curators what they could tell me about Conroy. The answer, basically, was nothing. The museum had lost track of him after he’d donated Stubby and his belongings to the museum in 1956, and they’d barely learned anything about him even then. Other people had tried to trace him, I was told, but with no luck.
Research is not a particularly linear process. True, I may read a reference book from front to back, but the research threads I pick up in one source tend to fan out like rays to countless others. By the time I’m done, I haven’t so much connected the dots; I’ve more nearly created a web of facts. The stronger that web—the more connections and overlap that I uncover—the better I understand the history.
Those web-like rays inevitably lead me to unexpected places. One day a package of clippings arrived in my mailbox, as promised, from a librarian in New Britain, Connecticut. I’d tracked down the librarian by contacting the New Britain Public Library, and I’d contacted the library because New Britain was the city where J. Robert Conroy had grown up. I wasn’t the first person to inquire at the library about Stubby, and Patricia Watson kindly sent me her usual packet of clippings. One of those articles had been published in the 1990s and featured a quote from a man named Curtis Deane, who was cited as being the grandson of J. Robert Conroy.
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| Stubby on parade, 1921. LC-DIG-hec-31070 |
This was news. Up until that time, I’d found no references whatsoever to Conroy having any descendants. Now I’d found one, or at least found out about one. Fortunately, Curtis Deane hadn’t moved since he’d been quoted in that story almost two decades ago (a minor miracle, really, given how mobile people are these days). Before too long, I had been able to track him down by phone. “Can I call you back?” he asked, after confirming that, yes, he really was the grandson of J. Robert Conroy. He was digging out from three feet of snow, he explained, and he had been without power until that hour. “Sure,” I said, having learned that patience is an important part of the research and writing process.
True to his word, Curt Deane called me back the next day. We talked for 45 minutes and agreed to speak again soon. A number of conversations followed, and before long we’d made plans to meet in person. Other meetings followed as one thing led to another. The threads for that web stretched farther and grew thicker. Eventually Curt Deane introduced me to other family members, and I met more descendants of the soldier whose history I had set out to find. As we became better acquainted and I heard stories about the man these people had known as Grandfather Bob, Stubby’s best friend became as real to me as the dog that he had helped make famous. Their story became richer, and so did my ability to share it with readers. Best of all, I had made new friends—one more surprise, one more bonus, during the adventure of researching my books.
Posted by Ann Bausum during the release week for Stubby's new books. Follow his return to the limelight on my
Facebook page.
“How many hours a day do you write?” is one of the most frequent questions I encounter when I speak at schools. That’s a tricky one to answer when you write nonfiction. The truth is, because research is such a major part of the process of creating nonfiction, nonfiction authors may go weeks or months without writing, and yet we’re working all the time. That’s the case for me, at least. My writing months are the treasured few in a given year that follow the sometimes interminable phase of research.
Some of my earliest childhood memories are of emptying and solving our family’s wooden tray puzzles. Some were easy. Some were not. I learned as a child which ones I could do quickly and which ones were more difficult. As my puzzling skills improved—and I began to memorize the layout of each puzzle—I took the logical next step to increase the challenge and dumped all the puzzles out together and proceeded to sort the jumble of pieces into their respective frames. That was fun. It took time, but it was so satisfying to turn the chaotic pile of colored wooden shapes into familiar scenes.
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| I still puzzle: here's my 2012 holiday diversion. |
In my teen years, I returned to puzzling, but this time they were the 500-piece cardboard variety. My father and I worked on puzzles recreationally, perhaps with a football game or TV show playing in the background. We loved the work—the incremental progress that could be measured by locking each piece into place, the strategy required to best solve a particular design, the satisfaction of placing the final piece into place.
Many years later, after I became an author, I realized I could not have found a better way to prepare my mind for a life of research and writing. Every project I undertake is a new puzzle. Each fact collected adds an element of understanding to the project. The more I collect, the clearer the picture becomes of what I am trying to create.
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| The Big Sort--organizing note cards before writing. |
But the picture—that’s the one difference between puzzling and authoring. We know exactly what a jigsaw puzzle should look like by the image portrayed on its carton. A book is another matter. Authors start with topics and a basic knowledge of a subject, but the details and nuance that follow add a dimension of creativity to our work that eclipses the jigsaw puzzling experience.
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| My office--the epicenter of puzzling and writing. |
I’m in the puzzling phase of a project right now. Completing the reading. Converting the facts I’ve found into notes. Drawing connections in my mind. Those interconnected steps will empower the words that begin to flow in a few more weeks. I have no doubt that my childhood passion for and practice of puzzling helped to make me the writer I am today. Patient. Persistent. A puzzler.
How many hours a day do I write? Throw in the puzzling and it’s more than a full-time job. On any given day you'll find me, metaphorically at least, spilling the pieces of the project onto the floor to see what picture emerges.
Posted by Ann Bausum
Recently I was invited to present at a conference of the Northwest Association of Independent Schools on connections between books and technology. Perhaps because I’m a writer married to a technology guy, I see the potential for a rich marriage between books and multimedia resources on a given topic.
For one thing, because of the Internet, students can get a behind-the-scenes view of the research and writing that went into a book. Websites, Facebook pages, and blogs can (miraculously, I think) connect students directly with authors. Many authors have websites (try the author’s first and last name.com or do a google search by using the author’s name and the word “author”). Author websites also often contain links that can deepen students’ understanding of a book or topic.
For example, after reading
Muckrakers by Ann Bausum, they can stop by her
website and click on the "photo research" link for an interactive tutorial on how to conduct photo research using the online collections of the Library of Congress.
After reading Bausum’s
Unraveling Freedom, they can visit
the page for that book and click on the "political cartoons" link to begin an interactive session about decoding political cartoons, using six cartoons from World War I.
Many authors also have Facebook pages which can give readers insights into the on-going life of writers, updates on developments related to their books, and play-by-play descriptions of their current work on new writing projects. (I’m just getting mine going at
https://www.facebook.com/authorelizabethrusch). Some even write blogs or contribute to group blogs like this one. (Try googling the author’s name and the word “blog,” or check author websites, which will have links to their blogs.)
after reading
Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal, students can check out what’s happening with the company now at
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ or read recent articles about the company at
www.techspot.com.
After reading my book,
The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity, students can explore what the rover Opportunity is up to now (10 years after landing!) at
JPL’s website, which includes regular mission updates, press releases, photos and videos; and
follow the newest rover Curiosity, too.
And after reading one of my volcano books—
Volcano Rising;
Will it Blow? or
Eruption! -- students can learn more about current on-going eruptions at
Earthweek;
Volcano Discovery, which includes a map of recent eruptions and webcams at active volcanoes; and
Smithsonian’sGlobal Volcanism Program, which has both weekly updates of volcanic activity and an amazing searchable database of past and current eruptions.
Think this only relates to current events? Think again. Fascinating additional reading and other resources such as audio, films and websites related to American history, 1492 and onward, can be found on the
website of the Zinn Ed Project, which is searchable by theme, time period, document type and reading level. You can also search by book. For instance, the entry for Gretchen Woelfle’s
Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, (
https://zinnedproject.org/materials/mumbets-declaration-of-independence/) links to actual court records from the lawsuit Mumbet brought against her owners to win her freedom.
Multimedia experiences can bring a book to life. After reading
A Home for Mr. Emerson by Barbara Kerley, students can
visit thehome online. They can
view a slideshowfrom the New York Times about the caretaking of the home, which Emerson bought in 1835; the site includes interior shots of the home, including the rocking horse in the playroom and Emerson's hat, hanging on the wall. To dig even deeper into Emerson’s life, readers can go to an
online exhibit by the Concord Free PublicLibrary with photos and essays about Emerson, which also features many primary source documents.
If you want to offer your students a multimedia experience, most likely you don’t have to do the research on the best resources yourself. Many nonfiction authors include a list of the best multimedia resources in the back matter of their books or on their websites. Check them out – and send your students to them, too. You’ll both be enriched by the experience.
Elizabeth Rusch
Among the happiest readers may be those who follow the advice: “Go lose yourself in a book.” I suspect the same can be said for writers.
This winter I lost myself in the writing of yet another book and was reminded of how magical a space that is to inhabit. Those people lucky enough to write books know what I mean. Those who read great books should imagine their own consumption pleasures magnified as if they have traveled through the looking glass.
These days I write from the luxury of solitude. In earlier years I juggled the responsibilities of marriage and growing children when I wrote. Nothing could be harder, as I am reminded when I observe the writing lives of younger friends. Somehow we do it, just as somehow we smile our ways through days of thin sleep after the arrival of babies, feeling like the luckiest, if not the most-rested, parents on earth.
Now, though, there are no alarm clocks or car pools or meal schedules in my life. Time is measured in deadlines, goals for the day, hunger pangs, and diversions for exercise and other fun. After I’ve converted my research into ready-reference note cards and aids—from time lines to diagrams to maps to photographs—I am ready to lose myself in the creation of a book.
I go through rituals before I start this writing journey. I pay all my bills in advance. I plan what I will cook, and I stock my fridge. I get extra sleep. I touch base with my closest friends; they know I am about to become scarce, and, as a testament to their friendships, they understand and forgive me when I stop corresponding and disappear. Ditto for family members; we keep in touch, but the World of the Book becomes part of their world, too, and when we interact they share in my investment in the process. Lastly, I choose what books I will read at bedtime, something complimentary (perhaps from the same era) or something familiar. I have been known to re-read Jane Austin (“Not again!” say my sons) or Harry Potter—anything that is relaxing without being diverting. I want to keep my thoughts in the World.
Then the work begins.
Let me be clear: All is not picnics and roses. This is work.Mind-draining, body-aching, spirit-straining work. For me, anyway, the book takes over my head and my life. I’m a morning person, so work starts early. Sometimes I wake up inspired and go straight to the computer in my robe and pajamas. I may stay that way for hours, snacking on hasty meals and brushing my teeth at out-of-routine moments. I measure my progress by how many inches of note cards I have consumed, marking my place with a vertical manila card bearing the hand-lettered text “HERE.” Chapter one, chapter two, and so on.
After a week or two of solid writing, I begin to dream in paragraphs. I don’t mean that I dream nice organized dreams. I mean that I see blocks of text in my dreams. It is not peaceful sleep. Occasionally, for variety, I dream about the historical figures in my work. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all, wheels spinning as I work my way around a writing corner, measure my progress against the parallel clocks for goals and deadlines, and try to reinforce my commitment to the bone-wearying process with reminders of treats that await at the end of the work. Renewed visits with friends. The chance to plant a garden. Maybe a trip. Getting paid! Carrots and sticks. You get the idea.
The easiest way to keep going, I find, is to think incrementally. I know my destination (the conclusion), and I have a pretty good idea of how I want to get there (because of my note cards and research), but it is easiest to march along one chapter at a time, one paragraph at a time, one scene at a time, as it were. Suddenly I’ve advanced another few inches through my note cards. Suddenly another chapter is roughed out enough so that I can proceed to the next one.
And so it goes until my head is in the World 24-7, even when I am away from my desk. When I go out for walks, I almost see the history. A dog, a car, someone’s gesture all are evaluated automatically through the lens of the work. When that happens, I know I have lost myself in the book. After slipping into that groove, I hang on for the dash to the conclusion. As grateful as I am to reach the end, its attainment feels bittersweet, akin to the reader’s experience of finishing a great book—you hunger for more.
Fortunately, for writers, there is more. Revision!
And so I stay in the World even longer, testing my early work to see how well it holds weight, strengthening it with rounds of rewriting, pursuing additional research lines, if needed, and polishing, polishing, polishing the language.
When I finally step away with a finished manuscript, I do so with a mixture of relief, gratitude, and regret. My connection to the book will never be so strong or personal again. The end of the writing process is like the end of a living thing, and I can see how such loss might hit some writers particularly hard. For me, anyway, the regrets fade quickly. There are those rewards, after all, including picking up again where I left off with friends and family and fun.
As often as we write about writing, I remain fascinated by the subject and about how others experience this process. Perhaps you may want to chime in. Readers, writers: What happens when you lose yourself in a book?
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| Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-19173 |
Well, maybe not 1,000, but even as a writer I can’t deny the power of a photograph. One click of a shutter release and BAM, we see a story. Photos capture drama (left, survivors from the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania). They convey emotion. Sometimes they offer clarity. At other times they fill us with questions. And that’s where the words come in (thank goodness, say the writers).
I owe at least two of my books to photos. I became so captivated by the Earnest Withers “I AM A MAN” image from Memphis 1968 that I wrote a whole book about it, Marching to the Mountaintop. Ditto for the “Blood Brothers” image of John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, following their beating as Freedom Riders on May 20, 1961. (See page 42 of this title.)
I’m not sure which I love more, writing or photo research. Both are passions for me, so I am lucky to work in a genre that seamlessly weaves the two media into a powerful forum for conveying the stories of history. If you read these words on their magical 12-12-12 posting date, you can imagine me engaged in photo research. I’ll be in Washington, D.C., that day, wrapping up three days of research for my latest project which, come to think of it, started with an image, too. (Or at least it started during an earlier round of photo research when my efforts to track down the background of one picture led to the discovery of a whole new story from the past.)
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| Photo courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-01901 |
So what is photo research like? Truthfully it’s about as glamorous as a day of writing, which is to say not very. By the end of the day my back aches for bending over images. My mind is so warped by time traveling through thousands of windows into the past that it is jarring to step out into real time. My sleep is animated by disjointed pictures as my mind races to process all the scenes it has observed.
But photo research is also as rewarding as writing. That moment when you revise to the perfect conclusion is matched by the discovery of a gotta-have-it photograph. I suspect there is some chemical parallel between gambling and photo research, because that rush of excitement from finding one great picture becomes the fuel for the next few hours of fruitless searching.
Sometimes I do photo research using on-line databases. Sometimes I’m on site, glove-adorned, paging through carefully catalogued original prints. And sometimes I’m cut loose in an archive of dog-eared, we-should-organize-these-some-day gems. I become a treasure hunter, gently sifting through the sheets of chemical-infused paper to find just the right shades of sepia and cream. Here a dramatic smile. There a scene filled with action. Now a glimpse of a forgotten figure. Then a fresh look at a favorite icon. Sorting the wheat from the chaff, the powerful from the mundane.
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| Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-03177 |
One of my favorite places to conduct photo research is the
Library of Congress, and I will be there at least twice during my current research trip. Those on-site trips offer access to materials that are otherwise inaccessible, but these days it’s getting easier and easier to find treasures using the online databases of the Library’s Prints and Photographs Collection. I’m a big booster of this site, especially when I do school visits. Anyone who hasn’t used it should kill an hour or two playing around with the search engines. More and more material is now accessible off-site, and any images that can be downloaded from a remote location can be used with a clear conscience as material in the public domain. These are our tax dollars at work, people. It’s wonderful! Enjoy!
“Have you ever been in a protest march?” a student asked me last spring during an author visit. “What a great question,” I said as I scanned my brain for a reply.
I love working with young people in schools, and Q&A time is perhaps my favorite part of a visit. The repartee of rapid-fire question and reply becomes a playful exercise in mental gymnastics. After a dozen years of visiting schools, I’ve heard most of the questions before. Other authors are nodding at this point. Like me they may relish the first-time questions, the ones that make you think.
This question made me think.
Wow, I said to myself, as my mind came up blank. Have I never been in a protest march? I marveled at that possibility. I considered January 20, 1973, the day of Richard Nixon’s second inauguration. My mom was in a protest march that day, a demonstration held near the inaugural parade route expressing opposition to the Vietnam War. I had wanted to march with her, but instead I was stuck in my own silent protest.
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| Anti-war protest, 1968. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-24360. |
My suburban D.C. boarding school observed the tradition of attending all inaugural parades no matter the students’ take on current events. Miss Keyser was a formidable presence, but I went up against our headmistress ahead of the field trip. And lost. “Everyone goes, Ann,” she said. “Everyone.” And that was that. So, at age 15, I fumed in the parade stands as Nixon rode by waving with Pat from an open car.
The seconds were ticking by. “Have I ever been in a protest march?” I asked rhetorically as stalled to frame my lame response. “You know, I don’t believe I ever have, as hard as that is to imagine. I guess I’d better do something about that!”
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| John Lewis, Jim Zwerg, Ann Bausum in 2007. |
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I’ve recalled that question more than once in the intervening months. Me, the persistent author about social justice issues, and I can’t recall ever participating in direct social protest. Instead I seem to live vicariously through others who did. Battles for woman’s suffrage. Fights from the Civil Rights Movement. Struggles to achieve free speech during wartime. Challenges faced by immigrants. The powers of investigative journalism.
I’ve kept in touch with Jim Zwerg, one of the student activists featured in my 2006 book
Freedom Riders. Recently Jim and I swapped our thoughts about the power of nonviolence. My interest in this force stays with me even after writing more than once about its influence on history.
In my message to Jim I commented on the new book by Congressman John Lewis, Jim’s lifelong friend, Nashville student movement ally, and blood brother from the Freedom Rides. John Lewis’s text,
Across that Bridge, reads like a prayer of remembrance and hope for the spirit of the civil rights movement. I’ve found it both moving and inspirational. After recommending it, I concluded my note to Jim by writing:
“So you see, you and John and the Movement and the spirit of goodness just all flow through me in a very powerful and inspiring way. That's where the words come from. Thank you for living them so that I can write them down.”
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| Memphis strike. Courtesy U. of Memphis Special Col. |
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Even if I haven’t walked in a protest march, I’ve retraced the routes of many, from the picket marches women led to the White House during World War I, to the blacktopped ribbons traveled by Freedom Riders in 1961, to the well-worn Memphis route paced in 1968 by sanitation workers during the strike that drew Martin Luther King, Jr., toward his death.
But that doesn’t mean that I should only travel the established paths of history. Now I have my antennae up. Somewhere I’ll put my feet down for a cause and add a little personal shoe leather to the health of our Republic.
Plus I’ll have a different answer the next time a student asks, “Have you ever been in a protest march?”
Considering how much Mongolian dinosaurs have been
in the news, it seemed appropriate to do a post highlighting biographies of one of the more interesting personalities in 20th Century paleontology,
Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960).
Andrews led the American Museum of Natural History's famous Central Asiatic Expeditions during the 1920s and later became director of the musuem. The expeiditons discovered the first nests of dinosaur eggs, and new species, incluidng Protoceratops, Oviraptor, Velociraptor, and Pinacosaurus, as well as a number of Eocene mammals inclding Andrewsarchus and Baluchitherium.
(Although none of
CHRONAL ENGINE is set during the 1920s, it was an interesting time for dinosaur paleontology (It was also during that decade that the German Tendaguru expeditions occurred), and I did a lot of reading about the expeditions during my research phase...)
DRAGON BONES AND DINOSAUR EGGS: A PHOTOBIOGRAPHY OF EXPLORER ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS, by
Ann Bausum (
National Geographic 2000)(ages 10+). As the subtitle implies, DRAGON BONES tells Andrews's life in photographs, including a good number from the Central Asia expeditions. A fascinating and visually compelling introduction to the man and his life.
DRAGON HUNTER: ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS AND THE CENTRAL ASIATIC EXPEDITIONS, by Charles Gallenkamp (Viking 2001). Although published for the adult market, this biography could be enjoyed by any young adult reader, as well. Eminently readable, it provides many details on the planning, personalities, and politics behind the expeditions, as it explores Andrews life and passion for adventure.
I'm delighted to introduce author Ann Bausum, our second guest blogger of the week. As someone who was born in Memphis and still has strong family ties to the city, I'm especially fascinated by the topic she tackles in her latest book.
Ann writes:
Each year I visit frequently with middle school and high school students to talk about my work as a nonfiction author, and I don’t think a session has ever passed without someone asking: “What’s the favorite book you’ve written?”
Although I’ve explained numerous times that being asked to pick my favorite book is like being asked to pick my favorite child—in other words impossible—my newest publication may make me a liar. From start to finish I’ve felt absolutely captivated by the research, writing, and production of Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Final Hours. (National Geographic Children’s Books will release the title on January 10.)
The biggest reason I may start calling this my favorite book is the history itself. I literally found myself exclaiming out loud as I worked with facts that leant themselves so well to the dramatic potential of narrative nonfiction. The historical characters, the setting, the chronology, the thickening “plot” would be the envy of any novelist. “Do the history proud,” became my goal.
I wanted to give readers the context for the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Plenty of children (and even adults) don’t know that he died in Memphis. Few people of any age can tell you that he had gone there to advocate for the labor rights of the city’s sanitation workers.
Death not only concludes this history; it starts it, too. On February 1, 1968, two sanitation workers were crushed to death while riding inside the barrel of a garbage truck. Within days more than a thousand sanitation and street repair workers decided to strike for the cause of safer working conditions, better compensation, and union recognition. Their demands quickly led to a stalemate between the all-black workforce and th
Statue of Liberty Dreams of Emma Lazarus, Awakens with Tears on her Cheeks
Naomi Shihab Nye
Give me your tired, your poor...
But not too tired, not too poor.
And we will give you the red tape,
the long line, white bread in its wrapper,
forms to fill out, and the looks, the stares
that say you are not where or what you should be,
not quirw, not yet, you will never live up to
us.
Your huddled masses yearning to be free...
Can keep huddling. Even here. Sorry to say this.
Neighborhoods with poor drainage
Potholes, stunning gunshots...
You'll teem here too.
You dreamed a kinder place, a tree
no one would cut, a cabinet to store your clothes.
Simple jobs brining payment on time.
Someone to stand up for you.
The way I used to do, for everyone. Holding my torch
to get you to your new home in this country stitched
of immigrants from the get-go...
But you would always be homesick. No one said that.
I was the doorkeeper, concierge, welcome chief,
But rules have changed and I'm bouncer at the big club.
Had no say in it, hear me? Any chnace I could be, again,
the one I used to be?
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
It's still up high. At night I tuck it into my robe.
And worry. What will happen to you?
Every taunt, every turn-around,
hand it over. That's not what you came here for.
I'll fold it into my rubbing rad,
Bring back a shine.
Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration Ann Bauseum
Well, the call has gone out for 2011 CYBILS judges (you should totally sign up!) So I decided it was about time I FINALLY finished going through my notes and writing up the last lingering books that were nominated in 2009. (I read them all in 2009, I just didn't get around to reviewing all of them.)
This book opens with the poem I posted above. There are 5 chapters-- Exlcuded tells to the story of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and anti-Chinese sentitment during the late 19th century. Deported looks at the case of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, Russian immigrants who became involved in the labor and anarchy movements at the beginning of the twentieth century and were deported for it after living in the US for decades. Goldman was already a citizen. Denied tells the of the ill-fated voyage of the St. Louis-- a ship of Jewish refugees who were denied port in Cuba and the US before returning to Hitler's Europe. Detained tells of Japanese internment during WWII. Exploited looks at the long history of Mexican immigration and the role of migrant workers in the US economy.
I wanted to like this one more than I did. It's beautifully done visually. The history is well explained and Bausum ties it in well with broader trends at the time as well as current events (and other events that happened between then and now.) The title chapters focus on just one family or person to give faces and names to some of the effected people. But... there is something about this book
Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I
By Ann Bausum
National Geographic
$19.95
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0702-7
Ages 10 and up.
On shelves November 9, 2010
Who could have predicted that WWI would become the hot literary topic for child readers in 2009-10? I remember when I was a kid and WWI was glossed over in the midst of my time-pressed teachers’ efforts to explain about WWII. WWII was always the war that got more attention, and for good reason. What is there to say about a war that was fought for no good reason and left a nation ripe for the rise of Hitler? Lately, though, a couple authors have found ways to present WWI for young readers in ways that not only explain the war but also delve into its deeper meanings. There was Truce by Jim Murphy, which talked about the first year of the war and how close the soldiers on the home front came to ending it on their own. Then there was The War to End All Wars: World War I by Russell Freedman which may be the most thorough examination of the war as written for young readers yet. I like both of those books, but the title that has particularly captured my heart is Unraveling Freedom by Ann Bausum. Taking the war away from the reader’s focus, Bausum places her attention not on the front, but at home. Why does America fight for freedom while simultaneously denying its citizens their own freedom at home? This is more than just a single war Bausum is talking about. When examined under the right circumstances, WWI is just a standard operating plan for a lot of wars fought before the 20th century, and a lot of wars since.
Thousands of Germans lived in America on the eve of WWI. Then the hysteria began. It is easy to forget that even as the United States fought abroad for freedom, back at home many of its citizens were oppressed for their beliefs, customs, language, and heritage. Mobs created to “root out spies and enemies” ended with 70 dead and lynched Americans (and not a single one a true spy). Businesses died, the German language was no longer taught, and lives were destroyed. Ann Bausum chronicles with amazing clarity what happens to a country when freedoms are allowed to disappear in the name of war. The parallels between WWI and what’s happening today are unavoidable, and teach a definite lesson about what we should remember when we find ourselves fighting. Backmatter includes a Guide to Wartime Presidents, a Timeline, a Bibliography, and a Resource Guide.
As I mentioned earlier, WWI got kind of glossed over when I was in elementary/middle/high school. As such, I was a bit sketchy on the whole Lusitania business. Even after reading the aforementioned Truce I was still unclear. I knew it was a big boat and it was blown up by Germany but did anyone actually die? Did Germany mean to blow it up or was it an accident? Bausum rightly gives over a full chapter to the Lusitania disaster. And though she mentions 9/11 in passing, the parallels between Lusitania’s sinking and the destruction of the World Trade Towers is remarkable, both in terms of life lost and how small elements contributed to a gigantic disaster. Kids are often so wrapped up in how the Titanic sank that they might never know how much worse, in some ways, the Lusitania’s sinking was. As a result
By:
Judy Bryan,
on 7/19/2009
Blog:
Judy Bryan
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Awesome! Inspiring! So many books, so many authors, so little time!
Neil Gaiman (!) and me. The highlight of the weekend was meeting him, getting my copy of The Graveyard Book signed and hearing his Newbery speech in person. Wow.
Me and Tammi Sauer with her new picture book, Chicken Dance. Check out this youtube
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
link www.youtube.com/watch of her publisher (Sterling) having fun with her book. I wish all publishers were like this! Tammi's coming to Wisconsin's SCBWI Fall Retreat in October. We'll be bawkin' n rollin'!
Me, Kashmira Sheth,
gbeaverson , and Ann Bausum. Kashmira, and Ann are in critique groups of mine and Georgia's, though not the same one, if that makes any sense. If not, oh well, it's not important. :) Kashmira received the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for her beautiful picture book, Monsoon Afternoon.
This is Ann Bausum and Kashmira Sheth, who both had signings of their awsome books!
The illustrious Richard Peck so graciously signed two books for me, Newbery Honor A Long Way From Chicago and and an arc (advanced reading copy) of his newest, A Season of Gifts!
Mo Willems. Love him!
I couldn't decide which copies of Sarah Dessen's books to get for my daughters (I read them, too!) so I bought six, and she signed every one!
Lisa Albert, a fellow Wisconsin SCBWI-er, whose Enslow biography of Stephenie Meyer just came out!
Me and Georgia with Janet Halfmann, another fellow Wisconsin SCBWI-er, signing her wonderful book, Seven Miles To Freedom.
The SCBWI booth fantastically decked out by the Illinois chapter. That's Esther Hershenhorn on the right, the fabulous Illinois Regional Advisor.
Talk about BONUS! I had my copy of The Calder Game signed by author Blue Balliett and her editor, David Levithan, was there! Squeeee! I loved Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist! (He wrote the boy parts) :)
Georgia, Holly Black and me. I got my copy of Geektastic signed AND got the coveted Geektastic pocket protector. Does that make me a geek? Hell, yeah, and proud of it!
Gennifer Choldenko signed both my copies of Al Capone Does My Shirts and Al Capone Shines My Shoes. Saweet!
You may know her as
thatgirlygirl , Tanya Seale was in my very first critique group when we were greenhorns, waaay before we even knew what SCBWI was!
Jon Scieskza and Lane Smith
Laurie Halse Anderson
Judy Blume. Love her! I grew up with her books.
Georgia, Ingrid Law, me
Libba Bray
Libba Bray sat in the loooooooong line for her signing (before it started) and chatted with fans. How cool is that? Had my copy of A Great And Terrible Beauty signed AND got an arc signed of Going Bovine!
That's the great thing about ALA, you're surrounded by people who love books as much as you do. Publishers give away tons of arcs, I scored bags full! Bags people! Can you say a little piece of heaven? I just wish I could hole up for weeks and read, read, read.
Isn't that a beautiful sight! :)
For now, don't be surprised if you happen to run in to me at one of my son's baseball games and I seem to be engrossed in the player's list. It's hiding a book. :)
By:
Alice Pope,
on 8/6/2008
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The Golden Kite Luncheon & Awards Presentation...
The conference Golden Kite Luncheon took place on Sunday (I'm posting out of order a bit--I used various notebooks that ended up in various places when I packed), during which lots of awards are given out (and I always cry).
After the food (the vegetarian dish was delish) we were entertained a capella by conference-goer Tyler McGroom, who participated in a contest involving singing during last year's event (for which I, as his table mate, got free SCBWI merch from the bookstore) and volunteered to croon once again.
Next SCBWI Illustrator Coordinator Priscilla Burris announced the winners of the portfolio showcase (which, as usual, she did a bang-up job of coordinating). Here they are:
The judges for the event:
Left to right: Abigail Simoun, editor with Tricycle Press;
Laurent Linn, art director at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; my favorite agent,
Steven Malk of Writers House; Frieda Gates, coordinator of the annual NY
Children's Illustrators Conference; and illustrator
Joe Cepeda.
Next
Erzsi Deak was named SCBWI member of the year--because she's awesome.
Then there was the crying...
First SCBWI showed a video tribute to the late Sue Alexander who passed away suddenly last month. Sue was a driving force behind SCBWI from the organization's inception, and the first official member. The touching words from Lin Oliver combined with a James Taylor song...tears.
And Here are the Golden Kite Winners:
So here I sit, writing later than I’d like because I spent the day working on a deadline. Now, with the windows open and darkness newly upon us, I’m thinking about all the places where I’ve created books. Tonight I write from my fourth office space, a second-floor chamber with a wall of wooden window portals that became my creative home last year. It and my life today are miles away from the country home where I started writing when my children entered school. 
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Multitasking goes out the window, unless its an activity book or cookbook.
Mostly I love the escape and enlightenment a book can bring.
Just got Lane Smith's Abe Lincoln's Dream...hoping the kids love it.