This month I interviewed
Judy Fradin, author of dozens children’s and young adult non-fiction books. I
met her recently at the 45th Children’s Literature Festival in Warrensburg, MO,
forty authors and thousands of school children and adults meet every year. In
the student center of CMSU all the authors books are displayed for sale and I
found myself pausing to page through her beautifully designed books. Judy has
written on a wide range of subjects from Who Was Sacagawea? (recently issued in
Spanish) to the upcoming The Price of Freedom (illustrated by Eric Velasquez). She
is a passionate cheerleader for non-fiction and enjoys visiting schools and
talking with young readers. You can reach her at yudiff@aol.com . Her responses to my
questions flowed together so seamlessly that I decided to present them without
interruption.
We ultimately co-authored dozens of non-fiction books for
children and young adults, many of them award-winners, on topics ranging from
American history to biographies, from finance to natural disasters.
Four Fradin books have been published within the past two
years. TORNADO! was released by National
Geographic in 2011. It opened with the
story of a teenaged survivor of the Greensburg, Kansas F5 storm that
annihilated hundreds of homes and businesses.
TORNADO! is one of the six books in our Witness to Disaster
series.
STOLEN INTO SLAVERY (also
Geographic, 2012) recounts the drugging, kidnapping and sale into bondage of a free
black New York family man named Solomon Northup. Northup’s story of survival is currently
being made into a movie directed by and starring Brad Pitt. ( National Geographic has made a study guide
that can be acquired from Bill O’Donnell (bodonnel@ngs.org).
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM (Walker, 2013) is a historical
Fradin/Fradin picture book illustrated by Belpre Award winner Eric
Velasquez. This dramatic true story
tells how the residents of two small Ohio towns rescued a re-captured slave, sparking
the start of the Civil War.
Last but not least, ZORA! (Clarion, 2012) is our biography
of Zora Neale Hurston, an early African American writer. I wanted to title our book “The Nine Lives of
Zora Neale” because this remarkable woman went from family outcast to nanny to
manicurist to waitress to anthropologist to teller-of-tales with several other
“lives” interspersed.
I especially enjoyed marrying text to image in our National
Geographic Witness to Disaster series.
As I child I would spend hours poring through old National Geographic
magazines. I was always fascinated by
the natural world—animals, weather, and natural geology. I loved my college geology course and had
been collecting rocks for decades. For
me, the series was a perfect fit.
Non-fiction was a great genre for us. Dennis was more focused and detail-oriented;
I am more scattered and speculative. Our
contrasting approaches, I think, enhanced our books. Our work has led us on unforgettable,
intriguing hunts for information. I know
that truth is far more fascinating than fiction, and hope that we’ve enriched
the field of children’s and YA non-fiction.
Below are book covers from The Price of Freedom and Stolen into Slavery and a spread from Tornado.
Below are book covers from The Price of Freedom and Stolen into Slavery and a spread from Tornado.
1 comment:
Judith -- What an impressive list of books, every one with great topics. Your collaboration seems to have been pretty seemless and effortless; was it? My wife, Alison Blank, and I did a book together and our marriage survived and might even be stronger for it. Best of luck with your books!
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