The Port Chicago 50

I’m excited to report that my new book, The Port Chicago 50, is now out and getting some good attention, including three starred reviews so far. I just happen to have one of them right here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59643-796-8

This is a little-known but very dramatic World War II civil rights story, set at a naval base near San Francisco. The main characters are young African American sailors who take a stand against segregation—and end up getting charged with mutiny and told they’re all going to be shot.

This book is a great example of how I, and I think most of the I.N.K. writers, truly never know where the next idea is going to come from. A few years back, at Thanksgiving, I was talking about my research for a book about the making of the atomic bomb, and my brother-in-law, a great lover of conspiracy theories (as am I), asked if I knew when the first bomb was tested. I said, “Yeah, in New Mexico, July 16, 1945.” He said, “That’s what they want you to think!”

Then he told me this fantastic tale, firmly believed by many on the Internet, that the first atomic test was actually in the summer of 1944, at a naval base called Port Chicago. I was intrigued and did some digging. There really was a massive blast at Port Chicago in 1944, one that killed more than 300 American sailors and marines. But the real story is that it was an ammunition ship, packed with thousands of tons of bombs, that exploded. To this day, no one is sure why.

After a bit more research, I learned that the sailors loading bombs and ammunition onto ships at Port Chicago were all African American. The Navy didn’t allow black sailors to serve at sea, except as messmen, so they were put to work on land at places like Port Chicago—only they were never trained to handle explosives. The men were pressured to work quickly and knew something terrible was going to happen. And of course they resented facing segregation while serving in a war that was being fought, as President Roosevelt kept saying, to preserve freedom around the world.

Then came the explosion of July 17, 1944, by far the deadliest home front disaster of World War II. With much more research, and some travel and lots of help, I was able to track down in-depth, unpublished interviews with many of the sailors who survived the blast. So in my book I’m able to follow the story from their point of view as they face what they know will be a life-changing decision: go back to work under the same conditions, or defy orders and face the consequences?

I won’t give away too much more, except to say that the number in the book’s title refers to the fifty men who wind up court-martialed for mutiny. I can’t promise a happy ending, though there’s no question that the stand these men took helped end segregation in the military, and was an early spark of the civil right movement of the 1950s and 60s. It's a story I am very proud to have the chance to tell.

January News of INK bloggers

 NEW BOOKS 

Anna M. Lewis, WOMEN OF STEEL AND STONE: 

22 Architects, Engineers, and Landscape  Designers (Chicago Review Press)

Steve Sheinkin, THE PORT CHICAGO 50: 

Disaster, Mutiny, and the fight for Civil Rights (Roaring Brook Press)

Summer Reading: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Kinetic Learning Pairings

School’s out for summer! Many summer reading lists combine nonfiction and fiction reading recommendations. It was exciting to see Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb: The Race to Build, another INK contributor, on the list from my son’s English teacher.

Since summer’s here and it’s time to play, I thought that it would be fun to add other senses to the mix and a little play. A few years ago I taught a class at the Games for Education Conference at the Chicago Toy and Game fair. The class was titled Play and Creativity in the Classroom.  Here’s what I wrote about the class on the INK blog titled Play in Classroom with several nonfiction book recommendations. Why not add a little kinetic learning to the summer reading schedule?

A teacher friend is taking her children on an extended vacation to New England this summer. They are reading fiction and nonfiction books in preparation. When she mentioned that they were creating KWL charts to go along with the reading, I was curious. Many teachers reading this will know about KWL charts, but my friend explained, “It is a 3 column chart- list what they KNOW, list what the WANT to know, and then after reading list what they LEARNED. It is a great way to assess prior misconceptions as well as knowledge, see if they learned anything from their reading, and can be a basis for further research for unanswered questions.” Here’s a link that explains how to make KWLcharts.

Kind of wish I had made a KWL chart before our recent London and Paris trip. After we were back home, while recuperating from jetlag, I tried to remember what my preconceived impressions of Paris were. For example, my mind had a different vision of what Notre Dame was like. Being there right in front of Notre Dame was rather surreal.

Everywhere we went on our vacation, I would point out what we were seeing to my children. I think they became a little tired of me by the end of our trip. Last Christmas, I bought the family a puzzle of the London Underground and a puzzle of a map of Paris. I do this because of my childhood.  Growing up, we would go almost every other summer to Germany for a month to visit Oma. Most of what I remember was my little brother and I creating a dividing line in the back seat of my uncle’s Mercedes and constantly tapping my mom on the arm while she spoke in German to all my relatives. We went to some cool places, but I have no idea where I was, why the place was significant, or how it related to European history.  

Here’s a few nonfiction and fiction reading ideas for the summer with some added senses, kinetic learning, and play.
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steven Sheinkin
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
Modern Marvels - The Manhattan Project (History Channel)

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
King of the Mound - My Summer with Satchel Paige by Wes Tooke
Watch a baseball game or go to a game.
Major League Baseball Scrabble
Eat a hot dog, peanuts and Cracker Jacks

Football Hero: A Football Genius Novel by Tim Green
Sports Illustrated Kids 1st and 10: Top 10 Lists of Everything in Football by Sports Illustrated For Kids Jukem Football Card Game by Jukem
Play football in the backyard

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier or Johnny Tremain by Esther Hoskins Forbes
The American Revolution for Kids: A History with 21 Activities (For Kids series) by Janis Herbert
City Doodles: Boston by Chris Sabatino
Educational Trivia Card Game - Professor Noggin's American Revolution by Professor Noggin

Chicago History for Kids: Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activities (For Kids series) by Owen Hurd
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
City Doodles: Chicago by Anna M. Lewis
Chicago-Opoly by Late for the Sky
Build a Skyscaper model

Fact, Fiction, and Folklore in Harry Potter's World: An Unofficial Guide by George Beahm
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson
Eat Harry Potter Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans by Jelly Belly
(This list could be endless.)

Sandy's Circus: A Story About Alexander Calder by Tanya Lee Stone (author), Boris Kulikov (Illustrator)
The Calder Game by Blue Balliett(Author) , Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
Make a Mobile
Go to an art museum

For Younger Readers:
The First Teddy Bear by Helen Kay (Author) , Susan Detwiler (Illustrator)
Made in the USA - Teddy Bears by Tanya Lee Stone
The Teddy Bears' Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy (Author) , Michael Hague (illustrator)
Baby Bear Counters by Learning Resources
Gather all your teddy bears and have a tea party
Play the song Teddy Bear’s Picnic

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein
New York City by David F. Marx
New York for Kids: 25 Big Apple Sites to Color (Dover Coloring Books) by Patricia J. Wynne
50-Piece Double 2-Sided Jigsaw Puzzle - New York City by Pigment and Hue

This list is just a jumping off point to get everyone thinking about all the possibilities. I had to stop somewhere or I’d be still writing this blog post. Please add your recommendations to the comments and I’ll add it to the list. On my website, I will add a hand-out form when I’m done compiling.

Here’s to a happy summer with lots of reading and playing.

An Hour with Benedict Arnold

About a week ago, in Williamsburg, Virginia, I the great pleasure of spending an hour with Benedict Arnold. Allow me to explain.

I was sitting outside the bookstore in the Colonial Williamsburg visitor’s center. This isn’t the ye olde part of Colonial Williamsburg, this is more like a little shopping mall, with gift stores, a theater, ticket counters, etc. So I’m sitting there at a table surrounded by tall stacks of my Benedict Arnold book, and sweaty tourists keep walking by without stopping, and I’m starting to feel that unique book signing version of lonely desperation.

And then Benedict Arnold strides up. I mean, he was seriously striding.

I’d heard a rumor that the actor who plays Arnold on the streets of Colonial Williamsburg might stop by, and here he was. He had the tricorn hat, the white wig, the heavy red coat of a British officer (this was the post-treason Arnold). He even walked with a cane and limp, as Arnold did after being wounded in battle at Saratoga.

“How do you do, sir?” he boomed.

I said something like, “Good. I mean, very well, general.” I gestured to the piles of books. “I wrote a book about, well… about you.”

“Yes, I’ve read it,” he said, picking up a copy.

I worried he might be offended by the title, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, but it didn’t seem to bother him. To my surprise, he sat down next to me. I smiled, but didn’t know what to say. My first thought was to tell I was a big fan of his. But do I mention my disapproval of the whole betraying your country for money thing?

A family walked by, slowing to look at us. A writer and a Redcoat at a folding table.

“Good day to you all!” Arnold called.

The dad stepped to the table. He looked back and forth from the cover of my Arnold book to Arnold. Then he said, “Could we get a picture with you?” He meant Arnold. Arnold stood and the kids posed with him and the dad took a picture on his phone.

Then Arnold sat back down, shook my hand, and introduced himself as Scott.

That’s when things got really fun. Turns out this guy is perhaps more obsessed with Benedict Arnold than I am, and knows even more. And he loves his job, says it’s the best gig in Williamsburg, because he’s such a controversial figure, and because he gets to ride around on a horse and harangue Americans.

Think of the dedication. I mean, we nonfiction writers spend a year or two trying to get into the heads of historical figures. But then we move on. He never does. He stays inside Arnold. Sometimes, when he’s in a hurry, he drives home dressed as Arnold. He’s even gotten gas as Arnold (yes, there were strange looks given).

For about an hour, we swapped theories on obscure points in Arnold’s story. I forgot all about trying to sell books, and was actually annoyed when people stopped by to talk (usually with him) or take pictures (always with him). When this happened, he snapped back into character and traded greetings, and sometimes witty insults, with the visitors. I just sat there, impressed and inspired. Here’s someone as skilled as any writer at making history engaging and memorable. And there’s no technology in sight—just the good old fashioned building blocks of story and character.

Some people enjoyed taunting Arnold, asking if he had any regrets, if he wished he hadn’t betrayed his country, stuff like that. But he had quick comebacks at the ready. The only thing that seemed to bother him was when a group of kids came up, giggling, waving plastic muskets, and asked, “Are you supposed to be George Washington?”

“No,” he said, frowning, recalling a painful scene. “I was once… an associate of his.”

The kids stopped laughing. They wanted to hear the story.

Why I Like Traitors

Fresh off a book about Benedict Arnold, my brand new title is full of, well, more traitors.

Bomb: the Race to Make—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon features a cast of thousands! Okay, dozens. Anyway, there are a quite a few who betray their country in one way or another.  

The German-born physicist, Klaus Fuchs, was attracted to communism in the early 1930s, largely because communists were the only ones standing up to Hitler. But when Nazi thugs beat Fuchs and tossed him in a river, he realized it was time to leave his homeland. He fled to Britain, finished his studies, became a citizen, and was recruited into Britain’s atomic bomb program soon after World War II began. Almost immediately he started sharing atomic secrets with Soviet spies, and continued doing so after he was transferred to Los Alamos. He never thought of this as treason. To him, the Soviets were allies of Britain and America, and were doing the bulk of the bloody fighting against Germany. By his own admission, Fuchs never stopped to consider how he was betraying his friends or his adopted country—until after he was caught.

Not a mug shot - Fuchs' Los Alamos ID badge

Mild-mannered Harry Gold, the unlikeliest of spies, was working at a Philadelphia chemical plant during the depths of the Depression. Gold had what one friend called “an almost puppy-like eagerness to please,” and when a pal asked him sneak out some documents with industrial secrets, Gold agreed. He knew they’d be given to the Soviets, but didn’t see any harm, and even liked the idea that these formulas might somehow help Soviet workers build better lives. By the time he decided to quit pilfering the papers, it was too late. A KGB agent met Gold on a dark street corner and warned him he’d be ruined—exposed to his boss and family—unless he continued cooperating. Within a few years, he became the courier who carried atomic bomb plans from Fuchs to the KGB.

Thinking: "Yes, I'm smarter than you."

Math and physics prodigy Ted Hall graduated Harvard at 18, and was immediately assigned to the Manhattan Project. Thrown right into the experiments and tests, he soon knew almost as much as anyone at Los Alamos about atomic bomb construction. Though never recruited, he decided to share these secrets with the Russians. Looking ahead to a post-war future, Hall figured the world would be a safer place if two countries, rather than just one, had atomic bombs. That way, he reasoned, both sides would be afraid to use them. Years later he admitted to another motivating factor: “I was a very arrogant teenager.”

They didn't give these to just anyone

Some spies, like Massachusetts-born Lona Cohen, were simply committed communists. She was a KGB courier during the war, continued spying for the Soviets into the 1950s, and never expressed any regrets, even after being tossed in a British jail. Others, most notably Robert Oppenheimer, were suspected of treason on flimsy evidence. The FBI knew of Oppenheimer’s flirtation with communism in the 1930s, and objected to his appointment as Los Alamos director. Suspicious army intelligence agents tapped his phones and read his mail—even Oppenheimer’s personal driver was a government agent. Though no evidence of disloyalty ever surfaced, many in Washington continued to distrust the physicist, especially after he began speaking out against the escalating arms race. Was it really unpatriotic to oppose development of the hydrogen bomb? Maybe not, but the government publicly stripped him of his security clearance in 1954, declaring him unfit to have access to American secrets.

I guess the real question is: why are traitors so compelling? It’s partly that, as a writer, you get a character who’s doing something dangerous, secret, and controversial, and that certainly helps create engaging scenes. And also, these kinds of characters challenge us to see things from multiple points of view, and maybe even force us to rethink our assumptions of right and wrong.

In a 1938 essay, E.M. Forster famously declared, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” At first glance it’s a shocking suggestion, but it sure makes you think. And that’s the whole idea.

INK Photo Gallery at ALA

American Library Association (ALA) conferences are like Christmas (or Hanukkah) and birthdays rolled into one.  Christmas (or Hanukkah) because everyone is celebrating something we all love: children’s books!  Not to mention great presents from publishers: advance copies of their latest books, along with posters and pencils and bits of chocolate. And birthdays, because when you do a signing, people fuss over you, tell you how special you are, and buy your books, perhaps the best present we can get! An added bonus at ALA – the upper body strength one acquires toting all those freebies around the hall for hours and miles.

Here are a few pictures of INK authors at ALA in Anaheim, California last weekend.

 Loreen Leedy and I schmooze at a Holiday House reception.

 

Steve Sheinkin hard at work, signing his latest book, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.

 

Loreen Leedy, with Holiday House editor Mary Cash, signing  Seeing Symmetry

Roz Schanzer and editor Kate Olesin channel Vanna White at National Geographics’s GEOPARDY party.

 

My editor, Carolyn Yoder, and I show off Write On, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren.




HAPPY SUMMER READING TO YOU ALL!  

INK Authors at ALA in Anaheim

INK authors will be signing, speaking, and receiving awards at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim June 22-25.  Do come by and say hello!

LOREEN LEADY

• is one of twelve authors in the Nonfiction Book Blast, Saturday, June 23 1:30-3:30.

• is signing Seeing Symmetry at Holiday House Booth #2550, Saturday 4-5 p.m.

ROSALYN SCHANZER

• is taking part in a Geopardy game show with National Geographic on Saturday, June 23, 5:30-7 pm.

• is signing Witches! at the National Geographic Booth #2525 on Sunday, June 24, 12:30-1:30 and Monday, 1-2 pm.

• is receiving her Sibert Honor award for Witches! Monday, June 25, 10:30 am.

STEVE SHEINKIN

• is at the Macmillan Children’s Preview event on Saturday, 7-9 am presenting his new book Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.

• is signing The Notorious Benedict Arnold and Bomb at the Macmillan Booth #2534 on Saturday, 10-11 am.

GRETCHEN WOELFLE

• is signing All the World’s A Stage: A Novel in Five Acts  at Holiday House, Booth #2550, Saturday, 11:00-11:30 am.

• is signing Write on, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren, at Boyds Mills/Calkins Creek, Booth #2435, Saturday, 12-1.

Time to Say Goodbye

No, not to INK. I mean, to the piles of books on and around and under my desk.

This happens with every book I work on, and I’m sure others can relate. As I research and write and revise, I gather growing piles of books – real, dusty, old-fashioned books. I keep thinking I’m done researching, but then I come across another obscure source I’ve just got to have. So the piles keep growing.

But eventually, when all the revising is done, and my editor assures me I can no longer alter so much as a comma, there comes this slightly sad moment when I realize I don’t need to keep the books at my desk anymore. That’s what happened this weekend with my upcoming book, BOMB. The advanced reader copies have gone out, and at this point I don’t even want to look at them, ‘cause I’ll just find things I want to change, and it’s too late.

So why are all of these books I used as sources still lying around my desk? Because we have no bookshelf space left in our house? Yes, that’s part of it. But I think the real reason is that putting the books away feels kind of like turning my back on friends. Every book in the stack is packed with amazing characters, scenes, and details, and I only mined a tiny fraction of the riches. After I put the books away, I’ll move on, and maybe I’ll dip back into them at some future date. Or maybe not. What a terrible friend I am.

In the spirit of thinking aloud, as David Schwarz did so compellingly last week, wouldn’t it be cool if there was an INK library? That is, one central location where we could keep the books we’ve collected over the years, and make them available to curious kids and teens and teachers. I can imagine it would be an incredible storehouse of fascinating and lesser-known true stories and primary sources. And in each book there’d be an inscription by the author who donated it, saying which book he/she used it for. And it would have an online catalog, and even digital versions of some non-copyrighted sources…

Anyway, just something I got to thinking about while I was supposed to be cleaning up my desk. Now, back to work on the next book – and the new stack of sources.