The Eternal Student

Recently, I was watching Page do laps in the backyard (at 5 AM!) when I started thinking about how most of my book projects have begun. Usually in odd, strange ways.*
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Once (and this was years ago) I was in the Newark Library doing research when I spotted an open book on a table. It was there in the morning, at noon, and in the afternoon and I never saw anyone actually reading it. It looked kind of lonely and since the library was (is) understaffed and underfunded, I decided to reshelf the book. So I picked it up and headed into the dusty stacks and hunted until I found the exact spot where it belonged (there was even a perfect space between two other books just waiting for this volume to return). Which was when I finally looked at the book.*
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Turned out to be the Civil War memoir of a young soldier, Elisha Stockwell, Jr. When I glanced at the introduction I found out he was 15 when he enlisted. I almost immediately thought, gee, I didn't know kids that young actually fought in the war. Mind you, this was at least eight years before the Ken Burns' documentary let us see and hear Civil War soldiers old and young, so it was a revelation to me. And then that little light in my brain lit up and I thought, well, maybe young readers would like to know about this, too.*
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So I took the memoir home and read it and loved it. Maybe there's a book idea here, I wondered. But to be sure, I had to do research. Lots of it. I began what turned out to be an endless quest for information: about the Civil War, about what a soldier's life was like, and about what young soldiers experienced. And here is where a confession is necessary. I was never a big fan of the Civil War. I read a little about it, but never really delved very deeply into it. History texts always seemed to be about the important players (military and political) and whenever these individuals wrote about the war their writing always seemed pompous and stilted and distant. And the battles were always described in dry, technical terms. But reading Stockwell's memoir and discovering other underage soldiers who left written accounts of their time in the war was an eye-opener. What they described was immediate and emotional and vivid and very often humorous. And it made me want to know more.*
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It took about eight years, but eventually The Boys' War was published (during the same week that the Ken Burns' CW documentary first appeared. Talk about riding long coattails!). Other books had unusual beginnings as well. The Last Dinosaur was born out of my reading an article (obit, really) about a species of bird that was the last of its kind and held in captivity for years while scientists searched for a mate. Very sad. Inside the Alamo came about because a friend sent me an article that suggested that Davy Crockett had tried to escape the Alamo massacre by dressing as a woman (Not true, but it would have made for some interesting headlines). All of these titles (and others I've done) have something in common; when I began my research, I really didn't feel I knew enough about the subjects to write a book.*
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So each required that I, in effect, create and give myself an intense and lengthy course on the particular subject. And I never stopped researching even when I began the actual writing, or even after I submitted the ms. Or even when the text went off to the printer. I kept trying to learn more; I needed to know more -- in part because I wanted the most up-to-date information or take on the subject, but mostly because I loved the subjects. And that love never dissapated as I dug deeper into the subject and learned more and more about it.*
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I think this passion for learning about a subject gets passed along to the readers in the resulting text. Listen to this, I hope my writing is saying, it's a weird story but really cool and not too many people know about it. I want to take readers along on the voyage of discovery, of coming across an unusual character, an extraordinary detail or scene and realizing that history is coming alive in their mind. This not only keeps readers engaged and turning the pages, but it might just ignite a real interest in knowing more about the subject or about history in general. Hey, stranger things have happened.

Have you ever waited at a bus stop? Waited and waited at a bus stop? You watch cabs rolling by, watch buses going the other way, watch your watch with increasing irritation. Finally your bus does come--with two or three other buses right behind it. A herd, a pod, a troup of buses. Very annoying, isn’t it?

A similar thing has happened to me in the publishing world, but I’m not sure whether it’s annoying or not. In 2004, I had five books come out in one year. And, up until a few months ago, I thought I would have four coming out in 2012.

How does this happen? I’ve never written four or five books in one year, so how do they get bunched up on the other end like buses? Good question. Some books go into production relatively quickly, while others take a long time to write. For example, I wrote a book called Skyscraper that chronicled the making of the Random House Building and I couldn’t write any faster than the construction. It had a four-year gestation period and came out in 2004 along with Choppers! that took about two years from research to release. Other reasons? Editors have babies. It can take a while to find the right illustrator or to wait for an illustrator to finish two other projects before starting yours or the illustrator goes on strike. The economy tanks and publishing houses thin their seasons and spread out the books so your pub date jumps a year or so into the future.

Let me be clear, I’m not complaining, really. I know having a bevy of books is an embarrassment of riches. It’s certainly better than no books at all, or a surfeit of buses traveling in a pack. But what are the pros and cons for the author—and the books?

In the old days, the perception was: bringing out more than one book a season or a year meant the author was competing against herself. Mark that down as a notch in the “con” section. Of course in the old days, most authors published with only one house so the publisher would be competing against itself too; they controlled supply and demand.

Today many children’s book authors work with several houses. We cannot act as traffic cops giving Simon & Schuster the green light for one season and putting Penguin on hold. Now publishers are competing against each other. Has that changed the model? Does it help or hurt the author? And given the increased avenues of media, does having multiple books out at the same time increase buzz? Advertising wisdom says the more consumers hear something, the more likely they will remember it, perhaps become interested and start word-of-mouth.

In 2004, I decided that if there was any time to hire a publicist, having five books come out was it. Susan Raab and I concentrated on three of them. Susan was great and responsible for a good deal of the media coverage they received. So having that many books in one year pushed me to hire a publicist. Having her work on three in one year was also cheaper than if I had hired her for each separately. Furthermore, it may have garnered more results. If a journalist wasn’t interested in one, Susan had an opportunity to mention two others that might be more tempting. Three checks for the “pro column.”

There is another serious con, however. Just as a band of buses assures someone is going to have to wait a long time before the next clutch arrives, if you have four or five books come out in one year, chances are, it will be a while before the next release date. And if it’s quite a while, you feel the effects. Without something new in the offing, your name isn’t as much in the public eye as a reminder of your whole body of work. You get fewer invitations to speak at conferences during the lull. You, or at least I ended up feeling de-energized, even though I knew I had “books in the bank.”

That’s why I was so easygoing when my editor called a few months ago to say we had to delay my fourth 2012 release, How Do You Burp in Space?, a kids’ tourist guide to space travel. I was gracious and calm in response to a conversation I’m sure she had dreaded having. After all, I’m an experienced professional who knows that these things happen.

And now I also have a book coming out in 2013!

Here's my 2012 line up:

Dealing with Doubt

I’m not talking here about the doubt that we all feel sometimes about our writing. Rather, I want to give a great example of how an author deals with a sensitive topic, where readers may have encountered controversy that makes them doubt the validity of a book’s subject matter--in this case, evolution. Scientists know from research spanning about 200 years that evolution by natural selection, the mechanism Charles Darwin proposed in his book, The Origin of Species, has helped shape the living world from its beginnings to the present day and that it carries on today and into tomorrow. But in the United States, many people doubt the reality of evolution, largely because they don’t understand how science works or how to interpret the scientific vocabulary.

Laurence Pringle, in his 2011 book, “Billions of Years, Amazing Changes: The Story of Evolution,” has handled this problem very well. He starts off by putting the reader into the story, by mentioning how human families can go way back in history, then proceeding to evidence about how long the Earth has existed. Next, he leads readers through a brief discussion of geology, then on to fossils. By this point, the reader can see why we know that life on Earth has been around for hundreds of millions of years. They will realize there’s no reason for doubt about the ancientness of our planet.

Larry follows a logical progression of information, explaining the factors that enter in one by one—variation, competition, and natural selection, gradually building up the evidence. Early on, he carefully explains in a sidebar what the word “theory” means in the scientific world in contrast to what it means in our day-to-day language. This sidebar is critical, as the misunderstanding of the word “theory” is a major stumbling block in much of the American public’s perception of evolution. As Larry points out in this sidebar, “No scientist would ever say that the theories of gravity, germs, or evolution are ‘just’ theories. That would be nonsense, because they know that theories—the scientific kind—are backed by huge amounts of trustworthy evidence.”

The rest of the book contains lots of fascinating information, with excellent photos, about various evolutionary findings and principles, including the importance of evolution in our understanding of how diseases can change over time.

I’m sure Larry put a lot of thought in how he organized the book. He presents the facts without getting sidetracked by the unsupported doubts of evolution’s critics, and he gradually builds the story, always backing up with reliable scientific findings.

It’s easy to become frustrated when a large segment of the public doubts the clear evidence compiled by scientists over decades of careful research. But being confident that “the truth will out” can help us avoid wasting words on spurious ideas and instead help us focus on informing our readers about real science and how the efforts of intelligent, dedicated researchers can separate the fact from the fiction.

My John and Tom (Part 3)

In January, in My John And Tom (Part 2), I shared a bit about what made Adams and Jefferson so different. In this third and final segment on Those Rebels, John and Tom, I wanted to share a bit about the themes that brought them together—and drive the narrative: commitment and compromise.

The whole time I’ve worked on the book, our current Congress has been…stalled. (OK, I must admit I debated which word to use here—there are so many to choose from! I read recently that the majority of Americans would prefer to have the current members of Congress replaced by names drawn randomly from the phone book.)

The state of today’s Congress is the perfect backdrop to appreciate all that the Continental Congress achieved.

They started in 1774—with nothing.

They had to decide everything. How would voting take place. Would voting be based on population or would each colony have one vote?

And that was just the start. In addition to the hours spent debating in Congress, there was all the committee work. In June of 1776, while Tom was busy writing the Declaration—in the hopes that Congress would vote yea—Adams himself was serving on 26 committees, prompting him to write to a friend, “I am weary, thoroughly weary.” Among his many duties, he chaired the Board of War—for while America had not yet declared independence, Americans under General George Washington were already fighting British troops.

This sense of commitment was epitomized by what Adams called “the greatest debate of all”—the life-or-death decision that Congress had to make. And I mean that literally—when the members of Congress voted for independence, they committed treason. If America had lost the Revolutionary War, the British could have hanged them all.

The men of the Continental Congress had such commitment to their cause that they were willing to die for it.

And yet, they engaged in this life-or-death debate in the spirit of compromise.

Sure, they didn’t have the two-party system with have now—there weren’t Democrats and Republicans back then.

But the delegates came from all over the colonies, and each colony had its own concerns. A lot of the delegates had never even met when they first arrived in Philadelphia. And yet, when it came time to decide the biggest questions, they set aside regional concerns and sought out compromises to answer those questions—for the good of the whole.

Those Rebels, John and Tom is an example of when Congress worked. It’s a timely reminder of how our government can and should work: not perfectly, not always easily, but always with our elected officials working together to move the country forward.

Commitment. Compromise. These are the themes of Those Rebels, John and Tom. (PS. A shout-out to Edwin Fotheringham, the illustrator of the book--aren't the illustrations great?!)

Peaks and Valleys

A couple of weeks ago I was in a waterfront hotel in Vancouver BC where I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Films. It was certainly a validation, a crowning moment, (here’s the video) but awards are a funny thing. If one is truly engaged in life, it’s the struggles that are the focus. So right now I’m thinking about what happened this past weekend.

We are midway through the school year and about half of the authors participating in iNK’s pilot project, where we are collaborating with both teachers and students of Bogert Elementary School, have completed their missions. Roz Schanzer worked with two fourth grade classes. They had to learn about New Jersey’s government, a somewhat dry subject. But under Roz’s direction they produced an amazing book called The Golden Government. You can read a rave review of the project from teacher Heather Santoro here. Dorothy Patent worked with two fifth grade teachers. Read what Chris Kostenko said about that experience here. I worked with Carla Christiana and Alicia Palmeri on the solar system and we’re about halfway through the unit. I’ve written an article about our experience that will be the lead feature in the April edition of Science Books & Films but you can see the effect on student learning in this video where the kids are exclaiming over the NASA website. What we’re doing is groundbreaking because of its scale, its intimacy, and the effective timing of the conferences so that we are truly transforming the learning of the children. That’s where the rubber meets the road in education. It’s far more effective than a school visit, which generates enormous interest and excitement, very little of which is channeled into the work kids do in the classroom every day.

I may be a little impatient, but I want people to realize that using children’s nonfiction authors and their books as a resource for education produces powerful results. So whenever possible I’ve been submitting proposals to conferences to present our work. The conferences are NOT library conferences. (Librarians have their own problems trying to get classroom teachers to use nonfiction.) I’ve been sending in proposals to conferences for teachers of technology. I figure that many schools have videoconferencing equipment sitting around, gathering dust and the techies in charge of the equipment are looking for reasons to use it. It stands to reason that they’d like to find something that their classroom teacher colleagues will appreciate. Maybe this is a kind of oblique approach to marketing but hey, I have an experimental nature. I have no illusions that my reputation as an author is meaningful to technology teachers. Basically, I’m starting over, a humbling experience. So finally, after being rejected twice by the BIG conferences ISTE (international Society for Technology in Education) and NYSCATE (New York State Association for Computers and Technology in Education) I was finally accepted, for this past weekend at a little regional NYSCATE conference in Wappingers Falls, NY (about an hour from my home.)

Wow! This was exciting news. So I lined up Bogert’s media specialist, Heidi Kabot, and Dorothy’s two teachers, and Roz and Dorothy, to hang around their computers on a Saturday afternoon, so I could beam them in via Skype to speak at my presentation. I could not present them as a panel because the high school, where the conference was held, didn’t have the capability of providing a bridge so that several end points could be presented at the same time. (So much for being "cutting edge" at a technology conference!) So I brought them each in sequentially to speak for five minutes. Our presentation time was 1 pm , which gave me the morning to meet people at the conference and drum up an audience. The title of our session was “Catching the Love of Learning: A School-wide Project with Teachers and Authors.” I was listed as the presenter but there was no bio so I’m not sure if there was any name recognition or if being an author was of any significance whatsoever to this group.

So far, all peaks, right? Here comes the valley. I had to wait to get into the room. The session before mine was “Identify Effective SMART Board Use.” The room was jammed. When I was finally able to get in to set up, (with the help of a very savvy techie named Chance) I happened to have the iNK Think Tank website up on the SMART board and the instructor of the last session said, “Oh, I LOVE that site!” as he was gathering up his stuff. The room cleared out and my attendees entered. Only three people showed up and stayed! One person I had met at lunch came in, and sat down but left before I started. Okay. This is show business. We’re in an out-of-town tryout. So I hoped our three listeners felt welcome and proceeded with the presentation which went off without a technical glitch. Everyone who presented was wonderful and articulate. The audience took copious notes. But where were all the people I had met that morning who said they would come?

We’re doing a post mortem. As I’ve said many times, “A learning experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” There were seven other concurrent sessions. We’re trying to figure out what was the big draw. Did it have something to do with the new emphasis on Core Curriculum Standards? Did I offend people? Did I come on too strong? Are these teachers too concerned with keeping their jobs to be thinking about the “love of learning?”

In my perennially optimistic style (which some people find annoying) I can only say that failure is far more interesting than success.

STUMPED

I’m stumped. Here I sit pondering which words of wisdom I should expound upon in today’s blog, only I can’t think of any. All traces of wisdom I may have possessed at one time or another have rolled out of my left ear, scrammed outta the conga line, and headed off to the beach.

NOOO!!! It’s already paragraph #2, and still I’m stumped! Should I write about strange-but-true factoids, like the factoid that says manhole covers are round because if they were rectangular or square, they would fall into the manhole? Nah. Then I’d have to think up a lot more strange factoids. Besides, does anybody care about manhole covers? Not really.

Should I write about adding humor to nonfiction books for kids? Nah. I do love the idea of adding humor to my books; everything is so much more memorable when it’s funny. Except that today, I can’t think of a single funny thing to say in a book.

If I make a lot of paragraphs, there will be more spaces in this blog and it will take up a lot of room.

There. I just made another paragraph.

Look, I did it again!! :-) Now I’ll probably get kicked out of the blog! :-( All my faithful readers will accuse me of snorting something strange and my reputation will be toast. Maybe I can just use a lot of exclamation points and take up even more space!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or I could just find a humongous piece of art and plug it in because it could swallow up entire paragraphs worth of space, like this:



OR IF IT'S NOT TOO OBVIOUS, I CAN JUST USE REALLY BIG TYPE.

Oh. I guess that was a little too obvious.

Maybe I can say that quotes are a good thing to use in your books. That would actually be true, and then I could go look up a bunch of cool quotes. That could take up a whole lot of space too. OK, why not. Here’s a quote from Will Rogers (1879-1935):

“It’s awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it.”

(I added the dates after Will Rogers' name to take up space.)

It’s kinda like coming up with an idea for a new book. It’s kinda like brain freeze. Or writer’s block.

Still stumped in Virginia; over and out.

Celebrating the Girl Scouts

In the 1960s, I was a Girl Scout for about a minute. I had been a proud and true Brownie, but my elevation to the next level, which back then was just called “Girl Scout,” came at the same time I started Hebrew school, and the troop meetings interfered with my classes. I wasn’t a big fan of green, anyway, so I wasn’t that heartbroken about giving up the uniform. I stowed away my logo pins and moved on.

Yet here I am, writing about the Girl Scouts, for a number of reasons. First, it’s Women’s History Month, and what better way to kick off the month than by focusing on a group that has empowered generations of girls? Second, March 12 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the first Girl Scout troop meeting in the U.S., organized by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia. And third, I’ve had a few interactions with the Girl Scouts in recent months that have reminded me how impressive this organization and its members can be.

I proposed writing a biography about Juliette Gordon Low a while back. The project never went anywhere, but I’m happy to report that a number of books on Juliette and her scouts have been published in recent months, in anticipation of this anniversary year. I managed to find First Girl Scout: The Life of Juliette Gordon Low by Ginger Wadsworth (Clarion, 2012) at my local library, and I can’t imagine anyone, myself included, doing a more thorough job of researching this singular woman’s life. Wadsworth tracked Low’s story from Savannah, to New York, to London, and beyond. Her writing is lively and clear, the book is generously illustrated with historic images and reproduced documents, and the back matter is beyond complete. It’s a YA book that's worth reading, whether you’re a Girl Scout or not.

In recent months, the Girl Scouts also have made a literary impact in another way. Last November, in conjunction with the Children's Book Council, they launched The Studio, a Web site that gives authors who write for young people the chance to communicate with Girl Scouts about their work. The lineup has been impressive, with Ann Martin, Jerry Pinkney, Laura Numeroff, and Joseph Bruchac, among others, answering questions about their writing process and sharing behind-the-scenes documents and discussions. I got to have my say the week of January 16.

I was also lucky enough to have up-close-and-personal contact with a number of Girl Scouts when I visited Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC, to speak about Wheels of Change. The girls from the two local troops who attended were curious, confident, and altogether fierce, in a good way. Their arms shot up with questions after just about every sentence I delivered, and they kept me on my toes the whole time. It was one of the most memorable author visits I've had in quite a while. (Thanks to Marty Ittner for the photo.)

So three cheers for the Girl Scouts!

ON A SEPARATE NOTE: March 18 is the deadline for entries into the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League’s Batter Up! Writing Contest for kids in grades 6, 7, and 8. It’s a great way to celebrate Women’s History Month. Check out all the details here.

More Than a Month

"More Than a Month." That's the title of a thought-provoking and amusing documentary that aired this month on the PBS series Independent Lens. In it African American filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman embarks on a quest to end Black History Month. You can watch the film online if you act fast--it's available on the Independent Lens website until March 2.

Why, Tilghman asks, is teaching about black history--which is, after all, American history--crammed into one month? Why do we stuff the stories of black people into a box that in many places is pulled out only during February? What if we didn't have a Black History Month? What if more school districts followed Philadelphia's lead and made African American History a graduation requirement?

What if children's books with African American topics were published in September or October instead of February or January? OK, that's not one of the questions Tilghman investigates in his film (although he does discuss corporate sponsorships and advertisements and the money to be made during Black History Month "season"). But it's something I've wondered about. My next book is about George Washington and his "people," as he called his slaves. It's coming out next year just in time for--you guessed it--Black History Month. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I trust the sales and marketing pros and I'm thrilled the book's coming out when they think it will get the best start. I embrace Black History Month as an opportunity to celebrate African American stories and contributions. It can be an empowering time for us all. But I wonder, does launching most black history books in the Black History Month "season" help confine African American history to the February box? I don't know. But I think it's worth thinking about.

We Need More Books

Lately there is a frightening feeling in the air that books might by on a direct line heading from passé to  obsolete. The average reader seems to have turned away from buying books to contemplating purchasing a new IPad or caving into a kindle.  Numerous newspaper articles and internet stories continue to tell us that statistically speaking, the majority of people do their “reading” on a screen. This might be true but the truth remains that we need more books.

We need more books and the places that house them. Remember when we all blamed the big chain stores for the demise of small, independent bookstores? Well, we had a right to be angry but now Borders is gone and the big multi-storied Barnes and Nobles across from Lincoln Center in New York City is now a clothing store. So we order books on Amazon (with due resentment for its contribution. to the closing of even more local stores) but we need books and so we buy them there. But we don’t just need to buy, we need to browse and linger and touch and experience.

Last week I was talking with a group of five people who aren’t big readers. But we all agreed we need more books. Our eyes hurt from reading the computer screen, and we want to be able to turn a page. We all expressed our deep need to indulge our olfactory senses and breathe in that unique real book smell while we see and touch and hear the page turn.

So what kinds of books do we need? Well, more than we have. Our curiosity about the world continues to grow in a way that goes beyond the restriction of subjects that fall within the curriculum standards. As I mentioned on our Facebook page, a devoted fifth grade teacher is trying to find a book that discusses what happens after people die but she hasn’t been able to find anything. A sixth grader told me he was interested in books about doctors but I haven’t been able to come up with anything. In the past year or two, children’s nonfiction has continued to expand to include more variety of subjects such as biographies on adult authors and musicians that most children have probably never even heard of before. So there are some signs that some risks are being taken and that we will have more choices. But it’s really not enough, not yet. Because there is a need to know that Wikipedia cannot mollify. Clearly, we need more books.

It might seem an act of futility to argue for the need for more books when signs point to a slow, painful end. But sometimes a true fan is rewarded for continuing to support the cause through the leanest of times. If you’re a Knick fan, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It was the early 1970s the last time an Ivy League graduate* joined the team and ignited a bunch of talented teammates to play exciting basketball and win the championship.   Stranger things have happened. We are, as always, talking nonfiction after all.

*Bill Bradley, Princeton graduate, New York Knicks forward, #24.

Making Interesting Nonfiction for Kids

Recently, I’ve been thinking way back to my senior year in college. That year, while fulfilling the last electives to graduate, I took the most interesting classes of my college experience – History of Design, Art and Environment and History of the Home. I just unearthed my class notebooks and those were the actual titles. Until now, I haven’t had to use what I learned in those classes, except for help in Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit*, of course.

As I think back, Pat Allred, my professor for History of Design, did a fabulous job making the information interesting and relatable. With each design time period –Victorian, Bauhaus, Moderne, etc, she first explained the historical facts of the time. Then, she went through each design discipline and related it to the time period and the other areas – Graphic, Furniture, Architecture, etc. I totally got it.

Then, as I was writing my senior paper on Doll Design, I was able to use what I learned from Professor Allred and mix the evolution of dolls within a historical timeline combining how children were perceived through the years, manufacturing processes, social and fashion trends. For the entire three hours of class time, she had slides to illustrate what she was teaching. As I said above, I found my notebook complete with extensive outline, notes, bibliography and copies of every slide – an absolute goldmine.

As I begin the research and writing on my new book, I’m aiming to make the information interesting and relatable. All that architecture and design history fodder is finally going to be of use as I research and write biographies for 22 women architects, landscape architects and engineers. I’m so inspired and passionate about these women, but how can I make the information interesting and engaging for kids? With any luck, I can incorporate what I learned in Professor Allred’s classes as I write and inspire future architects and engineers.

Isn’t it amazing that all these years later, I am finally using what I learned in that class?

Anyone else have a similar experience with clearing off the cobwebs and making use of material stored way back in the back of your brain?



*Once, in an intense game of Trivial Pursuit, I won by knowing about the Dionne Quintuplets. They were the first quintuplets that survived through infancy – and were made into a doll line. Gotta love design history.

Research and Primary Sources

Mom says she’ll shoot me if I use anything from Wikipedia. You should know that I wouldn’t use such an variable, unreliable source for anything more than an initial search, not for a final source. You should also know that the part of my family that has the shootin’ and murderin’ history is several generations back and only by marriage, as certain relatives, every time of the story tellin’ make clear. So I am in no serious shootin’ danger from mom. Yeah, I have the stories passed down from one of the most famous feuding families in the U.S. We keep track of this stuff in my family.

That, in fact, is where this whole Wikipedia thing started up. I spent yesterday in a Rubbermaid tub, visiting with some Mayflower relatives. Eleven generations ago, three of my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower and two helped with the Mayflower Compact. One of these ancestors was a young woman. Yeah, I know. Write a story, A! But I’ve never professionally written this history stuff. Couldn’t there have been an armadillo on the Mayflower or something? Now, that, I could have written. . .

Instead I have slipsliding piles of carefully researched stories and family trees. Civil War. 18th century valentine. A stitched sampler from my ancestor, age 14. And reams of history researched by exchanging letters and visiting archives. My grandfather, mother, and a few other relatives did this work, painstakingly working from primary sources, all footnoted with quotes from deeds of sale and marriage notes in books and these kinds of things.

Mom doesn’t want me to muddy the good stuff with any malarky from Wikipedia. Anyone can make changes in Wikipedia. That makes it both a great source, a piece of collective wisdom from generous experts, and a very questionable source, one polluted by people with an agenda. (As opposed to family stories which OF COURSE are solid gold in terms of accuracy. See me wink.)

Yes, history can always be mangled by people with an agenda. But that’s another track, for others on this INK blog to delve into more deeply. All I know is that I googled the ship my Grandfather was on, that was torpedoed in WWI, and I found so many varying accounts, I was confused. Was it torpedoed, or did it just catch on fire? Did it sink after my grandfather floated away on that lifeboat and was pulled onto a British ship in the inky dark of night?

Whatever—it makes a great story in his rich but cracking 90-year old voice. I love oral history. That has been a lifelong passion—interviewing people about the past. My joy has always been sound, voice, language. There’s nothing like hearing the stories of growin’ up in rural Mississippi in the 1890s-1920. Or the stories of New England during World War II. Or the story of my grandfather abandoning the sinking ship in WWI. The Civil War stories, too, are fuzzier with time, but so polished by telling, generation after generation. I have a computer full of all these voices, these stories at my fingertips. So I teach people about how to honor others by recording the stories not just of the old, but also of the young. Because our young perspectives and voices, too, are lost with time, long before we die.

Yes, the great challenge of history is sources, reliable sources. The other part is the narrative through line. Because history has twists and turns, and loses threads sometimes, just when the story gets meaty and marvelous. Oh well, I’ll see what I can find. Perhaps it’s time to take a little detour away from squirrels and vultures and into some people history. There is a moth on that 19th century valentine. Will I write about human history? Probably not. Too busy with nature. For this material, I’ll probably just be a recorder, not an interpretive writer. So many others do this work with passion and grace.

WANT AMERICAN HISTORY? VISIT CALKINS CREEK

Carolyn Yoder has a notorious reputation for relentlessly scrutinizing one’s research. She’s the only editor I know who requires not just bibliographic documentation, but photocopies of primary sources for all one's quotes. No wonder some authors are scared of her, others say she’s the best editor they’ve ever worked with - and some say both. Her imprint, Calkins Creek, at Boyds Mills Press, publishes fiction and nonfiction books on American history that consistently win awards and notable honors.

I’ve known Carolyn for years and look forward to our museum days each time I visit New York. That long friendship doesn’t cut me any slack when it comes to research, but it did earn her the dedication of my latest Calkins Creek book, out in March, Write On, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren (illustrated by Alexandra Wallner.)

Here’s what Carolyn has to say about herself and her books.

Where does your interest in American history come from?

In high school, I had a fabulous American history teacher whose father was a U.S. congressman – talk about making history come alive. I still remember her spirit and her love of the past!

In college, I started out in art, printmaking, and then switched my major to English but I always took lots of history courses – not just courses on large sweeps of history but courses on the history of scientific thought, medieval art, and the Bible, for example. I was interested in “historical context” early on. My first real job after graduate school was in scholarly publishing and it made me appreciate the art of analysis and research – how the author is a big part of nonfiction. From there, I worked for several years at Cobblestone Publishing. My love of history blossomed there, and I discovered to my extreme delight that young readers embrace and appreciate solidly researched and exciting portraits of the past.

This is the mission of Calkins Creek books – to offer young readers original research AND original writing. For me, great history writing is a balancing act of the two.

You publish biographies and history books on obscure subjects, when many publishers cling to same old, same old. How do you choose the books you publish?

I first look at the research to discover the author and the passion. Most people don’t realize that what the author relies on, says so much. Once I am assured of the quality of the research and, as a result, the author’s passion, I can read the manuscript with confidence. Again, original research and original writing is what “moves” me -- more than the subject matter. It just so happens that we have brought many “unknown” people to the forefront – but we have also brought to light “unknown” aspects of well-known people – George Washington as a farmer, Abraham Lincoln as a family man, to name a few.

Larry Dane Brimner has published three award-winning biographies with you on the civil rights movement, including Black & White which won a 2012 Sibert Honor. Did you plan these books as a series?

No – Larry’s passion for the civil rights movement and the times brought these titles to light. I think he felt that there were so many important stories to tell – and that young readers should hear them and form their own opinions of the events. To have authors dig deep and wonder is a great result of solid nonfiction.

How much of your list is fiction? How much nonfiction?

Calkins Creek is looking for both – I am never aware of percentages but we probably publish more nonfiction. Historical fiction doesn’t just mean novels –Calkins Creek has published historical novels as well as picture books.

It’s odd but some authors feel that historical fiction is “easier” to write than nonfiction – but quality historical fiction respects the “history” part of the title and requires extensive research. We still get historical fiction submissions without bibliographies, which I find surprising and upsetting. Why write about the past if you don’t want young readers to enter into believable and complex worlds with believable and multi-dimensional characters, settings, tones, etc. – if you don’t want readers to make emotional connections with your world.

What’s your take on the current state of nonfiction publishing?

It is so exciting to see all the wonderful and different titles (different is key -- daring titles) that are being published today and that are being recognized – titles that are well-researched and written. It’s great to be a part of that Renaissance and to work with committed authors and illustrators.

Our three Spring 2012 titles are diverse in direction – two nonfiction titles, one long (on Harry Kellar, the little known American magician) and one picture book (on the little known writer Mercy Otis Warren), and one historical fiction (portraits of people who lived, worked, visited, traveled through Ellis Island). Two biographies and one collection of voices – all little-known individuals. Calkins Creek is not necessarily looking for manuscripts on unknowns, but for authors who are earnest about offering young readers exciting journeys into the past – a past that is not “remote,” but a vital place that kids can relate to.

Want to close with a shout-out to George and the past! Happy Birthday George Washington! You’d be 280 today!

PS from Gretchen: Carolyn leads frequent workshops for the Highlights Foundation in bucolic Pennsylvania. On May 20-26 she's hosting one on Whole Narrative Nonfiction, with a cast-of-stars faculty. For more information, visit http://www.highlightsfoundation.org/content/whole-narrative-nonfiction.