During 15-plus years of researching nonfiction for young readers I’ve learned that every project includes at least one pinch-me-is-this-really-happening moment. Such was the case as I researched the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike of 1968 for Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr’s Final Hours (National Geographic, 2012).
The reason there is so much history, especially African American history, in so many of the books I write is because I am African American, and it’s a part of me like my blood. – Jacqueline Woodson, author of 2006…
Today, TeachingBooks.net welcomes author Tony Abbott as he stops by on his blog tour to discuss his new book Lunch-Box Dream (Frances Foster Books/FSG, 2011).
Lunch-Box Dream is a story of two families during one week in June 1959. A…
The art of writing presents challenges for even the most experienced authors. My biggest struggle in writing the YA novel The Blood Lie (Cinco Puntos, 2011) revolved around voice. This book is based on a real hate crime that happened in my hometown in the 1920s. I really wanted to give the characters authentic Jazz Age voices, and I was committed to narrating the complex events in a credible, coherent way. It wasn’t easy!
My new historical fiction novel, My Brother's Shadow (FSG, 2011), is set in 1918 in Berlin during the last months of World War One. The book explores how war and the political transition following WWI impacted regular people and children in particular.
As we reflect on the 10 years since the attacks on the United States of America of September 11, 2001, we recognize that many children in school today might not remember much about that day. TeachingBooks.net offers a handful of…