A customer from the Oakland, California recently asked us to create original multimedia resources with author Alton Carter. In this original Meet-the-Author Book Reading Alton shares what inspired hime to write The Boy Who Carried Bricks and why he wrote this book.Original Author Resources Help Prepare for Author Visits
A customer from the Oakland, California recently asked us to create original multimedia resources with author Alton Carter. In this original Meet-the-Author Book Reading Alton shares what inspired hime to write The Boy Who Carried Bricks and why he wrote this book.
For years, I heard bizarre, thrilling stories about Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony; how it was written by the Soviet composer in the besieged city of Leningrad as the Nazis bombed the city; how it was performed there by a starving orchestra while the Red Army shelled the Germans to protect the concert hall; and how it was put onto microfilm and slipped out of the USSR, flown to Tehran, driven across the desert to Cairo, and finally brought to America to interest the United States in the Soviet cause. 
I remember sitting in my sixth grade class at Marian Anderson Elementary in Compton, California, when February rolled around and my teacher, Mr. Johnson, hung up the faces of Black History Month around the room. Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. surrounded us until early March. Each picture had information about the person depicted on the back of the image, and the pictures hadn’t changed since first grade. With no new countenances added each year, it was as if once black Americans had achieved equal rights in the law books, our history was complete.
Over the years, I’ve received numerous letters and emails from readers telling me how much they enjoy reading my work; they have also expressed interest in knowing more about my family. And touring and presenting, the questions I’m most frequently asked include: How can you remember so many details about the past? When did you start writing? What motivates you to write? What is the most important thing readers can learn from reading your work?