in praise of teachers, our most valuable resource

This week we've been enjoying three of our nephews, 10 year-old twins and an 8-year old. Their father--my brother--is a 4th grade teacher and is leading his boys and their Taiwanese mother through the mountain west on a camping tour of history. On their way to Idaho, they took a side-trip to an old stagecoach station in Oregon to see the grave of Sacajawea's son, Pomp Charbonneau -- Pomp, of course, was the baby in her cradleboard during Lewis & Clark's journey to the Pacific.

With my brother at dinner, stories abound. He's so excited to describe finding part of the early railroad near Donner Pass that he delays eating the burger and salad before him. While this story evolves into one about Chinese laborers in the 1860s, I watch his boys help with the dishes. This means holding their plates below the table where Poppy and Daisy have been waiting for just such an opportunity. Dogs understand little boys and visa-versa.       

my favorite teacher & his boys

I'm mesmerized by my brother, a tender father and a gifted teacher. As his older sister I can testify that he is a BORN teacher. All his life he has looked up in wonder at the clouds and birds, wondering about flight. He taught my sons how to make paper airplanes ... oh, that's another thing that happens at dinner, things fly, I mean little origami-looking UFOs that soar over the table to the couch. If his boys or mine ask what it would feel like to be eaten by a shark, he'll pause with his hamburger mid-air then begin a graphic but delightful response.

Summer vacation for my brother--as it is for so many teachers--involves more learning and discovery, more excitement for what he'll be able to share with his students in the fall. Yesterday he took his boys fishing in the Tetons, explaining that Colter Bay was named after Private John Colter of the Lewis & Clark expedition, the first white man to 'discover' Yellowstone. My brother showed my nephews the geysers then drove up to where the battle of Little Big Horn took place. Early this morning he messaged me from his i-pad with a four-word assessment: "Custer had it coming."

I can't wait until they drive back through Boise on their way home, to hear what else they've learned. I'm proud of my brother and all the devoted educators out there.

Teachers: our country's most valuable resource.

controversial topics #1: Iroquois slaughter ordered by George Washington, 1779

George Washington was one of my childhood heroes. As kids, we loved hearing how he chopped down his father's prized cherry tree when he was six-years-old. Whether fact or myth, the story set a good example about telling the truth. Personally, I was relieved he didn't get spanked because maybe my parents would follow his parents' example.
So as a grown up I was thrilled to write about the Father of Our County for Scholastic's Dear America series, first with The Winter of Red Snow then its sequel, Cannons At Dawn.

Research is one of my most favorite things in the world, but sometimes I hate what I discover. Details about war, for instance, and ugly truths about heroes.

Confession: When I learned how cruelly General Washington treated the Iroquois, there was a flicker in my brain that said, 'ooh, my characters don't need to mention this.' It was 1779. The Indians were aiding our enemies, the British, but Washington said that before there would be any peace talks with the tribes, he was going to teach them a lesson: He ordered his Generals Sullivan and Clinton, to destroy the Iroquois settlements in western New York. The campaign was a victory for the American army, but devastating for our Native Americans.

In Cannons At Dawn Abigail writes in her diary:  "Thousands of our soldiers burned the grain and vegetable crops, the cornfields, and fruit orchards. They set torches to the longhouses. Forty villages went up in flames. Now there will be no fall harvest and nothing for the Indians to plant in the spring. Many warriors died defending their homes, many were captured, then marched to a prison camp."
          Abby and her mother are further distressed knowing winter is coming and these Indian families will have nowhere to live. In fact, many who fled north to Fort Niagara starved and froze to death. Abby says, "When I imagine their suffering, my heart hurts."

My flicker of denial passed and I got mad. Why hadn't I learned this as a kid? Was this blight of history ignored in the California schools because the Revolution was "back East"?  Whatever the answer, I decided my characters should report all sides. It's a chance for today's children to glimpse a tragic but important truth:

War is hell. Heroes can disappoint. 

July 4th 1866, firecrackers & My Darlin' Clementine

Several years ago in a small Colorado town, we were awakened at dawn by the thunderous boom of a cannon. Turns out it was July 4th and one of the traditions in this burg was to blast everyone out of bed before sunup to begin celebrating, like it or not.

I was reminded of this when researching My Darlin' Clementinefor Holiday House. The story is set in an Idaho mining camp, in 1866, where there was constant clamor from the stamp mills, from brawling, gambling, gunshots and rough language. And on July 4th there was extra special noise: Black powder explosions started at dawn along with Chinese firecrackers, which continued throughout the day. The afternoon entertainment really grabbed my attention: anvil firing. What the heck was that? Might as well weave it into the novel!
So Clementine described how two blacksmiths each carried a heavy iron anvil in their arms, from their livery stable down Main Street [PHOTO, above].   "When they reached the meadow, one of the smithies set his out in the open. Dog Face Sam was waiting there with a sack of black powder, which he poured onto the anvil's flat surface. Next he laid out a long white fuse that dropped to the grass. The second smithy brought over his anvil and set it upside down on the first one, so the two flat sides were together.
       A sandwich is what came to mind, a dynamite sandwich.
       Before you could count to ten, Dog Face Sam had struck a match against a stone, lit the fuse, and was yelling, 'Run for your lives!'"
       I was on the schoolhouse step watching the spectacle of folks running into the woods as fast as they could, men holding onto their hats and ladies shrieking, children scattering every which way. 
      A boom shook the ground like cannon fire. Black smoke rose up with the explosive clank of iron upon iron. No one got killed that I could tell, but a small boy knocked himself out from running into a tree."

Now that's a party! Happy Independence Day everyone ... I hope you're safe and not awakened by cannons!

banning a kid's book from the children's section: the power of one self-righteous parent

This weekend I read with interest a Wall Street Journal article about edgy children's literature. In Darkness Too Visible, Meghan Cox Gurdon took many of my colleagues to task for writing explicit or violent novels for teens. I admire these Young Adult authors. It takes guts to tell stories that aren't going to end up as a Hallmark movie.

I thought, well at least my books won't be ripped to shreds by Ms. Gurdon. Most are for younger kids anyway and are fairly pleasant. No dogs die and there's usually a happy ending. HOWEVER, I love researching history and learning stuff they didn't teach in school -- which is a lot. I've been privileged to have publishers who trust me to tell-it-like-it-was and weave truths into stories that hopefully will inspire kids to read and learn. And hopefully inspire them to care about the future, seeing to it that our country doesn't repeat mistakes of history.

Silly me! Yesterday, I received an email from a mother who disapproves of The Winter of Red Snow, a Dear America story set at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War. Her letter:

[no salutation] "My 9 yr old daughter, who is a gifted and talented student, has loved reading the Dear America Series (approximately 14 of them). Here are her comments about your book that I felt I had to pass them on to you:

     'I think it's inappropriate for someone my age, especially the part with the human hands and feet in a trough. I understand it you're trying to make it as detailed as possible but I think it's too much. Also it makes me afraid to read other Dear America books because I don't want to have to read something that makes me cry.'

     Just for your information, Ms Gregory, we have reported the gore of your book to our local library and they pulled it off the shelf of the juvenile section...I think maybe they're reshelving it for Young Adults in another location.

Thank you, 'Jane Doe'"

Hm. We've handed our kids a messed up world -- political chaos, wars in the Middle East, economic disaster, bullying and shootings in their schools, a nuclear meltdown, an epidemic of teen and young adult suicide -- and this mother is so worried that her daughter might cry at a shred of historic realism that she marches down to her local library and succeeds in having the book taken off the shelf so that other children and families won't be able to access it in the juvenile section? Are you kidding me!

What about the "gifted and talented student" destined to be our future president of the United States? I hope she will have been allowed to read and to cry and to be horrified by the affects of war, and that she -- okay, or he -- will be appalled by overprotective parents trying to ban books because the topics are icky.

I'm appalled. And I'm furious. I edited out my earlier rough language here, even though it would have bumped me up to the Young Adult section and put me in good company.

Readers, what do you think?

answering children's letters Part 1

This afternoon I'm taking a break from a Fun Writing Project to answer some children's letters, a different sort of fun.

My post office box was stuffed with mail from all over -- Wyoming, Iowa and Michigan, northern Sweden, and from a Mennonite boy in Pennsylvania. What delighted me the most was that many of these children had tucked in return postage to encourage my response. Or as one third-grader wrote in her pretty handwriting: "P.S. I've included a stamp and when you get a chance to write me back to my school that would be awesome."

I'm hurrying because most of the return addresses are to the schools and I worry summer vacation has already started. If teachers would PLEASE tell their students to include a home address, there's a greater chance my letter will reach them. Or if such personal detail is a 'safety' issue, have the students write in the early spring with the date so I'll know in which order to answer.

Mail from young readers is always a thrill. One fifth-grade boy from Northampton thanked me for my books then went on to more substance: his love of playing football. "I was the nose guard. I'm that guy in front of the ball snapper. We won 4 and lost 4. Let's get off of football. My favorite color is orange and my favorite food is general tos chicken. It is chinese."

I love kids! They're so refreshing.

writing for children & quirky inspiration from Roald Dahl

Last week a writer friend sent me a present: Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock (Simon & Schuster). It landed on our porch with a loud ker-thunk because, I'm not kidding, it's as hefty as a door-stop.

Roald Dahl of course is famous for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for being outrageously quirky. On page 547 of his bio, he explains what makes a good children's writer. I love how he puts it and shall end this post with his words:

     [The writer]  must be a jokey sort of fellow ...  unconventional and inventive ... He must know what enthral[l]s children and what bores them. They love being spooked. They love suspense. They love action. They love ghosts. They love the finding of treasure. They love chocolates and toys and money. They love magic. They love being made to giggle. They love seeing the villain meet a grisly death. They love a hero and they love the hero to be a winner. But they hate descriptive passages and flowery prose. They hate long descriptions of any sort. Many of them are sensitive to good writing and can spot a clumsy sentence. They like stories that contain a threat. "D'you know what I feel like?" said the big crocodile to the smaller one. "I feel like having myself a nice plump juicy child for my lunch." They love that sort of thing. What else do they love? New inventions. Unorthodox methods. Eccentricity. Secret information. The list is long. But above all, when you write a story for them, bear in mind that they do not possess the same power of concentration as an adult, and they become very easily bored or diverted. Your story, therefore, must tantalize and titillate them on every page and all the time that you are writing you must be saying to yourself, "Is this too slow? Is it too dull? Will they stop reading?" To those questions, you must answer yes more often than you answer no. [If not] you must cross it out and start again.

controversial book covers #2: American Indians through the eyes of mainstream publishers

1989 cover

When my first novel, Jenny of the Tetons, was about to be published the bound galley arrived with a beautiful wrap-around cover. I was thrilled. At first.

Then I looked closely at the painting. The mountains weren't the Tetons and Jenny, a Shoshone Indian, resembled a white pioneer. Her face was pale, her hair short, and she wore a gingham dress. I protested vigorously to my editor. Not only was the cover inaccurate, it showed nothing of Jenny's proud heritage. I pleaded for a do-over: for Jenny to be in her native clothing, which was described in the novel, and for the Tetons to be authenticated. This is one of the most distinctive ranges in the West! That they and Jenny were generic, was a disgrace.

The painting was tweaked: Jenny's skin was darkened and she was given braids [PHOTO, above]. Dress was the same, ditto the mountains. When I asked why more wasn't done, my publisher answered, "Artistic license."

2002 paperback reprint

The paperback reprint is worse. A white girl is featured on the cover [PHOTO, right]. In the background is a fuzzy photo of an Indian woman on horseback, pulling a travois with two children in what looks like a reed cage. She is holding a baby in a cradle-board. This Jenny looks haggard and bummed out. It's a sad example of a publisher relegating a Native American to the background. Is it because of marketing in this case, that a fair-haired girl will sell more covers than a tired Indian? I hope this stereotype is just a mistake and that publishers will start doing more to honor our indigenous friends.

Jenny Leigh was a real person. She was married to an English fur trapper and they had six children. She was so respected and admired, Jenny Lake in the Tetons was named for her.