Deborah Hopkinson

NonfictionHistory

The legendary soldiers of the American Revolution

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

In his new book, bestselling military historian Patrick K. O’Donnell turns his attention to a forgotten story of the American Revolution. Today, only a rusted metal sign memorializes 256 Maryland soldiers who fell during the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776. The men were part of a legendary regiment whose heroic actions in that battle—and others in the years to come—helped determine the outcome of the war. 

O’Donnell became curious about the men while on a walking tour of the Brooklyn neighborhood where the undiscovered remains of the soldiers still lie. Through his research, he uncovered the fascinating story of Major Mordecai Gist, who formed an independent company of men in Baltimore in 1774, when war clouds were gathering. The unit would become one of only a few that fought throughout the war, disbanding in November 1783. (Gist, who survived, named his sons Independent and States.)

O’Donnell gives a stirring account of the remarkable resilience and bravery shown by the Maryland soldiers. In the summer of 1776, British troops and warships sailed into New York’s harbors, set on invasion. Compared with the British, the American army was a ragtag affair. 

General George Washington “faced a nearly impossible strategic situation,” O’Donnell notes. Although outmatched and outmaneuvered, the Marylanders proved to be stalwart and daring soldiers, helping to cover the Americans’ retreat and causing Washington to cry, “Good God! What brave fellows I must this day lose!”

While O’Donnell focuses on the Marylanders, his absorbing narrative takes readers into the larger story of the Revolutionary War itself. In the process, he makes a compelling case for honoring these forgotten heroes with more than a rusted sign.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In his new book, bestselling military historian Patrick K. O’Donnell turns his attention to a forgotten story of the American Revolution. Today, only a rusted metal sign memorializes 256 Maryland soldiers who fell during the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776. The men were part of a legendary regiment whose heroic actions in that battle—and others in the years to come—helped determine the outcome of the war.
YA FictionYA

The buoyancy of hope amid war

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

BookPage Teen Top Pick, February 2016

On January 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, killing more than 9,000 people. While designated as a military transport vessel, the Wilhelm Gustloff was severely overloaded with civilian evacuees from the Baltic region, including an estimated 5,000 children. The high death toll makes this sinking the greatest maritime tragedy in history. Today, the wreckage still lies off Poland’s coast and is often referred to as “the ghost ship.”

Acclaimed author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) explores this little-known World War II tragedy in her intense and compelling third novel. Salt to the Sea focuses on the lives of four young people from different homelands, each separated from their families during wartime. The narrative shifts throughout as Joana, Emilia, Florian and Alfred chronicle the often terrifying events that bring them together. The first three are seeking escape on the crowded ship; Alfred is one of the Nazi soldiers stationed on it. 

To tell this harrowing tale, Sepetys traveled to several countries to research the event, but she also has a family connection: Her father’s cousin fled Lithuania and had a pass for the ill-fated voyage, but she ended up on another ship. In the author’s note, Sepetys writes: “As I wrote this novel I was haunted by the thoughts of the helpless children and teenagers—innocent victims of border shifts, ethnic cleansings, and vengeful regimes.” 

Teen readers will be drawn in by the short chapters, strong characters and heartbreaking story. In scenes reminscent of the sinking of the Titanic, matters of life and death are decided in a single moment.

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig.

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

On January 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, killing more than 9,000 people. While designated as a military transport vessel, the Wilhelm Gustloff was severely overloaded with civilian evacuees from the Baltic region, including an estimated 5,000 children. The high death toll makes this sinking the greatest maritime tragedy in history. Today, the wreckage still lies off Poland’s coast and is often referred to as “the ghost ship.”
NonfictionEducation

Reading as a catalyst

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

“Together and alone, we need literature as the California valleys need rain,” muses David Denby, author of Great Books (1996) and staff writer for The New Yorker. But, he wondered, in an age of texting and tweeting, are teens still reading complex literary works? And can an appetite for serious reading be developed in high school?

To find out, Denby decided to return to school himself, exploring 10th-grade classrooms and the reading habits of 15-year-olds. Denby opted for a subjective, arbitrary approach, spending the 2011-2012 academic year observing teacher Sean Leon’s class at The Beacon School, an alternative high school in Manhattan; the following year he visited classes in two other public high schools. As Denby glances at a student’s essay draft at the beginning of the year in Leon’s class, he can’t help but think that Leon had “his work cut out for him. They all did, the English teachers of America.”

Denby is an engaging writer and a keen spectator: The teachers and students he observes spring off the page as real people. He also explores the books along with the students themselves. (If you hated The Scarlet Letter in high school, here’s your chance to revisit it.) 

Like many of the teens around him, Denby himself isn’t always on the same page as the teacher who’s asking for total engagement with, say, Dostoevsky at 8:00 in the morning. “I couldn’t believe I was even there. At that moment, I couldn’t handle The Sound of Music.” Yet, he comes to realize, many of the students are juggling not only multiple classes but part-time jobs and challenging home situations.

Denby gives us a dramatic, fascinating look at teachers and students struggling, questioning and growing together. Lit Up is a testament to the power of extraordinary teachers and the willingness of young people to engage—not just with books, but with the serious business of becoming adults. 

 

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“Together and alone, we need literature as the California valleys need rain,” muses David Denby, author of Great Books (1996) and staff writer for The New Yorker. But, he wondered, in an age of texting and tweeting, are teens still reading complex literary works? And can an appetite for serious reading be developed in high school?
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Kids facing big decisions in the midst of war

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

At the start of World War II, more than 3.5 million people were evacuated from British cities to the countryside. But it wasn’t until Cheryl Blackford began writing Lizzie and the Lost Baby that she realized her father had been sent away from the embattled city of Hull in Yorkshire, where she was born. Although she now lives in Minnesota, Blackford draws on her love of rural Yorkshire in her warmhearted debut novel for young readers. Ten-year-old Lizzie and her world come alive with sparkling details, from the blacked-out windows of the train that takes Lizzie and her little brother, Peter, to safety in the countryside, to the potted meat sandwiches their mother has packed for them. 

Everything is new and strange in Swainedale, the fictional village where the evacuees are sent, and Lizzie feels less than welcome. Here readers meet Elijah, a Gypsy boy trying to cope with local prejudice and to bring in money to help his mother and sisters, including baby Rose. But when Elijah is pressured into making a mistake that puts Rose in jeopardy, Lizzie and Elijah are brought together in unexpected ways.

This is a well-told story of two young people making difficult choices on their own. Though the setting and situation may be new to American children, a helpful glossary defines unfamiliar terms.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

At the start of World War II, more than 3.5 million people were evacuated from British cities to the countryside. But it wasn’t until Cheryl Blackford began writing Lizzie and the Lost Baby that she realized her father had been sent away from the embattled city of Hull in Yorkshire, where she was born.
Children's & YAPicture Book

A Pilgrim’s grand adventure

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Irish artist P.J. Lynch is known for illustrating books such as the beloved Christmas classic The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, recently released in a 20th anniversary edition. Lynch’s new historical fiction title, The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, or John Howland’s Good Fortune, the first book he has both written and illustrated, was inspired by the life of Pilgrim John Howland. Howland’s story struck Lynch as a “quintessentially American one, of a man who started out with little and who, through sheer doggedness and good fortune, went on to achieve great things.”

The tale begins with young Howland scurrying through the streets of London to help his master, John Carver, provision the Mayflower for her voyage. Once at sea, Howland and the others endure seemingly endless bouts of bad weather. Incredibly, when Howland is swept overboard in a storm, he's able to catch hold of a rope for the brief moment it’s illuminated by a bolt of lightning.

Lynch vividly shows the harrowing experiences of the colonists during the winter of 1620 to 1621, and recounts the generosity of the Wampanoag tribe—including Squanto—that befriended them. After Carver’s death, Howland could have returned to England but chose instead to stay in Plymouth. An author’s note informs readers that Howland married fellow Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley and had 10 children.

Enhanced by a large format that showcases Lynch’s striking watercolor and gouache illustrations, this fictionalized account of Howland’s story will spark young readers’ interest in learning more about the Wampanaog and English people who encountered one another so long ago.

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Courage & Defiance.

Irish artist P.J. Lynch is known for illustrating books such as the beloved Christmas classic The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, recently released in a 20th anniversary edition. Lynch’s new historical fiction title, The Boy Who Fell Off the Mayflower, the first book he has both written and illustrated, was inspired by the life of Pilgrim John Howland.

NonfictionSports

Swimming for Olympic gold

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

“I was a stranger,” writes Julie Checkoway in her preamble to this nearly lost story of a remarkable Maui swimming coach, “but it seemed to me that someone ought to try to save it.” Save the story she has, through exhaustive research and sparkling prose. 

In 1932, a schoolteacher named Soichi Sakamoto couldn’t bear to deprive the children of sugar plantation workers from playing in the only recreational water available: a dirty irrigation ditch. Sakamoto got permission to watch the children so they could keep playing in the ditch, and watching turned into a desire to teach. First, Sakamoto showed the kids how to float; then he taught what he called “speed-floating.” Eventually, his innovative teaching methods came to include rigorous physical training and individualized techniques for each swimmer. 

In 1937, Sakamoto challenged the children to join the “Three-Year Swim Club,” committing to three years of total sacrifice and discipline. Their audacious goal: nothing less than placing swimmers on the 1940 U.S. Olympic team. 

Checkoway’s compelling narrative reveals the incredible odds Sakamoto and his team faced: meager budgets, exhausting travel via ship, discrimination in mainland pools. And in the end, of course, the 1940 Tokyo Olympics never took place. If it had, Maui swimmer Fujiko Katsutani would have been a member of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Swim Team. 

Sakamoto wasn’t to be denied. At the 1948 Olympics, one of his swimmers, Bill Smith Jr., won the 400-meter freestyle. Sakamoto became coach of the University of Hawaii swim team, producing seven Olympians and 25 national champions over his long career. Through it all, he adhered to his vision to use “swimming as a means of teaching . . . children life values."

 

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“I was a stranger,” writes Julie Checkoway in her preamble to this nearly lost story of a remarkable Maui swimming coach, “but it seemed to me that someone ought to try to save it.” Save the story she has, through exhaustive research and sparkling prose.
Children's & YAPicture Book

A secret game to change history

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

John Coy’s many books about sports are especially popular with young readers, and here he brings his knowledge of the history of basketball to tell a timely and inspiring story about John McLendon (1915-1999), the first black coach in the American Basketball Association.

Game Changer explores a historical milestone: On March 12, 1944, members of the white Duke University Medical School team played a secret, illegal game against a black team from the North Carolina College of Negroes in segregated North Carolina. The game, the first of its kind, was arranged by McLendon, who had studied basketball under the game’s inventor, James Naismith. McLendon went on to a successful college coaching career and popularized the fast-paced tempo of the game that we see today.

Randy DuBurke’s powerful illustrations evoke both the 1940s time period and the emotions of young men who understood they were making history on that quiet Sunday morning. Particularly effective are panels that show the “innovative fast-break style of McClendon’s team in contrast to the slower, more traditional style of play." Coy’s text, which includes a bibliography and a timeline, brings the actions of the game to life while at the same time gives young readers enough history to appreciate the event’s significance.

“Today, people don’t think twice about players of different skin colors competing with one another on the court, but it wasn’t always that way,” Coy writes. “Coach John McClendon and those brave players who rose to the challenge in the Secret Game were years ahead of their time.” 

But who won? No spoilers here.

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Courage & Defiance.

John Coy’s many books about sports are especially popular with young readers, and here he brings his knowledge of the history of basketball to tell a timely and inspiring story about John McLendon (1915-1999), the first black coach in the American Basketball Association.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

A young hero’s fate in 19th-century Japan

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Margi Preus has a remarkable ability to create fascinating, page-turning stories that transport young readers to faraway times and places. Whether she’s evoking Norway during World War II or 19th-century Japan, Preus combines impeccable research with strong characterization and plot—the very elements that draw readers into history and spark the curiosity to learn more.

Fans of her Newbery Honor-winning Heart of a Samurai will be delighted to discover that Manjiro (based on the historical figure of Nakahama Manjiro) also appears in Preus’ new novel, The Bamboo Sword. The actual Manjiro was rescued from a shipwreck at age 14 by an American whaling ship and spent time in America before re- turning to Japan. Although initially arrested, he was released shortly before Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay in the summer of 1853, and as the only Japa- nese with firsthand knowledge of English and Westerners, he was an important figure in the opening of Japan to the West.

In The Bamboo Sword, readers experience the arrival of those first strange ships through the eyes of a fictional 13-year-old servant boy named Yoshi, who harbors the dream of becoming a samurai himself, a path not open to someone of his class. But events conspire to put a sword into Yoshi’s hand and to intertwine his fate with both Manjiro and a young member of the U.S. expedition, Jack Sullivan, inspired loosely by pioneering war correspondent and photographer Timothy O’Sullivan.

With its compelling story, block prints, historical photographs, glossary and substantive author’s note, The Bamboo Sword is historical fiction at its best.

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Courage & Defiance.

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Margi Preus has a remarkable ability to create fascinating, page-turning stories that transport young readers to faraway times and places. Whether she’s evoking Norway during World War II or 19th-century Japan, Preus combines impeccable research with strong characterization and plot—the very elements that draw readers into history and spark the curiosity to learn more.

NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

FDR’s most impactful year in office

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

There is nothing so compelling as history well told, whether in print or on film. And viewers who were engrossed by Ken Burns’ recent PBS series on the Roosevelts will find Jay Winik’s new book on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History, especially appealing. Winik, who has written about America’s founding (The Great Upheaval) and the Civil War (April 1865), brings his considerable gifts as a storyteller and a talented historian to this new work exploring the pivotal year of Roosevelt’s presidency and of World War II. 

Winik seamlessly sets FDR the man, beset by physical limitations and increasingly bad health, within the context of the complex, high-stakes international challenges he faced. In the spring of 1944, Winik shows us a Roosevelt exhausted and ill, plagued by headaches and a hacking cough—a man who sometimes fell asleep in the midst of dictation. 

Yet Roosevelt was also a “resolute and clear-sighted wartime leader,” a leader unwilling to accept defeat when, as it did during that crucial year, the entire history of civilization seemed to hang in the balance. Looking back, the defeat of Hitler and the success of the Normandy invasion may seem inevitable, but at the time this was far from the case. At the same time, Winik explores in detail the implications of the Roosevelt administration’s decision not to launch military strikes against Nazi death camps. 

As the 75th anniversary of America’s entry into World War II approaches next year, Winik has given us a chance to move beyond simple commemoration to a fuller understanding of the era.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There is nothing so compelling as history well told, whether in print or on film. And viewers who were engrossed by Ken Burns’ recent PBS series on the Roosevelts will find Jay Winik’s new book on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History, especially appealing. Winik, who has written about America’s founding (The Great Upheaval) and the Civil War (April 1865), brings his considerable gifts as a storyteller and a talented historian to this new work exploring the pivotal year of Roosevelt’s presidency and of World War II.
NonfictionHistory

The visitors who transformed Hawaii

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

One of the most rewarding aspects of travel can happen before we leave home: reading about our destination. While a good guidebook is indispensible, a history can do much to enrich our understanding of the place and people we are about to meet.

Such is the case with Susanna Moore’s vibrant new book, Paradise of the Pacific: Approaching Hawaii. A novelist (The Life of Objects) who has also written a memoir about growing up in the 50th state (I Myself Have Seen It), Moore brings considerable storytelling skills to her subject. She sees the history of the Hawaiian Islands as “a story of arrivals,” one that encompasses not only flora and fauna blown by the winds but early Polynesian travelers, explorers, missionaries and whalers.

Moore focuses most intensively on the often heartbreaking clashes that arose when native Hawaiians came in contact with Europeans, beginning with Captain Cook’s landing in 1778. For the native people of Hawaii, foreigners became “the source of the darkness that made darkness.”

It took a little more than a century for this isolated, structured society to undergo profound cultural and social transformations that had a devastating impact. As Moore notes, “the Hawaiian people, thanks to the introduction of diseases to which they had no immunity, and an encompassing melancholia that overtook them with the loss of their culture, came close to disappearing as a race.”

While Moore’s book does not extend to present day, it will likely make readers curious to find out more, which is just as it should be. “The task of understanding the past is never-ending,” she writes. Paradise of the Pacific reminds us that beyond Hawaii’s beautiful beaches lies a complex, multi-layered history we can only begin to appreciate.

 

In Paradise of the Pacific, Susanna Moore sees the history of the Hawaiian Islands as “a story of arrivals,” one that encompasses not only flora and fauna blown by the winds but early Polynesian travelers, explorers, missionaries and whalers.
Children's & YAPicture Book

Biscuits for good behavior

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Ragwood is a farm dog. He’s really, really good at it. Most dogs aren’t—but don’t despair: Ragweed is here to tell you exactly what to do.

Everyone on a farm has a job, and Ragwood can explain them all. Take pigs: Pigs lie in the mud all day. "That’s their job. That’s not your job. Don’t lie in the mud. Mud is lovely. It smells like worms and toes and earwax, so you will really, really want to lie in the mud.” And of course, every farm has chickens. Can you guess what a chicken's job is? Yup, you’ve got it: “Chickens sit on their nests all day to make eggs.” Now, is that a farm dog’s job? No. But would an aspiring farm dog WANT to sit on their nests? You betcha. But as you should take it from Ragweed, if you sit on the chickens’ nests, you will definitely NOT get a biscuit.

You see, the farm dog’s main job is to get biscuits. And just as Ragweed is spectacularly skilled at getting biscuits, author-illustrator Anne Vittur Kennedy is a wizard at creating a hilarious, warm-hearted picture book that future farm dogs (and their families, including parents) won’t tire of reading again and again. From its delicious voice, enticing refrains and satisfying conclusion, Ragweed’s Farm Dog Handbook is one of those deceptively simple but perfectly constructed picture books that should be part of every home—country or city. To paraphrase Ragweed, “You’re going to love this book.”

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Courage & Defiance.

Ragwood is a farm dog. He’s really, really good at it. Most dogs aren’t—but don’t despair: Ragweed is here to tell you exactly what to do.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

One small step, one giant leap

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Half-Japanese, half-black, Mimi Yoshiko Oliver loves looking at the moon and wants to be an astronaut. In January 1969, she moves from California to the frosty Vermont town of Hillsborough, an unwelcoming place. The farmer next door is always rude, and Mimi is teased at school. Even after she forms a tentative friendship with a girl named Stacey, she’s not invited to Stacey’s home. Then there’s the matter of shop class. Mimi would rather take shop than home ec so she can use power tools to work on her science project, but girls are supposed to “learn how to cook and sew so they can be good homemakers.” 

Slowly, Mimi and her family discover small moments of harmony, like finding the first crocuses in the snow. When Mimi and Stacey decide to challenge the exclusion of girls from shop classes, their courage inspires the entire eighth grade to an act of civil disobedience. 

Told in evocative free verse, Full Cicada Moon is a lyrical portrait of a strong family at a time of immense change, perfect for that budding scientist who loves to look at the stars.

 

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is Courage & Defiance.

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Half-Japanese, half-black, Mimi Yoshiko Oliver loves looking at the moon and wants to be an astronaut. In January 1969, she moves from California to the frosty Vermont town of Hillsborough, an unwelcoming place. The farmer next door is always rude, and Mimi is teased at school. Even after she forms a tentative friendship with a girl named Stacey, she’s not invited to Stacey’s home. Then there’s the matter of shop class. Mimi would rather take shop than home ec so she can use power tools to work on her science project, but girls are supposed to “learn how to cook and sew so they can be good homemakers.”
NonfictionHistory

How houses became homes

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

No one writes about history like Judith Flanders. Reading her work (The Victorian City, Inside the Victorian Home) is like going back in time with an expert guide at your side.

In her new book, The Making of Home, Flanders ventures beyond one city or time period to explore the political, religious, economic and social factors that led to the notions of home that still influence us today. Make no mistake—this is not a history of decoration or architecture. As Flanders puts it, “It is not the style of chair that is my primary concern, but how people sat on it.” 

While such a broad topic might be dry in the hands of a lesser writer, Flanders boasts an astounding ability to seamlessly weave facts and ideas. In her discussion of the evolution of lighting inside and outside houses, we’re treated to Robert Louis Stevenson’s comments on gas street lamps: “The city-folk had stars of their own; biddable domesticated stars.” Like those stars, every page of this remarkable book sparkles with insights. 

If you’re left curious to know more about, say, the impact of technology on kitchen design and women’s lives, The Making of Home includes extensive notes and an 18-page bibliography.  

As Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home.” In The Making of Home, Flanders helps us appreciate how much there is to know about something we care about so deeply.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

No one writes about history like Judith Flanders. Reading her work (The Victorian City, Inside the Victorian Home) is like going back in time with an expert guide at your side. In her new book, The Making of Home, Flanders ventures beyond one city or time period to explore the political, religious, economic and social factors that led to the notions of home that still influence us today.

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