Deborah Hopkinson

A new novel by Newbery award-winning author Karen Hesse is a cause for celebration. Hesse combines a remarkable storytelling ability with thorough research and the capacity to create fascinating and compelling characters. In her latest book, Brooklyn Bridge, Hesse shines a light on Brooklyn in the summer of 1903.

Ever since his Russian immigrant parents invented the stuffed teddy bear, life is moving fast for 14-year-old Joseph Michtom. But as his boisterous family is busy working to achieve the American dream, Joe begins to wonder if he'll get the chance to realize his own dream: visiting magical Coney Island.

We caught up with Hesse at her home in Vermont to explore how she came to tell this memorable tale, inspired by the real-life figures Rose and Morris Michtom.

Brooklyn Bridge is full of wonderful period details. How did you go about your research?
Where would I be without archived newspapers? Some days I feel like the nursery rhyme character, Jack Horner, who sticks in his thumb and pulls out a plum. The New York Times archives yielded many useful articles, but the newspaper that proved indispensable in this project was The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. I also used Sears, Roebuck catalogs, fiction from the period, nonfiction about the period, and photographs. Music, too. I try to absorb music from the period and play it in my computer's CD drive as I'm writing.

Brooklyn Bridge includes a parallel plot about life under the bridge itself. Were there children and others living under the Brooklyn Bridge in the early 1900s?
When I was reading through those New York Times articles, I found a piece about "the children under the bridge." Immediately, bridge children grew from the damp earth of my imagination. Only after re-reading the article did I realize these were probably children on the Lower East Side living under the "shadow" of the bridge. Too late. I already had my population of homeless children.

Later, while doing more research in Brooklyn, I haunted the underbelly of the bridge and saw that what I had envisioned was entirely possible. By 1903, efforts had begun in NYC to alleviate some of the problems of homelessness but there were still street children . . . still are.

The book is alive with strong female characters, including Joe's colorful aunts and his nose-in-a-book sister, Emily. Did you base your characters on people you know?
The family constellation of three sisters and a brother reflects my mother's experience, though these siblings are nothing like my mother and her sisters and brother. Still, I do borrow from my memories of family gatherings to create the chaos and banter that occurs around Joe's kitchen table. And the longing in each of my aunts, my uncle, my mother, my grandparents and great aunts and uncles to achieve the American dream, this I know intimately.

Did you find out any great tidbits in the real Michtom family's history that you'd like to share with readers?
The Ideal Toy Company was founded by Morris and Rose Michtom as a result of their success with the teddy bear. Some of the many well-known toys, games and dolls produced by the Michtoms include the Magic 8 Ball, Rubik's Cube and the Shirley Temple doll. The Michtoms and their children used their wealth, in part, to support causes that bettered the human condition both in this country and overseas. I learned that the real-life Joseph wanted nothing to do with the toy company. He became a dentist. His sister Emily actively pursued a philanthropic life, and Benjamin took over the family business from his father.

What is your favorite thing to do when you're not writing?
I'm so grateful for every day and how it fills up with these beautiful, painful, surprising, inspiring, moving moments. I love reading. I love film. I love taking photographs. Listening to music. I love hiking. Spending time with family and friends. Being alone. Eating out. Washing dishes. Folding laundry. I just love being. Life is such a gift.

Finally, we have to ask: did you have a teddy bear when you were a girl?
I'm smiling because I did not. My husband, Randy, however, did. His bear, whose name is Brownie, is a tattered, one-eyed, threadbare, roughly patched, much beloved presence on my shelf. Brownie looks nothing like the Michtom bears. Early on in the journey of this book I picked up in my local thrift shop a bear very similar to the original Michtom design. Brownie and my "new" Teddy spend most of their days and nights nuzzled up together on the third floor of my house.

A new book from Sharon Creech is always a treat. The author has delighted thousands of readers with titles such as Walk Two Moons, which won the Newbery Award, Bloomability, Love That Dog, The Wanderer and A Fine, Fine School.

In her new novel, Ruby Holler, Dallas and Florida, the "Trouble Twins," are sent away from a Dickensian establishment called the Boxton Creek Home for Children to a temporary foster home. They are to live for several months with an eccentric older couple, Tiller and Sairy, in a lush, green hidden valley called Ruby Holler. Just as in the classic tale, The Secret Garden, the mystery and natural beauty of the place begins to work miracles for the twins in this engaging story for young readers.

The place itself is as much a character in this novel as any of the people, so it's no surprise that the idea for the novel began with the setting. Creech got her inspiration for Ruby Holler by hearing a family story about her father having grown up in a "holler." The idea of a beautiful, mysterious hollow intrigued her. As a child, she had often visited her cousins in their home in the mountains of Kentucky. "It was a place where the hills were green, the streams were clean and you could run and shout all day long in the hills," Creech recalled in a recent interview.

The image grew and evolved in her mind for several years before she was ready to begin working on the book. "I had to wait until a character arrived to inhabit that place, and one day two characters arrived twins, rather rough-edged and full of spunk."

Full of spunk indeed! Mr. and Mrs. Trepid, who run the Buxton Children's Home, are constantly sending Dallas and Florida to the "Thinking Corner," a stool in the dark, cobweb-covered basement. Dallas and Florida are therefore astonished by their first few days in their new foster home. There is plenty of food, for one thing. They are sleeping, not in a cupboard, but in an airy loft with a view of deep blue mountains, and infractions aren't punished by "whuppings." Creech enjoys doing research for her books but says, "I have discovered that I work best when I trust my imagination to conjure up people and places and details. Too often research roots things too stubbornly in reality, and the story will not sing for me then."

A good example of this occurred while she was writing Ruby Holler. Foster parents Tiller and Sairy are each preparing for one last adventure: Tiller wants one twin to paddle with him on the Rutabago River, and Sairy will take the other to go bird-watching on the island of Kangadoon. But in the original draft of the book, Sairy's trip was supposed to be to China and Tiller's to the Mississippi. Creech spent three months researching those places before determining that the sections just didn't work with the rest of the story.

Young readers are often amazed when they hear that three months of work can end up being cut. But Creech is no stranger to revision. For Ruby Holler, she wrote her first draft in six months, then spent another year revising it. "A couple of my favorite chapters came to me late in the revision process probably at the stage of fourth or fifth drafts," says Creech. "It always amazes me that whole scenes can emerge after you think you might be finished with a book!"

Creech advises young readers to "read a lot, and write a lot and have fun with both!" Her many fans will be glad to know that she takes her own advice: now that the Trouble Twins' story has come to a satisfying end, she's currently working on a new book inspired by her Italian grandmother. Watch for it!

Deborah Hopkinson's latest book for young readers is Pioneer Summer, Book One of the Ready-for-Chapters series Prairie Skies.

Twelve-year-old Lucy, the heroine of  Valerie Hobbs’ lyrical new novel for young readers, treasures her summer visits with Grams, an artist and “a hippie before hippies were invented.”

But this summer turns out to be different. For one thing, Lucy’s longed-for, precious time at the lake with her beloved grandmother is disrupted by a surprise visitor, one who’s not altogether welcome. And then there are the disturbing incidents: Grams forgetting the day of the week, a dish towel left too close to the burner, an ill-advised canoe trip in threatening weather.

As the days pass, Lucy wants to cling to the way things have always been. She doesn’t want Grams to change. Yet she can’t forget what her mother told her as she said goodbye: “This might be the last time, you know.”

The last summer. Lucy wants it to be the best.

The Last Best Days of Summer was inspired by a film on Alz-heimer’s disease, which prompted Hobbs to think about family members, like Lucy, who get left behind. This can be extremely painful for children, especially those being raised by their grandparents, or those who have close ties to a grandparent or relative.

Now a grandmother herself, Hobbs believes her own experience has helped her appreciate in a new way the special bond that can exist between grandparents and grandchildren. “I wanted to speak to that connection,” she says in an interview from her home in Santa Barbara, California.

In writing her latest novel, Hobbs also drew on her experiences with throwing pots, a skill Grams is teaching Lucy in their time together. “I did pottery for a couple of years. I got to the point where I could center a pot. It’s a really strange and profound feeling—a feeling of being centered on the Earth, and centered within yourself.”

The author of 12 novels for young readers and one for adults (Call It a Gift), Hobbs writes for both middle grade and young adult age groups. She says it’s really the story and characters that shape whether a book is for middle grade readers or an older audience.

“It really depends on what story hits me,” she notes. Though she adds with a laugh, “I think I got stuck at about age 14 so I can go either way.”

Hobbs, who likes to visit schools and talk with students, believes that writing can help young people find themselves. She works with young writers to enable them to recognize that their own lives and stories are important.

“I start out with a banner that reads, ‘Only You Can Tell Your Story.’ I want them to know that they have the power to write from their hearts and their experiences. To get those real stories out is important,” the author says.

Hobbs practices this in her own work. Her novels have sometimes drawn from her personal experiences, including the tragic death of a boyfriend when she was a teenager. But while she has found that writing some of her books has been challenging emotionally, others have turned out to be pure fun, especially her 2006 novel Sheep, about the adventures of a border collie.

Despite its bittersweet story, The Last Best Days of Summer is never dark. Instead, it seems infused with joy and an affirmation of family. Part of the reason may be that Hobbs, who lived in New Jersey before moving to California at the age of 15, has wonderful memories of her own summers as a golden, carefree time. “We were gone all day. We ran. We made forts. We only came home when we were hungry.”

Lucy’s summer with Grams may not be what she was expecting, but by the end it has been touched by love and a kind of magic. Lucy has come to feel that sense of being centered, in spite of the changes and emotions that envelop her.

“I hope kids get that,” says Hobbs, “that feeling of knowing who you are, and knowing ‘this is right.’ ”

And really, isn’t finding out who you are exactly what summer reading is all about?