Three-time National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin offers a new work of nonfiction as riveting as any historical novel you are likely to read this year. Undefeated exhumes football’s early years and a period in American history not as far removed from today as we might like to believe.

Why do you think this story of a football team from the early 1900s will resonate with a 2017 audience?
At heart, Undefeated is about Jim Thorpe and his teammates taking on enormous obstacles, on and off the field. I feel like once readers get to know the characters, and what they’re up against, it’ll be easy to start rooting for them. I’m a huge fan of underdog sports books like The Boys in the Boat or Seabiscuit—and I really couldn’t care less about rowing or horse racing. But those stories pull you in, and you find yourself worrying and cheering, as if these races from the 1930s were taking place before your eyes. I tried to capture this same edge-of-your-seat feeling with the football games in Undefeated. And I think it adds to the drama that modern readers have no idea how Carlisle’s big games turned out.

You fit so much into Undefeated—the formation of the Carlisle Indian School, the early years of football, Pop Warner’s backstory, the origins of the Carlisle football program, the rise of Thorpe and his teammates and on and on. Were you aware of all of these strands when you started this project?
Projects always grow on me as I research and begin to outline. I started off with the idea of making the rise of Jim Thorpe the spine of the story, and that didn’t change. But as I read more, I kept finding more to put in. After lots of trial and error, I decided to start with three stories: Thorpe’s childhood and teen years, Pop Warner and the early days of football, and the Carlisle Indian School and the formation of their football team. I get all three stories going right away in the book, and sort of juggle them until they all come together. And of course, I wound up writing way too much, and had to cut some of my favorite scenes.

“The Carlisle team changed everything by inventing a new and more exciting (and slightly safer) way to play. They saved the sport—and made it a lot more fun to watch.”

What was the most surprising fact you discovered while researching this story?
I was really stunned by the details of just how violent early-day football was—far more dangerous than it is today. Basically, it was loosely organized combat. The forward pass was not allowed, and there was no place for speed or strategy. Teams ran what were called “mass plays” over and over—walls of men crashed into each other, and guys openly punched each other in the pile-ups. In the year 1905 alone, 19 young men died playing football. Colleges were beginning to ban the sport, and momentum was building to ban football entirely in America, when the Carlisle team changed everything by inventing a new and more exciting (and slightly safer) way to play. They saved the sport—and made it a lot more fun to watch.

Beyond Thorpe and Coach Pop Warner, were there any other figures in this story that really caught your attention—people you wished you could have written more about?
One was Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of Carlisle. He’s a complex and controversial guy, a man who cared about the future of Native American kids at a time very few white American leaders did. Yet the school he founded, which was designed to strip Native kids of their culture and assimilate them into white America, inflicted tremendous and lasting pain on the people he claimed to be helping. Pratt is an important figure in my book, but I focus more on the Jim Thorpe years at Carlisle, after Pratt was gone. Besides, this is a sports book, and I didn’t want to go too heavy on the history.

You use the term “Indians” throughout Undefeated. Can you explain why you opted for that term, as opposed to more contemporary terms like Native Americans, indigenous or first nation’s peoples?
Where possible, I refer to the specific nation a person is from, rather than the more general Native American or American Indian. But those terms are used a lot too, when speaking of diverse groups, like the Carlisle team. The reason “Indians” comes up so often in the football scenes is because that’s what the Carlisle team was called—the Carlisle Indians. It’s what newspapers called them, and what they called themselves. In the epilogue, I take up the issue of modern sports teams using the name “Indians,” or other stereotyped variations, and ask the reader to think about the appropriateness of this.

By contemporary terms, Thorpe was mixed race, but seems he thought of himself—and was pretty universally described—as “Indian.” Why was this?
It’s true, Thorpe always referred to himself with pride as “Indian.” From the start, his Native heritage—Pottawatomie on his mother’s side, Sac and Fox on his father’s—was a central part of his life. As a young kid in what was then Indian Territory, he literally watched some of the Oklahoma land rushes, as the government opened Native American land to settlers. And he was later sent to a series of Indian boarding schools. All of this must have shaped the way he saw himself, though it’s not something he talked about publicly. In terms of how non-Native people saw him, that was pretty simple. He wasn’t white.

“I love the challenge of picking stories and figuring out how to tell them. It’s like trying to solving a puzzle that has a thousand possible solutions, most of them wrong.”

You started your nonfiction career writing history textbooks—which, it seems, you didn’t much enjoy. What is different about writing historical nonfiction that you find so appealing?
When I visit schools I always start by confessing that I used to write history textbooks. Kids get mad at me, and rightfully so. But some forgive me when I explain that I’m trying to make amends with the narrative nonfiction books I’m doing now. For me, the beauty is that I get to focus on people and the stories, as opposed to dates and facts. I think nonfiction for young readers should be as exciting and entertaining as fiction. I love the challenge of picking stories and figuring out how to tell them. It’s like trying to solving a puzzle that has a thousand possible solutions, most of them wrong.

When you were a young reader, what was the first historical narrative that you remember capturing your imagination?
I was captivated by stuff I didn’t think of as history—tales of shipwrecks and lost treasure, outdoor adventures, survival stories. I was learning history, but I didn’t know it! And there were also some historical novels that really blew me away, like Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery, a very well-researched book about a famous heist in Victorian-era England. The mix of history and thriller in this book really stuck with me. I’ve been trying recreate that feeling ever since.

What are you reading now? What further reading would you recommend to readers of Undefeated?
I’m always reading a mix of things; work and pleasure reading tend to get mixed up, and I like it that way. Right now I’m fascinated by a book called Operation Overflight, the memoir of Francis Gary Power, the U2 pilot who was famously shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960. I’ve also been reading the amazing letters of Abigail Adams, for a younger fiction series I’m trying to get started. And I always seem to have a graphic novel or two going. For recommendations, let’s see . . . Ghost by Jason Reynolds, which won over my non-sports loving daughter, and Joseph Bruchac’s Jim Thorpe: Original All-American. For page-turning nonfiction, check out Lost in the Pacific by Tod Olson, Sabotage by Neal Bascomb (who also wrote a great sports book called The Perfect Mile) and Dive by Deborah Hopkinson.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Undefeated.

Author photo credit Erica Miller.

“It’s an odd little thing,” author Kelly Barnhill told us last summer, when we interviewed her for the release of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. “I’m kind of surprised that people are enjoying it. I really thought I would be the only one.” We assumed Barnhill would be even more surprised when her magical middle grade received the 2017 Newbery Award. We were right.

What was the first thing that went through your head when you found out you won the Newbery?
Honestly? I assumed they had the wrong number. I can’t exactly remember what I said to the committee—probably a lot of garbled nonsense, as I had been woken from a dead sleep and was just generally flabbergasted by the whole notion—but I’m pretty sure I said something along the lines of, “How is this even possible?” over and over and over again.

Who was the one person you couldn’t wait to tell about the award?
A group of someones, actually: my writing group, The Black Sheep (Steven Brezenoff, Kurtis Scaletta, Karlyn Coleman, Christopher Lincoln, Bryan Bliss and Jodi Chromy). They were there when I wrote the book, then erased the book, then wrote it again and erased it again, lost hope, found hope and so forth until I finally sent the thing to my editor.

Do you have a favorite past Newbery winner?
Well, The Tale of Despereaux will always be a touchstone book for me, as with Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and A Wrinkle in Time. Also, from the point of view of a teacher, two of my favorite memories from my teaching days were with the books The Watsons Go to Birmingham and Holes. Both of those books are magic in a classroom.

“Kids have to be data collectors, experimenters, analysts, scientists, memorizers, cartographers and psychologists. They literally have to write the whole universe with every moment they move through the world. This is why stories are so important.”

What’s the best part of writing books for a younger audience?
I have a profound respect for the inherent dignity and courage of children as a group, and for childhood as a concept. It is not easy being a child: The world is confusing and incongruous and conflicted and sometimes scary. The rules are constantly in flux. Kids have to be data collectors, experimenters, analysts, scientists, memorizers, cartographers and psychologists. They literally have to write the whole universe with every moment they move through the world. This is why stories are so important. Stories are their memory banks, their scripts, their translators. Stories are the maps of the heart and the maps of the mind and the maps of the world. They illuminate, bridge, shelter and blur the rigid line between the I and the Thou. Stories allow children to be more than themselves. This is true for all of us, of course, but frankly, kids are more fun, and far less boring, than grownups. This is well known.

What kind of reaction have you gotten from your readers about this book?
When I visit classrooms, I get a lot of hugs from kids. I mean a lot. This book has meant more to my readers than I could have possibly imagined or guessed. This has been a gratifying experience for me, for sure, but I remain surprised by it.

Have you read or listened to past Newbery speeches? Are you excited (or worried!) about your own speech?
Oh my gosh! Don’t even ask me this question. I’ve read lots, and I don’t know how I’m going to make anything that can even stand in the same room as those speeches. I’m really worried about it. Good heavens. But I’m reading lots of fun texts on the purpose and power of the imagination and the use of fantasy and how allegory forces us to cast a clear eye on aspects of the world that we have allowed ourselves to obscure and minimize. I’m not sure what I’m going to write about, or if it ends up being useful or relevant to only me, but it’s allowing me to sit in some interesting places in the Mind, so that is pretty fun.

What’s next for you?
Do any of us really ever know? Are we not always standing on that next wild, wondrous shore? I think we are. I know I’ll be working on my next book The Sugar House for the next few months, and after that will be diving into the next project, Dispatch from the Hideous Laboratories of Dr. Otto Van Drecht. Other than that, who knows? Perhaps I’ll sail to a distant land, slay a dragon, save a city and become King. Or perhaps I’ll finally learn to knit. The world is wondrous and strange, and I am currently open to all possibilities.

Author photo credit Bruce Silcox.

Jack Cheng’s all-time favorite book is The Little Prince, the beloved classic in which a pilot who has crashed in the desert encounters a young interplanetary traveler. So perhaps it’s no coincidence that Cheng’s inventive middle grade debut, See You in the Cosmos, concerns an 11-year-old traveler named Alex Petroski who is making a recording that he hopes extraterrestrials will hear.

Cheng came up with the idea several Thanksgivings ago while hanging out in his younger brother’s room. He spotted a Carl Sagan book that reminded him of the Golden Record that Sagan helped create, containing images and sounds intended to portray life on Earth to extraterrestrials, which was launched aboard two NASA Voyager spacecraft in 1977.

“The next morning I woke up and had this idea for a story about a boy and his dog, and trying to launch a rocket into space,” Cheng recalls, speaking from his home in Detroit. “It immediately started to take on a life of its own.”

His character Alex idolizes Sagan so much that his dog is named after the astronomer. The pair board a train from their Colorado home to travel to a rocket festival in New Mexico, where Alex hopes to launch his own vessel into space. Meanwhile, he’s recording his thoughts on his golden iPod, transcripts of which comprise the novel’s chapters.

Alex is also in search of his father (who died when Alex was 3 but whom he suspects may still be alive), and so he travels in some unexpected directions, ending up in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. One reason that Alex is able to embark on his journey is that his mother has “quiet days” in bed. She’s eventually hospitalized for schizophrenia, an illness that Cheng portrays compassionately without making it a focus.

“That magical surprise of finding a new character or having your characters see something completely different from what you’re expecting—that’s one of the reasons I keep writing.”

Along the way, Alex stumbles upon many discoveries, including a half-sister named Terra, whose existence was equally surprising to the author. “When I started that chapter, the door opens and Terra was there,” says Cheng. “That magical surprise of finding a new character or having your characters see something completely different from what you’re expecting—that’s one of the reasons I keep writing.”

The 33-year-old’s path to becoming a writer has involved its own share of twists and turns. Born in Shanghai, he moved at age 5 to Detroit, where his father was earning a master’s degree in engineering. As a young immigrant, Cheng didn’t speak English and had a different name: Yuan. He remembers picking his English name because he loved playing cards and was familiar with the letter J on the jacks.

As Cheng reminisces about those early days in America, two of the first things he mentions are a dog and rockets—both major features of his novel. For a while his family lived in a mansion-like home whose elderly owner had a golden retriever. Cheng also remembers being mystified by the pictures of toy rockets he saw on certain cereal boxes, and describes trying to build rockets out of the cereal, not understanding that the toys were something to be sent away for.

Cheng loved to draw and later became adept at Photoshop. He majored in communication studies at the University of Michigan, then worked in advertising in New York, first as an art director and later as a copywriter. Eventually he and two partners started their own design studio, building websites and apps for startups and other companies. During this time he started journaling, which evolved into writing an adult novel, These Days, which examines relationships and technology through the lens of a young Midwesterner working in New York. He funded that novel through Kickstarter, an experience that taught Cheng a lot about publishing and also put him in touch with his agent.

“During that process I realized that I loved writing so much more than my day job,” Cheng says, “and that it was something that I would be willing to move back to Michigan and live in my parents’ basement in order to keep doing.” He did move back to his home state but, happily, never had to live in his parents’ basement. During this transition period he also took a Greyhound bus from L.A. to Detroit, commemorating a journey that his father had taken when he first came to the U.S. (a few months before Cheng and his mother arrived).

“That actual bus ride was very uneventful; I just slept most of the way,” Cheng admits. “But I think some of the themes of that trip—trying to get to know family and trying to understand my dad’s experience, and also just being around the Southwest—in hindsight those were huge influences on See You in the Cosmos.”

“There’s always a sense of finding yourself between two worlds.”

However, Cheng wasn’t ready to write a book about Asian-American identity. “Maybe that’s just an aspect of my own life that I wasn’t fully ready to explore,” he concedes, saying he may tackle the issue in future novels. In a nod to Cheng’s immigrant heritage, however, Alex is half Filipino.

“My Chinese heritage is something that I’ve been exploring more of in the past few years,” Cheng continues. “The whole question of figuring out where and what home is—I think that’s a very Asian-American question. I think it’s also very American in general; if we go back enough generations, we’re all immigrant families. There’s always a sense of finding yourself between two worlds. Alex is very much finding himself between this world—his life with his mother—and the world of not really knowing his father.”

Cheng still has one piece of unfinished business concerning See You in the Cosmos. “One thing I’m a little embarrassed about is I have never actually launched a model rocket,” he says. “As research for the book I bought one, but it’s still sitting in my closet. I think that on the day the book comes out, I’m going to try and do a little launch.”

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Emma Donoghue, author of bestselling adult novels Room and The Wonder, offers her first book for middle grade readers, and it’s positively packed to the brim with lovable characters, new experiences and diverse voices. 

What was it like to transition from writing for adults to writing for children? Did you always plan to write a children’s book?
No, it never occurred to me until six years ago when (our kids being 7 and 3) I got the idea for the Lotterys project.

The Lotterys seem at once over-the-top and realistic. How did you achieve this? Did you set out to write the most diverse book you could think of?
Yes, I did set out to create the most diverse family I could, leavened with a lot of humor, and it’s a very loving, stable family, too. I aimed to give the book very contemporary content, but some of the atmosphere of classic 19th- and 20th-century family stories.

The Lotterys are a contemporary North American family in every way. Were you able to bring in any of your Irish background into the novel?
Well, in Ireland big families were normal when I was growing up (as the youngest of eight), so that could be considered an Irish perspective. It could be argues that the Irish talk nonstop, and the Donoghues are no different. Also, what I brought was my background as an immigrant to North America; like me, PapaDum (from India) and MaxiMum (from Jamaica) started life a long way away, as did Sumac’s birth parents, and I hope the book is celebratory of what immigrants bring to the urban mosaic.

“I hope the book is celebratory of what immigrants bring to the urban mosaic.”

Precocious 9-year-old Sumac provides a delightful perspective to the story. Will any of the other Lotterys take a turn at narrating?
No, I’m afraid I’ve promised the job to Sumac for life. She argued that the others are too exhibitionistic, self-absorbed or downright silly to be as good as observing and recording as she is.

Some of your adult novels take place in the 19th century and have required research. Was there any research needed for The Lotterys Plus One?
Just as much—it’s just that the research shows more in historical fiction! For The Lotterys Plus One, I’ve had to research everything from Toronto street food to native plants, care homes for the elderly to the effects of smoke inhalation.

With names like PapaDum and MaxiMum and the family home, Camelottery, the story is filled with wordplay. Are you a fan of puns?
I used to say no to this question . . . but I find that motherhood had brought out the bad-joker in me. In the case of this book, the reason I’ve given my taste for wordplay free rein is that I believe every family is its own little micro culture, held together by private jokes, special words for things and family stories, so it seemed likely that the 11-person Lotterys gang would do that with knobs on.

Even though this is a book for children, it deals with such complicated topics as racism, homophobia, gender identity, disabilities and dementia. Is it harder or easier writing about these topics for children? Did you ever worry that you were including too many “issues” in the story?
It’s a little tricky, at times, but so important: I’m so sick of middle grade books that stick to that Mommy-Daddy-Son-Daughter-everything’s-rosy convention. I think it’s important to distinguish between the things that freak children out and those that don’t. In the first category I’d put distressing material such as dementia or shaken-baby syndrome, for instance; here I tried to use a delicate touch, telling the readers as much as they needed without weighing down the narrative, and putting it all in a loving-family context which feels safe. In the second category I’d put differences such as Brian’s gender variance, the parents’ same-sex relationships or the family’s ethnic variety, which needn’t distress child readers even if they’re new concepts. My experience of writing books with queer themes over the past quarter of a century is that humor—and strong, likable characters—are key.

At first this “hippy-dippy” family seems completely nontraditional, but by the end, readers are focused on their love and acceptance. Have you heard from any children who have read the book? What has been their response to the Lotterys?
Prepublication, the only children I’ve had a chance to hear from so far are my focus group of my kids and their friends, who I bribed with gift cards to a bookstore to give me feedback. Interestingly, most of the responders of 10 or 11 liked little Brian best, which proves that young readers don’t always read “up,” focusing on characters a few years older than themselves.

How similar is your parenting style to any of the Lottery parents?
It’s probably closest to CardaMom—warm and huggy, but with some of MaxiMum’s “fascinating facts” thrown in. 

Can you give us any hints about the sequel?
I’m afraid not, except that my kids are mercilessly editing the first draft now.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Lotterys Plus One.

Author photo credit Mark Raynes Roberts 2015.

Anthropologist and poet Ruth Behar makes her middle grade debut with Lucky Broken Girl, the story of a young Jewish-Cuban girl in Queens that was inspired by the author’s own experiences. Ruthie Mizrahi and her family are still adjusting to life in America when a car accident leaves Ruthie confined to her bed in a full-body cast. In her year of recovery, Ruthie discovers the love and support of her community and family, but also confronts anger, fear and despair as she comes to terms with her new circumstances and changing personality. A love letter to a diverse New York City neighborhood and a sensitive portrayal of growing up with unforeseen challenges, Lucky Broken Girl is gentle, heartfelt and highly entertaining.

What can you tell us about your own experience that inspired this story? Why did you decide to transform your story into a book for young readers?
The story was inspired by the year I spent in a body cast, confined to my bed, when I was 9 going on 10. It was a traumatic experience, for me as well as my family and our friends and neighbors. Imagine an immigrant family, just arrived from Cuba, penniless and afraid, and suddenly they have an invalid girl to take care of. When I sat down to write, I wanted to conjure how I felt at that young age, when it seemed to take forever to get back on my feet. I also wanted to honor all the people who surrounded me and tried to help me heal.

The child’s voice came easily. It was as if Ruthie was whispering the story into my ear, letting the adult Ruth know what she was going through. Transforming my story into a book for young readers wasn’t a choice but a necessity. It was the only way the story could be told. I was listening to Ruthie and putting down her story on the page.

What was the biggest challenge in writing your first novel for young readers?
My biggest challenge was figuring out where the drama was in a story that essentially takes place while nothing much is happening, while a girl is in bed and waiting to recover. Figuring out how to make immobility of interest to a young reader, who is more accustomed to action-packed storytelling, was something I struggled with as a writer. But then it became clear that Ruthie’s journey of the heart was filled with movement and that you can go through huge transformations while being perfectly still.

The pre-accident chapters could easily have been romanticized as a time when everything was perfect for Ruthie, but there is clear tension between Mami and Papi regarding decision-making, parental roles and finances. Did this refreshingly honest representation of family spring naturally from your experiences, or was it something you intentionally created as part of Ruthie’s narrative?
The tensions between Mami and Papi in the novel definitely spring from my own experiences when I was growing up. As a sensitive child, I worried a lot about the arguments between my parents and was scared of my father’s temper, while I felt sorry for my mother who tried so hard to please him. My parents were struggling to get by, and I didn’t want to be a burden to them. I put huge pressure on myself to succeed as an immigrant child, to learn to speak “good English” and do well in school. The memory of those feelings found their way into the novel. That’s why there isn’t a romanticized image of the time before the accident.

“You can go through huge transformations while being perfectly still.”

We don’t get to see Ruthie grow up, but you, of course, grew up to become an anthropologist as well as a writer. Did that influence the way you wrote and described Ruthie’s neighborhood?
I think I’ll always see the world as a cultural anthropologist. By that I mean I never assume that people think alike or should think alike. I am fascinated by how culture and history shape human behavior and make us different. In writing about Ruthie’s neighborhood, I tried to show how people of diverse nationalities and backgrounds intersected in Queens, New York. Bringing together immigrants from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, India and Belgium, among others, I wanted to show how people hold onto memories of their home places while assimilating in different ways to American life.

Ruthie gets to know her friends and their family traditions through food, and the food in her house is described in detail, from the flan to the arroz con pollo. What is your favorite childhood food memory?
As a child, I loved my mother’s flan. It always seemed magical to me, how the alchemy of eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla produced something so divine. I later learned to make my own flan, and I enjoy preparing it for special occasions. I also have fond memories of the cream puffs that my friend Danielle’s mother would make for us at the end of the school day. Danielle and I felt so sophisticated eating those exquisite delicacies in our working-class neighborhood in Queens.

In the afterword, you mention that the fear Ruthie develops during this difficult year is something you share with her. What about her discovery of storytelling and art? Do you credit your time recuperating with sparking your interest in artistic pursuits?
Yes, the time I spent recuperating opened my eyes to literature and art, and there is no question that this period in my life made me the person I am today. Though it was a terrible experience to go through, I am grateful for all that I learned. This is why Ruthie is a “lucky broken girl.” I was very lonely during that year and books were my best friends. I became an insatiable reader. But we didn’t have books in the house. Books were a luxury to us as immigrants. The tutor that my public school sent to our home to teach me filled our house with books. Ever since, I have lived surrounded by books. Unable to move, I had to use my imagination and pretend I wasn’t stuck in bed but solving mysteries like Nancy Drew.

Reading awakened my curiosity and made me look beyond myself. It was a time in my life when I became attuned to the suffering of others, when my heart opened. I listened to the stories of people around me and felt their pain. That time in bed recuperating taught me empathy, and having empathy is the foundation for all artistic pursuits.

“You have to give up something old in your life to let in something new.”

Ruthie’s reaction when Papi suggests she be a secretary rather than an artist feels very mature—she decides to learn typing anyway, just in case, and use it to support her storytelling abilities as well. What advice would you give to children who are drawn to the arts but feel the understandable responsibility to follow more financially predictable paths?
I am a strong believer that children who are drawn to the arts should follow their dreams and not feel they have to give them up in order to be financially stable. I think doing something you hate just for the sake of a salary is not a wise choice emotionally. Doing what you love opens doors. And there are so many paths to becoming an artist. Children need to be shown the diversity of ways that artists have achieved their goals, so that they can gain confidence and be able to pursue their dreams without fear.

One of the final hurdles that Ruthie must overcome is the realization that part of her personality has changed, and it is difficult to reconcile her past and present self. How can we best help children with these complicated transitions, especially when even adults have trouble thinking of identity and personality as fluid rather than fixed?
The crux of my book is precisely that: Despite the difficulties, you can reconcile the distance between your past and present self. By the end of the story, Ruthie is aware she has gone through a metamorphosis and is not the same person she was before the accident. She mourns the loss of her former self but comes to accept who she has become. We have to help children to accept the transitions in their lives, teach them that change is inevitable, and that at each phase they will learn new things about themselves and others, and gain wisdom and knowledge. My cousin Judy told me that whenever she buys a new garment, she gives away an old garment from her closet. That’s the kind of advice we might give to children (and adults, too). You have to give up something old in your life to let in something new.

What’s next?
I am at work on a new novel for young readers. It is set in Cuba at the time of the revolution. I was inspired by Carson McCullers’ wonderful novel The Member of the Wedding. The story focuses on a 12-year-old girl who watches jealously as her older sister prepares to marry and is fitted for a beautiful lace honeymoon nightgown sewn to fit her measurements. Then things get more complicated as the revolution brings about dramatic changes and her parents decide to send her out of Cuba against her will with the Peter Pan Operation.

Author photo credit © Gabriel Frye-Behar.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Lauren Wolk, whose debut children’s novel, Wolf Hollow, received a Newbery Honor, and whose second book, Beyond the Bright Sea, will capture even more readers’ hearts.

“It’s been very hard to imagine,” Wolk says of the accolades and awards bestowed upon Wolf Hollow, which has garnered comparisons to To Kill a Mockingbird. “I’ve been a writer since the day I was born, plugging away, but all of a sudden, out of the blue, everything changes overnight. It’s funny: Just when you stop thinking maybe something big is going to come along, something big comes along!”

“In a way it feels a little more like my own child than Wolf Hollow.”

Wolk is busier than ever, but she has taken time from her day job as associate director of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to speak about her new middle grade novel. Over the phone, Wolk sounds warm, friendly and organized. “This place has my heart,” she says of the arts organization. “We do the most amazing things. But it’s hard to do a 60-hour-week job when you’re away for several days a month, so I’m finding my way slowly.” (In addition to being a wife and mother of two sons, she’s also an assemblage and mixed-media artist, as well as a poet.)

While Wolk is a newcomer in the world of children’s publishing, she published an adult novel, Those Who Favor Fire, in 1999. In fact, Wolk wrote Wolf Hollow for adults, and was surprised when her agent suggested a younger audience. “That was out of left field,” she says, later adding, “I have to say, I don’t think I’m ever going back.”

Wolk wrote each of her middle grade books in “exhilarating” spans of three months. Like Wolf Hollow, which is set in the mountains of Pennsylvania in 1943, Beyond the Bright Sea is also a work of historical fiction, set in the Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Cape Cod in 1925. While her first book pays tribute to her mother’s family farm and stories her mother told her as a child, Wolk’s latest novel is solely her own invention. “In a way it feels a little more like my own child than Wolf Hollow,” she says, explaining that the book’s central character, 12-year-old Crow, “came into my imagination one day and just took hold of my heart.”

When just hours old, baby Crow was set adrift in a small boat upon the sea, but was rescued by Osh, a kindhearted refugee from an unnamed country who fishes and lives off the land in a small, ramshackle cottage. A nearby neighbor, Miss Maggie, is a close friend and one of the few people on the island who doesn’t shy away from the dark-skinned orphan, who may have been born on the nearby island of Penikese, which once housed a leper colony. The isolated landscape plays a powerful role in this carefully plotted, exciting story, which features buried treasure, a dangerous villain, a raging storm and the ongoing mystery of Crow’s abandonment.

Although she’s been to several of the Elizabeth Islands, Wolk hasn’t visited Penikese. Twice, when she booked a ferry passage on an Audubon Society trip, a hurricane cancelled the excursion. “Both times!” she exclaims, adding, “Somebody really didn’t want me to go out there.” Luckily, Google Earth helped her fill in the details.

“I’ve always been in love with the sea,” Wolk says, fondly remembering childhood summers she and her family spent in Cotuit, the Cape Cod village where her mother now lives. (Growing up, Wolk and her family lived in Maryland, California and eventually settled in Providence, Rhode Island, when she was about 10.) None of the family knew how to sail, a skill her father felt was best acquired by doing, so one summer when she was 11, he sent her out to sea.

Adding that Cotuit is known for its safe harbors, Wolk recalls, “He got an old Sunfish and plunked me on it, gave me a shove and said, ‘See you later.’ I cringe now when I think about that, but it was one of the greatest things he could have ever done for me. And I learned to sail really well without a single lesson, except for the lessons the sea gives you.”

Wolk had been toying with the idea of setting an adult novel on the Cape for a long time, inspired by a grave in the Cotuit Cemetery for a baby who was born and died at sea. She eventually decided that she didn’t want to write that story, but had already conducted extensive research about the Elizabeth Islands. Then, when the character of Crow appeared, Wolk says, “She just took me for a ride.”

Wolk likes to include just enough historical details “for my readers to be immersed in that world.” Believing that “people are people,” she doesn’t want young readers to think that her historical characters “are unlike them in some way simply because of the passage of time.” She added just enough historical detail to Crow’s story—like era-appropriate ship routes and native wildflowers—to help set an authentic stage. Too much historical detail, Wolk notes, can be a distraction.

Wolk mentions the 1960 Newbery Medal winner, Island of the Blue Dolphins, as inspiration not only for the island setting but also for the character of Crow, “a really strong girl who has to find her way.” She pauses, then says, “That really didn’t hit me until I just this second said it.”

As is the case with Wolf Hollow, Beyond the Bright Sea contains some “very dark themes,” which Wolk admits she always liked in books she read as a child. “But there’s also a great deal of hope,” she says. “I like the juxtaposition of the dark and the light. And the kids I’ve talked to really seem to like that I respect them enough to know they can handle that sort of thing.”

Wolk is currently finishing revisions of a third children’s novel, set in modern times, about a girl living in the Arizona desert. But the characters of Crow, Osh and Maggie remain very much on her mind. “They’re wonderful, wonderful misfits,” Wolk says. “I miss them terribly. So maybe I’ll write a sequel.”

For anyone who reads Beyond the Bright Sea, that’s very good news indeed.

This article was originally published in the May 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

What was it like growing up black in a mostly white neighborhood in 1960s Los Angeles? Karen English, like the heroine of her new middle grade novel, knew the drill.

“Before we left the house, my mother would say, ‘Remember to act your age and not your color,’ ” English says. “It didn’t feel like a bad thing. It felt like, ‘Oh yeah, right. We have to show other people that Negroes are just as good.’ It was like a little responsibility that we had. It was so—I hate to use the word natural—but you know, after 400 years, it was like breathing.”

English remains a Los Angeles resident, and we speak over the phone while she’s visiting her mother in Northern California. English has written many children’s books, including the Nikki and Deja series and The Carver Chronicles, and is a Coretta Scott King Honor winner. But her latest book—the spot-on, beautifully understated It All Comes Down to This—is personal, taking on weightier themes and aimed at an older middle grade audience. Like Sophie, the novel’s 12-year-old protagonist, English grew up in an L.A. neighborhood that was “turning,” or growing more integrated.

At first English recalls idyllic touchstones: riding her bike and enjoying more freedom than today’s kids have. But she also remembers going to the house of a friend who suddenly announced, “Oh, I can’t play with colored people anymore.”

“It was like a stab in the heart,” English says. In one scene in It All Comes Down to This, Sophie isn’t allowed to swim in a neighbor’s pool, but Sophie’s white friend Jennifer sticks with her, refusing to swim.

“It was just the way things were,” English notes, “like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. You just kind of accepted it.”

English was eager to fictionalize another particularly memorable incident. Sophie’s mother is modeled after the author’s, who came to California during World War II to work in a shipyard and later briefly played Ruby, the wife of Amos, in several “Amos ’n’ Andy” television episodes. After English’s mother and father divorced, her mother remarried a lawyer and moved the family to a middle-class neighborhood. Then one day, a black housekeeper pulled English aside to criticize her light skin, saying, “If you ever [go] to Africa, they would kill you. They don’t like no light-skinned Negroes in Africa.”

Coincidentally, English ended up marrying a man from Senegal. “So I learned that wasn’t true,” she says nonchalantly. And yet that incident made an indelible impression: “I wanted to write a book around it.”

Set during the summer of 1965, It All Comes Down to This begins with the arrival of a similarly gruff housekeeper, Mrs. Baylor, who makes such a remark to Sophie. “There’s still colorism—I guess I can use that as a word—in the African-American community,” English says. “It was really big back then.”

In one of the novel’s numerous historically informative moments, another housekeeper—a beloved one—asks Sophie (who loves to read and write), “Can’t you come up with something about colored girls? Don’t they have a story?”

English, who taught elementary school for some 30 years, understands this question all too well. She calls writing “an obsession” that started at age 7, and she penned her first novel in the sixth grade. “I couldn’t make my main character black, because other than Little Black Sambo, I had never seen black people in children’s books or on TV, nor in my teenage magazines,” English says. “So when I wrote this character, I said to myself, ‘She’s Negro.’ But I gave her blond hair and blue eyes.”

The author laughs quietly, a moment of amusement that stands in stark contrast to her powerful stories of racial injustice. In much the same way, It All Comes Down to This is a gentle yet provocative book, allowing Sophie’s eye-opening experiences about race to unfold amid quiet summer days filled with Anne of Green Gables, Hawaiian Punch and “Gidget” on TV. It’s as silent as a tsunami, striking with painful force at times, like when Sophie thumbs through an old Jet magazine from 1955, spotting photos of brutally murdered Emmett Till in his casket.

Also like Sophie, the author lived in L.A. during the Watts riots, which were foremost on her radar but distant enough to seem otherworldly. “It was kind of exciting,” English says, “and yet you felt responsible because you are a Negro.” She recalls how the National Guard pulled her over as she drove to church, miles away from the riots. She notes several similar childhood memories, saying, “We knew if the police stopped you, it was hands on the wheel, 10 and 2, yes sir, no sir. It was bad, even then.”

English’s novel also records changing racial nomenclature, a helpful history for young readers. “When I was coming up,” English explains, “you wouldn’t dare call someone black. But it was kind of liberating when that word came in. It was like, ‘Whoa, we’re black.’ And there was some power behind that word.”

A lot has changed since English’s childhood, but so much remains the same. She points to beloved children’s writer Beverly Cleary as her literary heroine, saying she adores her writing and was “propelled” by her example. But English added a personal twist: “I wanted to write something that reflects another kind of African-American experience. It seems like we have this prescribed narrative of drugs, gangs, absent fathers and poverty. That is part of our story, but we have other stories.”

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Baen.

Set nearly 100 years in the future, Moon Beam finds a group of brilliant kids called the Bright Sparks on an adventure of a lifetime. They have been handpicked by celebrity scientist Dr. Keenan Bright to join him on the moon and undertake their own scientific projects—while being watched by an earthbound audience. Sixteen-year-old farm girl Barbara Winton is the newest Bright Spark, and when she and her new friends are sent to build a radar telescope using an entire crater on the far side of the moon, the threat of coronal mass ejections will force the Bright Sparks to use all their smarts to survive.

Along with being the author of many sci-fi novels like the Tau Ceti Agenda series and Warp Speed series, Dr. Travis S. Taylor has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA, and he’s also the co-creator and star of National Geographic Channel’s series “Rocket City Rednecks.” Jody Lynn Nye is a prolific author of sci-fi and fantasy as well, such as An Unexpected Apprentice, Applied Mythology and much more. This is the first time Taylor and Nye have collaborated on a book, and their individual talents combine for a real-life science-laden adventure fit for readers ages 10 and up.

Cat: I’m a bit of a science and space nerd, but a casual one. I wanted to become an astronomer as a kid, but reading sci-fi is the closest I can get. And if this casual science nerd can retain a tiny fragment of what can be learned from Moon Beam, I’ll be happy.

Jody: Terrific!

Travis: I hope you enjoyed it.

Cat: I genuinely did. And I kept picturing myself in a classroom while reading it. I could see myself reading the book alongside a science textbook.

J: That’s not a bad idea.

C: It checks so many STEM boxes, and you could pull out different scenes to teach it along with a science lesson. Did you have classrooms in mind when you started writing this book?

J: We wanted this book to be in school libraries. I’d love it if someone taught the book. That would be cool.

T: When I’m writing hard science fiction, I always want there to be—I don’t want to be preachy, but I like to add stuff in there that’s real hard science that most people don’t get to be exposed to. Because I’m exposed to it on a daily basis, I like to let people feel the experience that I get from getting to see it all the time, and let them see how interesting and fun and exciting it can be.

J: And how applicable it is to their own world! We want kids to be encouraged to think of science as a normal part of their lives.

T: Because it is, whether they know it or not.

C: Tell me about the science in your non-writing lives. Travis, I know a little about yours. But both of you: How are you involved in scientific fields?

J: In a way, it’s all through my family. I come from a family with a hard science background: My mom’s a psych nurse; my uncle’s a psychiatrist; my brother was a biomedical researcher; and one of my uncles worked for the GTL jet propulsion lab. So it’s been around me all my life.

T: And I am a scientist. I wanted to be a scientist since third grade. My dad—while I was being conceived, I reckon—my dad was working on the Apollo rocket. He was a machinist on the Saturn V. I was born in that same timeframe.

J: So Travis is a second-generation rocket scientist and influenced obviously in utero.

“We want kids to be encouraged to think of science as a normal part of their lives.”

C: And then you’re both really prolific authors. I’m just astonished by how much you have both published on your own and with other co-authors. But this is the first time you’ve worked together. How did you two get connected?

T: Jody and I have been trying to put a project together for almost three years now, I think. Because of our scheduling, and because we started on one project that was going to be based on one of my previous TV shows, and then that show got cancelled and we stopped that project. For a while, we’ve had the interest and finally found the right project.

J: Our publisher is one of the few that encourages their authors to work together. Baen Books is extraordinary for its innovation. They have been at the forefront of eBooks and many other projects, but they don’t mind having more than one person working on an idea, and they’ve had some terrific things come out of that. Of which, I count us as one of them!

T: I hope so, Jody! [laughs] I’d like to think so. Jim Baen told me before he died that he wanted to consider that all his authors were going to the Jim Baen School of Famous Authors for Famous Authors. And then he said the process of that was cross-pollinating the authors, together in collaboration so they can learn each other’s Famous Author tricks. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing with Jody, and certainly every time I get the manuscript back from her and it’s my turn to write, I learn something—a different technique, new technique, or she does things different than I do. It gives me a new perspective on how I write. I think I’ve improved through the experience.

J: And so have I.

C: It’s like having a built-in writer’s workshop.

J: Oh, it is. On-the-job training, the kind that no one else has ever really been able to have, and that I feel privileged to have.

C: Let’s talk about the specifics of the science in Moon Beam. It all felt very real to me, but again—casual science fan, not nitpicky. Is it all theoretically possible?

J: Technically, yes. That’s our intention—not to have any black boxes or magic wands to solve problems. These kids have to take into account real science, real chemistry. This is where Travis’ education and experience comes in, as he is able to present things that we can actually say, “If you know the science, you might have an inkling as to how to work out the solution.”

T: I have two Ph.D.s in technical fields, and the last Ph.D. I got was about using lunar craters and craters on other moons in our solar system as a radial telescope or a communications antenna dish. I studied it in great detail—even picked out various craters on the moon that were potential candidates for the experiment—and so I thought, how great would it be if the first time it was actually done it was some kids, the first kids living on the moon?

C: That is so cool. And then there are the sensory details about the moon, which are very sharp and vivid in the book. Are all those realistic as well? Are any of those more subjective?

J: I think we know enough about how space travel affects people that we can actually bring forward those details of the experiences of people living in space and on the space station, and who have had experiences in shuttlecraft. I think we’re pretty close.

T: I spent a good bit of time over the years studying the environment of the lunar surface, from the Apollo missions and various lunar reconnaissance orbiters that we’ve done. I’ve worked on projects where we talked about landing particular experiments on the moon, and studied in great detail what the environment would do the equipment and what it did to the astronauts’ suits and so on. I think we got really close, as close as anyone can get. I’m not saying we nailed it, because no one’s going to get it exactly right until you go do it.

J: Space medicine is one of my interests, and reading on what kind of effects [space travel] would have [on the body]. Travis brought out the CO2 problem [when the Bright Sparks are trying to survive the coronal mass ejections], and the kids go through hallucinations, they start to get drowsy. . . . It’s not the lack of oxygen, it’s the buildup of carbon dioxide that prevents oxygen from affecting the lungs and starts to slowly suffocate neural processes. And [it builds more] tension in the story: Having done everything right, could they still die?

T: That’s what a lot of people think, that you’re going to run out of air. Air, of course, is very important, but even worse than that, you’re going to build up too much carbon dioxide wherever you are. It’s sort of a silent killer—it’s going to get you before you realize. You’ll start getting loopy and groggy and lethargic, and if you don’t catch it before it’s too late, you’ll be too lethargic to even do anything about it. It was a big problem on Apollo 13, actually. Their CO2 scrubber died on them, and they had to rebuild it from stuff they could find inside the cockpit of the lunar command module. One of the astronauts had to take his sock off and stick it in it as part of the fix.

J: It’s that kind of innovation—on the spot—that we wanted to bring out, to show how kids could innovate at the spur of the moment to save their lives.

T: These are the kind of kids that will be smart enough to do that innovation. They’ve had training, they’re really smart, and hopefully they’ve got a level head in a bad situation.

J: And this is where our prime character comes in, Barbara, because she does have a level head. She’s a farm girl, grew up in a rural setting. Everything on a farm, in a way, is life and death because you’re growing crops, you’re going to feed people with it, but it’s also running close to being low on budget frequently. And she’s got natural leadership qualities, which I don’t think that she knew about until she was in this situation.

C: I really appreciated the comparison you drew between the farm technology and space technology. Obviously the farm tech is futuristic, but I thought it was nice to bring it back home, literally.

J: It also means that she’s not afraid of technology. A lot of people are afraid to touch the innards of things because they’re afraid that if they touch it, it will fail or it will break. She knows that things have a little bit more strength and stability than that. NASA builds things with tolerance and so that it has double and triple and sextuple redundancies. Dr. Geoff Landis said when they were working on the Mars lander mission, the Sojourner project, nobody wanted their part of the project to fail first. I thought that was an interesting mindset. Everyone wants things to work in the best possible fashion, but you still have to leave room for people to say, if this goes wrong, what do we need to do? And it brings out the best in people.

C: And that’s the making of the “self-rescuing princesses” idea, which is how the Bright Sparks describe themselves. It requires a lot of them to consider themselves that, but they’re so admirable and inspiring for their individual abilities.

T: The one thing missing is a Great Dane that can travel around with them on the moon.

J: [laughs] Ruh-roh!

T: We just couldn’t figure out how to get one up there and keep him fed and keep him out of trouble.

C: You know, I really love the idea of these kid scientists as celebrity figures. We’ve got a couple celebrity scientists—the big ones obviously being Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson—but this Moon Beam world is obsessed with science. Everyone’s logging on and everyone cares so much about the Bright Sparks. Sure, we’ve got reality TV, but Dr. Keegan Sparks’ show is so positive, so inspiring. Is there any way our world could ever be like that? Obsessed with scientists on this level?

T: The thing about the reality scientists that we’ve had for kids in the past is they’ve all taken the path of being goofy. Really, really young kids may get a kick out of that. But most kids have a little bit of a serious nature themselves, as long as it’s fun seriousness. You go to space camp, and that’s a serious endeavor, and the kids eat it up. It’s my opinion that we just haven’t had the right Dr. Bright show yet. It would be something that kids and grown-ups would watch, because it’s not pandering to anybody. It’s just doing the cool thing.

J: We want them to feel like the sciences are for them, that kids could do what the Sparks are doing. That’s one of the reasons we took a positive approach instead of the dystopian. I hate the cynical attitude of a lot of media. It’s as if people are saying, yes, we know you’re interested in this, ha-ha, you’re such nerds. But kids like to be challenged in such a way that really matters. That’s why books like The Hunger Games are popular. But you don’t have to have a dystopia in order to have real challenges. The trouble with today is, things are a little easy. Teens don’t feel as if anyone needs them or their talent, and that’s wrong. We need them. They are the future. And if Travis and I can encourage them to think about the sciences as something they could do, then I think we’ve done a lot of our job.

T: Let me give a perfect example of that. I just came back from Serbia. Last week I filming a new TV show that I’ve been working on. The kids there, by the time they’re 4, they start teaching them English. By the time they’re teenagers, they speak at least three languages, and that’s about 75 to 80 percent [of the population]. My kids are bright kids, but by the time they were 4 years old, we were excited they could read The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham by themselves. Look at the extreme dichotomy between our first-world country and then pretty much a third-world country in their education processes. It is possible, no matter what your background is, that you can do these things. If 4-year-olds in Serbia can learn a foreign language, it’s not hard to believe that a 15-year-old in Iowa could learn how to be an astronaut.

J: We want them to see it as possible. One of the reasons that we made our protagonist a girl is that girls are influenced by what they see, what already exists in a situation—the same goes for any child from any background, any nationality. Most scientists are men; girls may not see themselves in that role, or might not feel welcome there because they don’t see as many women [scientists]. We present girls and women in science as a given, with no apology or neon sign saying, “Look! Look! Females in science!” They are there, accepted as a vital part of the team.

T: The best athlete starts in the game. We never talk about—unless it was the first woman on Mars, or something like that—but it’s not a big agenda or anything. It’s just accepted—that’s the way things are. Nobody doesn’t accept that these people are the best athletes for the job.

“If 4-year-olds in Serbia can learn a foreign language, it’s not hard to believe that a 15-year-old in Iowa could learn how to be an astronaut.”

C: Even on social media, no one following the Bright Sparks is downplaying the fact that Barbara is a girl. It’s so positive. It’s certainly something to hope for.

T: Part of what we do with [science fiction] isn’t just to hope for a better future—it’s an intent to create a better future. If we display what the future could be like, and more and more people say, I want that future—

J: It’s a model for an ideal future.

T: Yeah, and hopefully, people see that it’s possible—even if it’s an unconscious, subconscious or conscious effort—to build the world that way.

Weaving together narratives from three different times and places, Alan Gratz’s Refugee offers a frank and moving account of the hopes and struggles of refugees the world over. Effortlessly melding the historical and the contemporary, Gratz’s insightful novel will intrigue children and parents alike, leaving them talking—and thinking—long after they’ve finished the last page.

Having written plays, television, steampunk, historical fiction, and on and on, how, and why, did you decide to write Refugee?
I’ve been really lucky to have a career where I’ve been free to write books about whatever I’m interested in—history, mystery, fantasy, sports—and have editors want to publish my stories. I tended to be all over the map with my books until Prisoner B-3087. That book, based on the true story of a man named Jack Gruener, who survived 10 different Nazi concentration camps as a boy, proved to be an enormous hit with middle school readers. I got so many letters from young readers asking for more stories about World War II, which led a couple of years later to Projekt 1065, a book about a boy who is a spy in the Hitler Youth.

Refugee is an extension—an evolution?—of the work I did in Prisoner, Projekt and Code of Honor, a contemporary thriller that deals with issues of what it means to be Middle Eastern in today’s America. I heard a great podcast with Jordan Peele, the writer and director of Get Out, where he called his work “social thrillers.” I love that description, and I like to think that’s a great way to describe what I’m writing now. Refugee is a book that tackles a real-life issue—the difficult lives of refugees from different eras and different parts of the world—in a story that is so action-packed that (I hope) young readers can’t put it down. 

History is full of stories of forced expulsions, or people fleeing for their lives or for better lives. How did you decide to focus on Nazi Germany, Castro’s Cuba and the plight of modern-day Syrians?
It was while looking at further stories of World War II I could write about that I ran into the story of the MS St. Louis, a real ship that carried more than 900 Jewish refugees trying to escape Nazi Germany in 1938. I was still trying to find a way into that story when my family and I came across a homemade raft on a Florida beach that someone had used to come to America in the night. That, combined with the nightly news reports about the Syrian refugee crisis, gave me the idea to write one novel that would combine, compare and contrast all three at once.

There are, unfortunately, many other refugees crises (both historical and current) that I could have written about. But those three spoke to me personally, and had clear parallels I could draw to link them through time.

With the war in Syria still raging, this book could not be more timely. Looking back on how things have developed since you completed this book, in terms of Syria, as well as the debates around refugees and immigration more generally, what do you hope young readers take away from Refugee?
My number one hope with Refugee is that young readers see these people and understand what their lives are like before, during and after their journeys. Logically, I knew that refugees were coming to this country every day seeking the safety of a new home. But I had let myself forget until I saw that raft on the beach. Forget or ignore, if I’m being honest with myself. I hope that Refugee does for young readers what that raft did for me—brings the world of refugees to life so that their plight becomes visible, either again or for the first time.

Unlike many stories for young readers, the villains in Refugee are rarely pure evil personified. Taking the Nazis that appear, as an example, we see some flatly deplorable characters, but then you also give us the Nazi youth who doesn’t rat Josef out for not wearing his arm-band. Were you conscious about that—about not painting any one group as totally inhuman?
It’s so easy to judge an entire country or race or community on the actions of their government, or their religious leaders, or their most vocal agitators. And I don’t mean in any way to excuse the actions of the Nazis, or to claim that most of the German people were just following orders. That such institutional evil was allowed not only to begin but to thrive is a scar on the German peoples’ collective soul that may never go away. (And we Americans have our own scars to bear.) But when we begin to cast our enemies as all-of-a-kind, one-size-fits-all, it allows us also to do things like lump all refugees and immigrants into similar stereotypes and molds. Throughout the book, I challenge my young readers to see each character as a unique individual, each of whom has strengths and weaknesses and dreams and fears.

What do you think refugees’ experiences have to teach us about the relations between majorities and minorities today, whether they be racial, ethnic, religious, gender or some other grouping?
By showing refugees from three different places in the world, with three different cultures and three different religions, I hope that readers will understand that at some point, everyone was the “other.” One of the things I tell students every time I talk about Refugee is that, unless they are Native American, they are all descended from immigrants. Whether your family came over on the Mayflower or on a raft last year, you’re from a family of immigrants. We forget that. We also forget that at almost every point in this country’s history various immigrant groups have been met with prejudice, scorn and violence—Germans, French, Irish Catholics, Japanese, Chinese, Italians, Poles, Africans, Mexicans. But can you imagine America today without the contributions of all those groups? And what will America be like in 100 years without the contributions of the Middle Eastern immigrants we’re turning away for purely nativist reasons? If history is any lesson, America will be lesser for it, to be sure.

How we treat people who are different from ourselves, especially when those people are religiously, politically, racially or sexually very different from us, says a lot about who we are as human beings. Will we embrace the other, even when he or she is alien to us, or will we hate that which we don’t understand? I hope that by showing how different people from vastly different backgrounds were all treated the same by different people in different eras, young readers will begin to see that any one of us could be the “other” in need of help with just the slightest change in our fortunes.

I love how your book, by focusing on three different refugees, shows how diverse and yet similar the experience of refugees can be. What made you decide to have three narratives and three protagonists instead of one? What do you think was gained from this approach? What might have been lost?
What I gained was perspective. Historical context. I think if it had been just one story, a reader could have said, “Well, that’s how everyone treated the Jews in the 1930s”; “Of course Cubans want to escape Castro, that’s a unique situation”; or, “What’s happening in Syria right now is crazy.” But by showing all three stories—and more importantly, drawing parallels between them—I could show that these aren’t unique situations. Every story may have different details, but they are essentially the same. There’s a refrain in the book: “Tomorrow. Mañana.” Each of the refugee families says it in some way. They say it like a mantra for a better tomorrow. But I’m also, as an author, saying that unfortunately, tomorrow is going to be just like today—someone, somewhere is going to leave their home seeking help, and they’re going to be turned away. Unless we break the cycle. With just one of those three stories, I would have lost that message—and that’s one of the most important things I’m trying to say with Refugee.

As heart-wrenching as parts of this novel are, for two out of the three protagonists, the novel ends if not happily, at least on a relatively hopeful note. In this fraught political climate, was it important for you to encourage young readers to keep hoping for a better future?
Yes. I’m a naturally hopeful person. I like to think the best of people, and I always expect the world will (over time—if not in the short term!) get better and better. I could never write a book as hopeless The Chocolate War (which I literally hurled across the room at a wall when I finished it!). I don’t require a Hollywood ending for every story; I’m not that naive. But I cannot write a book in which there is no hope. What kind of message does that send? I don’t sugar-coat anything, and each family sees its share of real tragedy. Their struggles are real and hard. But I hope to show that with perseverance, luck and the kindness of strangers, there can be a hopeful ending.

What upcoming releases do you have planned? And what project are you currently working on?
I’m working on a book right now called Grenade about the Battle of Okinawa. I got to visit Japan a few years back, and while I was there I met an old man who had been a young boy on Okinawa when the Americans invaded toward the end of World War II. The day of the invasion, he and the other middle school boys were pulled out of school by the Japanese army, and each one of them was given a grenade and told to go off into the countryside and not come back until they’d each killed an American. That’s my first chapter. That book is slated to come out in the fall of 2018.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Refugee.

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Running Press Kids.

In her new novel, Caleb and Kit, Beth Vrabel, the award-winning author of A Blind Guide to Stinkville, captures the power of new friendship—and the complicated heartbreak of needing to let someone go. Twelve-year-old Caleb is smaller and more protected than any other kid in his grade. He has cystic fibrosis, and his single mom does her best to keep him healthy and safe (while balancing her own life, like going on dates). But this summer, Caleb wanders off into the woods rather than attend summer day camp, and he meets the nonjudgmental, wild and free Kit. But as Caleb joins his new friend on adventures, he begins to realize that Kit has troubles of her own.

Cat: This book is such a balance of tough stuff and sweetness. I don’t know if it was a phrase that you picked or your publisher picked for you, but your books are described as having “grit and heart.” This sounds like a literary mantra that totally sums up what Caleb and Kit is all about.

Beth: “Grit and heart” is very meaningful to me in that it can tell stories to children who often shy away from dealing with the reality of their lives. Their lives are very messy, very complicated. Just like an adult’s life is a delicate balance of good and bad, a child’s is as well. We underestimate the amount of strength that children have. I think of my own two children . . . you can deliver bad news to them however minute, and they jest. They move on from it. They pick up and they move forward. And I think that it’s the same for most children, that we want to protect them but we end up sheltering them. We don’t have to. They’re capable of making these connections with a strength that we underestimate over and over and over again.

Absolutely. And giving kids the opportunity to find that power is so important, but it can be hard to let them go as a parent. But I think that’s what happens with Caleb. He finds his way to his own power, but it takes some doing.

Yeah. Caleb has all the information about cystic fibrosis, about his personal challenge. He’s done the research. He’s present at the doctor’s appointment. He knows what his numbers should be. But then you have Kit, who has not been given the information. She has to draw her own conclusions about what’s going on in her life. She still finds that grit. She still finds that power, and to me, that shows how we all will draw our own conclusions if we don’t have the right information, so we might as well just give people the opportunity to know the truth. If that makes any sense.

Yes, it does. Caleb and Kit seem to balance each other. What do you think is most important about writing characters like Caleb and Kit, who are struggling to find their own power? How do you honor them while also writing their difficult stories?

I think the most important thing in undertaking something like that is to not have it be a book about that issue. I did not set out to write a book about cystic fibrosis, and I don’t think that I did. I wrote a book about Caleb, who happens to have cystic fibrosis. That was really driven home to me in the process of writing my last book, A Blind Guide to Stinkville, which features a protagonist who is legally blind due to albinism. . . . My daughter has a form of albinism, much more mild that Alice’s, the character’s. She wanted to read a book with a character who is just a regular girl doing regular things and who happens to have this shared challenge. But when we looked for that book, and then spread that search out to look for a comic book or a movie . . . everything we found was purely about being blind or purely about having albinism. These characters tended to be villains or witches, or [have] all sorts of magical components instead of just being a regular person who happened to be born with an additional challenge.

And so it meant a lot to me to portray Alice as a typical kid, and then when it came time to write Caleb and Kit, I wanted it to be a story about friendship, about being in that situation that we all find ourselves at some point in our lives, when you realize you need to break up with a friend for whatever reason.

I think you made that clear right away. On page eight of my galley, there’s a wonderful bit about how trees have to grow apart from each other to share the sun, and there’s that one line that kills: “I wondered if it hurt, twisting away from your friend like that.”

Oh, and that hurts so bad.

That is such a hard concept.

It is. And you know, we’re not taught how to do that. We’re taught to—“OK, somebody hurt your feelings, tell them it’s OK. We’re all friends here”—instead of being taught that sometimes friendships don’t work out. And that’s OK!

When I set up to write this book, it was important to me that Caleb had an additional challenge because it was so important for my daughter to have that. I wanted that experience for other children as well. So, that’s when I set out to include cystic fibrosis. That’s when Caleb became very difficult to write.

In your acknowledgements you said it was so difficult that you almost dropped the first-person perspective and went to third person. That would’ve been a big change.

That was a weak moment for sure. I know each person’s process is different, but for me, I get to the point where I can really see a character in front of me and feel what they’re feeling. I can refer to them in conversations the way I would my children. Usually at that point the story is good. It’s cooking. It’s ready to fry onto the page. But with Caleb, that became very difficult. I didn’t want this [cystic fibrosis] for him. And I had to get over that and stop feeling sorry for him. Stop having the cystic fibrosis come first and have it be about Caleb.

I feel like there were two main things that really helped balance how tough Caleb’s life is, and as we learn more about Kit, how tough Kit’s life is. First, Caleb’s mom—who is my new favorite literary mom—and second, the setting of the woods.

[chuckles] I love her.

Her relationship with Caleb is so great, and yes, he does have to rebel against her. Even the greatest moms have to be rebelled against. But she’s just fighting for him, and when he gets in these moments of self-pity, she won’t let him stay there. She is a total hero.

I really like her, too. I’m glad you said that. She’s so, so strong, and yet she still carves out some time for herself, too. For herself to have this new relationship, this new part of her life—as Caleb’s getting independence, she’s getting some, too.

The world doesn’t revolve around Caleb.

Yeah! And she makes sure that he knows that “I’m always there for you, but we have our lives, too” and . . . it’s in a much gentler, more caring way than Caleb’s dad. And then, the woods!

The woods! In so many children’s books—well, all types of literature—woods are so scary. It’s where the fear and the unknown is, and you go in there and you come out changed. Caleb comes out changed, sure, but he meets his new friend, Kit, in there. And in your descriptions of those woods, I could picture forests that I grew up tramping around in Tennessee, that were sunny and secluded and precious.

The woods were always a natural place for me growing up. I thought when I was a kid that I lived in the woods. I didn’t. We had a little creek in our backyard and a few trees, and that was my thing. That was my world. And when I was writing Caleb and Kit, I actually did have a house in the woods. We lived in Connecticut, and we could look out and see some fox running through. We had some black bears. It was a magical place for my kids to run out and play and come back holding frogs, or they’d tell me about the turkey they just saw.

It’s so natural to me that Caleb would have this wildness inside of him. He just desperately wants to make his own decisions and be free. But his life is so structured and devout, so having Kit as part of that wildness was really important to me.

I love this idea of finding a friend exactly the moment you need them. Caleb meets Kit exactly when he most needs her, and later we find out it’s mutual. Have you ever had that?

Yes, I have. We moved to Texas in March, so our kids had a month and a half of school. My son could walk to primary school, and I’d be waiting there for him, and I’d wait for him to come back. He started [hanging] with a buddy, and I met that buddy’s mom who [lived] down the street from us. She had just moved to the area, too, so we were talking about how difficult it is and how we were worried about who our kids were going sit with in the cafeteria, and how are they going find these connections? Somehow or another, she said, “I think we’ve all been there. Even if you’re an adult, sometimes I feel like that moment when you walk into the cafeteria and you wonder who’s going let you sit beside them.”

Now she and I are really great friends, and I’m so thankful that I have her. But I think that is unique. You reach this point where you are lonely and you wonder if anybody else feels what you are going through. And you think that only happens when you are kids, but it happens your whole life.

This is why I tell people, you should probably go back and read children’s books because there are some things that you still need to work on. Like finding friends at exactly the right time.

Right. I know. My mind always goes back to middle grade. It’s when you’re starting to realize your connections to a greater picture and where you belong and whether you want to fit in or stand out.

Author photo by 179 Pictures

In two new books from middle grade adventure writer Terry Lynn Johnson, survival is key.

In Sled Dog School (ages 7 to 10), 11-year-old Matt has to survive math class. Mr. Moffatt assigned an extra credit assignment that requires him to start his own business, so Matt decides to start “Matt’s Sled Dog School,” where he can teach others his passion for dog-sledding and gain the extra credit he needs for math class. While running a business is difficult, Matt finds that he is capable.

In Falcon Wild (ages 10 and up), Karma has to survive the Montana backcountry. In a quick turn of events, the 13-year-old finds herself stranded in the wilderness with a runaway boy named Cooper and her family’s rescued falcon, Stark. Karma may be young, but she has spent her whole life interacting with birds of prey and going on educational wilderness trips. She’s ready for nearly all the challenges that come her way.

These stories are relatable, exciting and empowering to young readers. Karma is a fiercely intelligent and independent young girl, and Matt learns a lot about himself and true friendship.

Author Terry Lynn Johnson with sled dogs

Johnson is not only the author of Ice Dogs, the Survivor Diaries series, Falcon Wild and Sled Dog School, but she is also a former backcountry canoe ranger, sled dog team owner and a Conservation Officer for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.

What is the most important thing children can learn from the outdoors?
In my opinion, learning to look after yourself in the outdoors gives you self-confidence. It teaches you that you can rely on yourself. Accomplishing something hard outdoors, such as portaging a canoe, gives you resilience—the character trait that helps you succeed in all things.

Your books include themes that perfectly target the middle grade perspective: family dynamics, school, making friends. How do you stay in tune with children of that age?
I do a lot of reading—especially books for that age group. It helps me remember my own childhood. Also I watched my stepdaughters grow up through the middle grade years. I quietly drove them around and listened to all their friends in the backseat discussing the latest dramas in school. All writers watch and listen and absorb.

Action moves fast in your books, especially when Karma and Cooper (in Falcon Wild) are lost and alone. As someone that spends a lot of time in the wild, does it really move that fast in a survival situation?
At times, things can happen within a moment. Especially in survival situations, the difference between living and dying can depend on quick reactions. Assessing a situation and determining the best course of action is essential. The need for plan B tends to progress quickly, so you should be ready.

There are moments throughout your books when you address technology: Karma’s 45-minute allotment of internet time each day or Matt’s family being off the grid. What do you hope to share about technology usage with children?
During various times in my life, I’ve lived as Matt’s family does with outhouses and propane lights. And as a kid, I had off-grid neighbors who were the inspiration for Matt’s family. The neighbors were a bit kooky and boisterous—so different from my own family. They fascinated me. When I began writing Sled Dog School, those real-life characters shoved their way onto the page. I thought it would be fun to explore that lifestyle in this story, and share it with modern readers. For Falcon Wild, it was technology—a fickle GPS—that got them into trouble. I didn’t mean for that to be a message, but perhaps that says something about the author!

You’ve been a musher and have spent lots of time in the wilderness, but what is your experience with falcons (if any)? Why did you decide to write Falcon Wild?
I’ve always been fascinated with birds of prey, starting from when I was 12 and read Hawkmistress! by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I was going to be a falconer when I grew up! But I ended up with 18 sled dogs rather than a bird. I mention this because of the similarities between the two. The bond between human and animal is the focal thing in both falconry and dogsledding. Mushers, like falconers, spend inordinate amounts of their time, energy, money and resources to be able to continue their passion. I knew this going in to the book, but when I was researching for Falcon Wild, my fascination only grew, along with my respect for the men and women who dedicate their lives to falconry. I interviewed several falconers, visited several more and even flew some falcons. Then I had falconers read earlier drafts of the manuscript. I’m so grateful for all the time they gave me. I believe falconry is a bit of a mystery to the mainstream, and there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding it—as there are with dogsledding. It was important to me to try to portray it accurately.

Matt and Karma are very young but so skilled at their crafts. Do you know of a falconer or musher who is as young as them?
There are loads of mushers who start out young. I’ve met many in my years at races and dogsledding events. Apprentice falconers have to be 14, but if you’ve grown up around birds, it would be a natural skill to have. In society today it can seem as though young people are getting away from the outdoors, but there are many out there learning, mastering and feeling a zest for life that only exposure to these real experiences can provide.

If you were stranded in the wilderness, what are three things you’d want with you?
The most important things are shelter, fire and water. I’d want tools—equipment to build shelter, fire-making tools and the ability to get clean drinking water.

What’s something about sled dogs that young readers would find most surprising?
The most common misconception is that all the dogs on a team are the same. That can’t be further from the truth. If you take a class of students and ask them about their pet dogs, some of them would have dogs that bark at visitors, some would have dogs that lick visitors to death; some dogs like to sleep, others need something to do at all times. All dogs have their own personalities, even on a sled dog team. They’re all individuals with their own unique character traits, and the goal and joy and challenge for a musher is to get the most from each member of the team. You have to really know your dogs to make sure they’re having a good time and getting what they need.

Your first book, Ice Dogs, published only three years ago and was a big success. How long has writing been a passion for you?
I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was in middle school because I’ve loved books and reading for as long as I can remember. But I didn’t start writing seriously until 2009 when I took an online course and began writing for magazines.

What’s next?
I have a few projects on the go. One is about a junior game warden with a detector dog!

With My Brigadista Year, beloved children’s author Katherine Paterson shares the little-known story of Cuba’s brigadistas: teachers who helped promote Fidel Castro’s campaign for nationwide literacy. One volunteer brigadista is 13-year-old Lora, and through her story, readers discover a complicated history of Cuba.

You thought you had retired, but then this project evolved. How did this story begin to tug at your heartstrings? And you’ve noted that this book was a “pure delight” to write, as opposed to the agony that occasionally occurs. What made this project so delightful?
It was a delight because I had forgotten how much I love the process. Suddenly I had a story that few people in this country had heard, and I wanted to share it.

“If only the people of the world would unite in causes that heal and elevate our mutual humanity and shared planet, rather than fight to destroy each other and perhaps our beautiful world.”

You’ve traveled twice to Cuba. What drew you there, and how was it? What things surprised you most? Any plans to visit again?
Both times I went to Cuba, it was at the invitation of Emilia Gallego, who runs a literacy conference every two years for folks from Latin America. She asked me to speak despite my lack of Spanish because some of my books have been translated into Spanish and have been enjoyed in Latin America.

Yes, I certainly want to go to Cuba again. I have another invitation from Emilia for next spring when she is sponsoring a conference commemorating José Martí’s 165th birthday. I’m hoping to go either then or sometime before I get too much older.

I imagine many readers will be surprised to learn how in 1961 Fidel Castro achieved his goal of making Cuba an “illiteracy-free” nation in a year (the first country in the Western Hemisphere to do so) and that Cuba continues to have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. How did your impressions of Castro and Cuban history change as you researched and wrote this book?
I knew very little about Cuban history before I visited there the first time and knew nothing about the literacy campaign. For me, as probably for most Americans, Castro was a cruel dictator who caused great suffering in Cuba and drove many Cubans to flee. I had heard about their fine universal health care system, but had trouble reconciling that with the regime I thought I knew something about. I did know that Castro had driven out Batista and the American mafia, which was a good thing, but how good was it for one dictator to simply be replaced by another?

Was it difficult—or a delicate dance—to touch on some of the history involved in this story, including U.S. involvement in Cuba, as well as the repressive regimes of both Castro and Batista? I love what Lora says in the epilogue: “My country is not perfect, but, then, is yours?”
Yes, of course. The story is written in first person by a person who still lives and works in Cuba. I was conscious of the fact that my fictional character, like my friends who live there, would tread softly when talking about the political situation in her country when writing her story for Americans. She wouldn’t want to land herself in jail, now would she?

The narrative is compelling and flows so well. How did you begin to imagine the character of Lora, and was it hard to make her first-person narration sound so authentic?
I was inspired by actual stories, but I do also believe in the power of the imagination.

Your friend Dr. Emilia Gallego, a Cuban educator and writer, was herself a brigadista and one of the many young women whose lives were transformed by the campaign. How much of her experiences and impressions did you incorporate into your novel?
I found out just before my second visit that my brave, accomplished friend Emilia had been one of the teenage literacy volunteers or brigadistas that I went on to write about. She is a very proud Cuban, but, like many, never named Castro, simply stroked her chin to indicate the bearded one. The stories in my book were inspired mostly by the interviews with former brigadistas in the documentary Maestra and the accompanying book, A Year Without Sundays, because they were translated into English. But I treasure Emilia’s response to the draft of the book that I sent to her and that our friend Isabel Serrano helped her read. (Emilia is brilliant, but not in English.) Among other things, she said that if she didn’t know me and my books, she would not believe that someone who had never had the experience could have written the book. That gave me the courage to move ahead with the project.

This was indeed a war on illiteracy, and there were some tragedies. Some brigadistas were killed, and some reports say that others were forced to go. If you had been a 13-year-old Cuban girl like Lora, would have wanted to leave home and join this literacy brigade? And if you had been a Cuban parent, would you have allowed your son or daughter to go?
I’m not that brave a person. So I probably wouldn’t have volunteered. But having had four children braver than I was at 13 and knowing what a determined bunch they are, I would have swallowed hard, prayed a lot and known I couldn’t stop them.

Near the end of the story, Lora says, “We were like an army of sharpened pencils marching into the center of the capital among our flags and banners.” Can you envision such an army of global literacy volunteers?
The photographs of that march are thrilling! If only the people of the world would unite in causes that heal and elevate our mutual humanity and shared planet, rather than fight to destroy each other and perhaps our beautiful world.

You have said that books helped you through tough times as a child, and they still help you during transitions. Have any been especially helpful lately, and before and after the death of your husband, John, in 2013?
I have found that it is hard to watch television these past four years, because the news is so bad and so insistent. I’d rather read the newspapers that deliver news more gently and thoughtfully. So I am reading a lot. I think the book that was most helpful was Final Gifts, written by two hospice volunteers. Last year I was jury chair for the NBA in Young People’s Literature and was so heartened by the number of wonderful books I read—and saddened that we had to narrow our choices down to 10, five and one. My husband was jailed in Alabama in the summer of 1965, so March: Book Three, as well as the first two volumes of Congressman Lewis’ powerful autobiography, were especially meaningful for me.

Your son David has turned several of your books into movies, and there are plans for more movies, as well as TV shows. How are things going? Wouldn’t My Brigadista Year make a wonderful movie!
My sons (John is now helping produce) certainly think My Brigadista Year would make a great movie, but in the world of independent filmmaking, the gears turn very slowly. It took us 17 years to get Bridge to Terabithia into theaters, seven years to get The Great Gilly Hopkins into a few theaters and onto on-demand sites. Let’s hope the next movie can get made and into theaters in, say, four years.

When Lora describes her grandmother as “an old woman with young ideas,” I couldn’t help but think of you. You’re 84 and seemingly as busy as ever. How does it feel to be a Library of Congress “Living Legend”? Do you and the others ever hang out?
Boy, wouldn’t I have liked to hang out with Pete Seeger? But fellow legend Judy Blume took my son, my granddaughter and me to lunch in Key West last April. It had been years since Judy and I last saw each other, but she is just as lovely and gracious as ever. I fear, however, that lovely oceanside restaurant is no more.

Are any new books begging to be written? Please!
Don’t worry: If one comes knocking, I will throw open the door.

Some sample career advice: “Fake it till you make it.” “Dress for the job you want.” “Pride goes before a fall.” Now imagine all that advice smashed together when you’re 13 years old (or maybe 9, you’re not sure) and all alone in the world, and the new job you’re prepping for is king of England.

With The Player King, inspired by a case of truth being way stranger than fiction, Avi (the author of 75-plus books, including Nothing but the Truth and Newbery Medal-winning Crispin: The Cross of Lead) shares with readers the amazing story of Lambert Simnel, a young boy in 1486 who briefly played at being an actual monarch despite having no royal blood, education or anything else that might qualify or prepare him to rule a country.

In a call to his home in Colorado, where he lives with his wife, Avi explains that it was an exciting day some 15 years ago when he came across the scant facts that inspired him to write The Player King. “I read a lot of British history,” Avi says, “and Lambert was literally a footnote. Considering who I write for, what I write and that he’s still a mystery, what could be better than that? . . . I couldn’t dream this up.”

In Avi’s hands, that footnote blossoms into a fascinating, entertaining, historically accurate story set in the late 15th century, at the beginning of the Tudor period. Henry VII has taken the English throne, even though he wasn’t next in line to reign, and angry, ousted politicians and clerics are casting about for ways to regain the power they believe is rightfully theirs.

“My own personal mantra is that writers don’t write writing, they write reading.”

Meanwhile, Lambert toils away as a scullion at Tackley’s Tavern in Oxford. His existence is an unendingly dreary one. He has no idea where his parents are, and he’s always dirty, hungry and getting yelled at, although he does maintain a wry sense of humor: “In short,” our narrator says, “my life was worth no more than a spot of dry spit.” His only joy comes from bakery runs, when he can pause for a moment to watch street performers poke fun at the royal family, and imagine what it would be like to be a player touring the country and having people laughingly bow to him.

Then, in a confusing, bizarre series of events, a friar named Brother Simonds swoops in and tells Lambert he’s not a lowly orphaned scullion—he’s the rightful king of England. At the behest of the Earl of Lincoln, the friar spirits Lambert away (after buying him from the tavern keeper) so he can train the boy to become—or at least pass for—royalty.

Avi’s singular ability to convey multitudes via carefully crafted, often spare phrases is evident throughout The Player King—but especially so at this point in the story, as Lambert marvels at and is overwhelmed by sights, smells and sensations most modern-day readers likely take for granted.

“My own personal mantra is that writers don’t write writing, they write reading,” Avi says. “I think that if you write well, and I sometimes can, you can get an emotional response just to the structure of the words. You create an image, a sense of place and being that goes beyond plot, that goes to the heart of the experience.”

Lambert’s new experiences are unceasing: When he looks out the window of his new home, “A bird flew by . . . below! I, who had spent my whole remembered life in a cellar, as if in a tomb—it made me dizzy to see such things from such a height.”

As he begins to acclimate to his new life, Lambert slowly gains confidence. There’s a different purpose to his days—and a journey ahead that will shock him—but there’s also a strange yet comforting familiarity in still being constantly reminded to obey.

“A key part of the book for me is his rumination on being told what to do,” Avi says. “He can clear a table, and also be a king. What happens when you start to believe [that] yourself? . . . It’s a little like Pygmalion or My Fair Lady, the idea that you can create this image of class and position by manipulating the surface.”

Speaking of manipulation, Avi says, “Most of the writing [of this era’s history] was done at the behest of the Tudors, who wanted to make sure nobody believed this story. And yet, [someone] did write about it, it was real. . . . It’s all about learning about the propaganda, and understanding why they were so fearful of this kid when they were the ones that created him.”

Curious readers will be glad to know that Avi provides further details of Lambert’s history in an author’s note at the book’s end. They’re tantalizing details, to be sure, but Lambert still remains largely a mystery—a story to be believed, but also to be imagined.

“ ‘The writer’s job is to imagine the truth,’ ” Avi says, quoting writer Paula Fox. “I love the idea that one imagines the truth and tries to create that in readers’ heads.”

He adds, “It’s an interesting concept, I think, that one sees more of the world when you read than you do with your eyes. That’s just extraordinary.”

This article was originally published in the November 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

(Author photo by Katherine Warde.)