Kathryn Lasky's Blog, page 14
May 2, 2016
Speaking of ‘The Woman Card’
Three years ago I read this obituary of Nadezhda Popova, a World War II Night Witch, in the New York Times. I became so fascinated by these young women pilots who were members of the only ever women’s aerial combat unit that I found myself plunging into research. These women pilots were instrumental in the defense of Stalingrad, then chased Nazi butt all the way back to Berlin. I decided to write an historical novel about it, Night Witches, that will be published spring 2017.
The women were part of the 588th Night Bombing Regiment of the Russian Army. There were many other women who served as well for allied forces during the Second World War. But the 588 in their little plywood and canvas aircraft was the only unit to remain entirely female.
So let’s reflect on how profoundly stupid remarks like the one Donald Trump recently made are about women.
April 22, 2016
Questions for Kathy from Holly Hartley, a schoolmate
I think I became increasing depressed by the hateful rhetoric that is being spewed by Republican candidates. I became aware about how it was tapping into a frightening reservoir of hate in this country that really scares me. Look, my dad was a staunch Republican. My mom, a Democrat. But my father if he were living would be appalled by the candidates. Both of their parents were immigrants. I look back now on that 1960 election and think of Kennedy. He was the embodiment of hope, of looking at the world in a new and bold and just way. But the odd thing is I now feel that Richard Nixon was benign in comparison to Trump and Cruz. How have we gotten so far away from all that? How have we so successfully nurtured hatred?
Do you think there is a different audience for Pageant now than when you wrote the book originally?
In a way I do. I feel the audience is not young people, not millenials but maybe our age, baby boomers. The young adult audience today is into imaginary dystopian fiction. Tudor Hall was my dystopia back then. I’m not sure if kids today would understand that. I mean Tudor was hardly Hunger Games, but it struck me even back then as being kind of weird. However that said I made my best life-long friends at Tudor and the best teacher I ever had in my life was my eighth grade teacher Phyllis Oldham.
The Stuart Hall that you describe is without question the Tudor Hall that we attended. Much of the detail is from your imagination, but some of the characters are spot on people we knew. The ancient history teacher Miss Ullrich is Miss Haber down to her size and her hair combs. Miss Crowninshield in her tartans and Scottish accent is Miss Stewart perfectly to a T. The portrait of Mme Henri (Mme Hendren to us) was all joie de vivre. Did you have any feedback with regard to these characters when the initial book was published?
Well, a lot of my old Tudor friends would write me saying they recognized these characters. Everyone caught Miss Haber as being Miss Ullrich, and Madame Hendren as well. Now that I’m thinking about it I wonder why I didn’t include Mrs. Oldham. I think maybe she was just too normal to make into an interesting character for a novel. She was the only teacher we had who was married, had a kid and was sort of like my mom. So (and I say this ironically) what’s the big deal? She was just the best teacher I ever knew, She did not so much impart huge chunks of knowledge but taught me something much more valuable that I can only describe as how to learn, how to question what I was learning. Yes she gave me the impulse for reflection.
Today Sarah would no doubt be able to opt out of the Christmas pageant. Do you think she would?
Well, yes she would have opted out but at the same time she might have tried to link it with something more dramatic. A friend of mine who went to Park and is Jewish just wrote me and said he loved the book. He told me this funny story that I think is just great about his sister who went to Shortridge. She apparently was not allowed to be on stage in the Christmas pageant there, but she was allowed to participate offstage. She was the voice of God. So I think Sarah today would have demanded to be God.
The character of Aunt Hattie, a manager of musicians, was a thorn in Sarah's side and then the key to her emancipation. How did you conceive her? Was there an Aunt Hattie in your life?
Oh yes there was an Aunt Hattie in my life! I really loved my Aunt Mildi but she could be challenging. Aunt Mildi also had gone to Tudor way back when. She went on to Wellesley and her best friend at Wellesley became Rudolph Nureyev’s manager. So I had a deep fund of information about that. But I did change a lot of things for the Hattie character.
When writing historical fiction, how do you create dialogue that fits with facts?
I’m not sure how I do it quite honestly. I think that I do have a capacity to listen. I’m constantly eavesdropping on people when we’re out for dinner. You remember that Holly? The time you and I were in a restaurant in New York and were listening to a woman at the next table talking about how she preferred men with hair on their chests? We hardly talked to each other. There’s a lot of material out there if you listen hard enough. However, it’s not just getting the words right but the cadences.
Was it fun for you to write this book? Why?
I had to wait a long time to write this book. I didn’t want it to be angry or snarky (talk about a word that wasn’t around back then!). I wanted it to be engaging and funny and sad—all those things that make a person love a book and totally immerse themselves in that book and it’s character. So it was fun once I grew up enough to write it
March 27, 2016
Rave reviews of Pageant
"Many threads run through this richly textured autobiographical novel. ...Sarah's quest for justice and truth has all the authenticity of remembered experience, no glimmer of cliche, and plenty of humor and action." -Kirkus Reviews
"Wonderfully funny and poignant....Lasky never disappoints... and this semiautobiographical story is her most powerful yet." -Publishers Weekly
"For anyone who lived through the Kennedy years, the dreams and the glories of that time are tough to communicate.... Lasky, in her lovely new novel, Pageant, has finally done it." -The New York Times Book Review
"Managed with wit and a fine attention to the concrete detail of the times." -School Library Journal
"Witty conversations and a colorful cast of characters give the book zest and humor." -The Horn Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Once upon a time I wrote a story that was almost real.
The girl’s name was Sarah Benjamin and the question the book rested on was what’s a nice Jewish girl like Sarah doing in an exclusive gentile school in the mid west? Well, one thing she was doing was playing a shepherd, by default, in the school’s annual Christmas pageant for four damn years.
Those years happened to be the Kennedy years of the early 1960’s. While the rest of the country was marching toward the New Frontier, Sarah was stuck in “Bethlehem” with a cardboard star swinging over a manger with a plastic baby doll Jesus. This being an election year I’ve been recalling those years of hope and dreams. Sorry to say I’m not dreaming right now. That’s the bad news. But I’m not a shepherd either. I’m an author, and I decided I wanted to bring Pageant back as an ebook. I am haunted by some of the stories I have written and this is one.
February 22, 2016
January 28, 2016
German Edition Cover
January 26, 2016
Understanding
“You really don’t understand something if you only understand it one way.” Marvin Minsky said this. Minsky, the visionary computer scientist at MIT, died yesterday. This notion is so applicable across the board from science to politics to art. A painter turns a painting upside down and sees something totally new in what she is doing that impacts the piece. I rarely talk about works in progress but right now I am turning a story inside out and re-writing it and finding startling things.
Upside down photo is by my husband!
January 24, 2016
Sugar on Snow Day
There's plenty of snow out there, maybe you have the maple syrup around somewhere.
January 8, 2016
Dogs like horses, too.
January 4, 2016
Wild Blood is released
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