Patricia Hruby Powell's 'Lift as You Climb' Spotlights Ella Baker

Lots of Illinois authors have new books hitting shelves right now. And while so many important national issues are rightly demanding our attention, it can feel like new picture books or novels serve little purpose. But they do. Now more than ever, it's important that we talk to young readers about American history, about the brave members of society who fought for justice and pushed the national dialogue forward, who challenged the status quo. Patricia Hruby Powell's Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker (Margaret K. McElderry Books, June 2020), illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, does just that. 

Powell is the author of award-winning picture book biographies, including Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker, illustrated by Christian Robinson, and Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case, illustrated by Shadra Strickland. With Lift as You Climb, she turns her attention to one of the most influential female figures in the Civil Rights movement.

QUESTION: Ella Baker shunned the spotlight and preferred to work behind the scenes. Why did you choose to tell her story and bring her life to young readers' attention?

PATRICIA HRUBY POWELL: Ella Baker was a hero—both as a Black rights and women’s rights advocate. She believed that rather than one strong leader, it’s better to have many local leaders. What a great model for young activists! We need young activists more than ever right now. We need to remake our world. 

Ella Baker’s grandparents were enslaved people, who, once emancipated, worked, then bought the land on which they’d worked while enslaved. They became leaders of their community. The book includes stories of Ella working with Dr. Martin Luther King and a hundred Black preachers, of Ella and the young Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee members, but one story that is not in the book is this: Ella Baker told Dr. King that she didn’t think that a movement run on one charismatic personality was a healthy movement. She asked him, what did he think would happen once he was gone? She was right, of course. Sadly, the movement pretty much fell apart when Dr. King was assassinated. 

Ella Baker and Dr. King had huge respect for one another but they didn’t always see eye to eye.

While Dr. King was recruiting the “elite” into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP (that’s the lawyers, educators, preachers, doctors), Ella felt it was as important to recruit the “common” people and particularly, women (maids and clerks). At the same time Ms. Baker was showing the powerful Black men, who she worked alongside, to respect her as their equal. The preachers were accustomed to working with women who were subordinate to them—serving women. 

They had a lot to learn about respecting women as leaders. Poised, respectable, wise Ella challenged them and broke ground for women.

Book giveaway! Enter for a chance to win a copy of Lift as You Climb!

Q: What is your creative process like? As a dancer, you've spent a lifetime focused on movement. And even in your writing, movement and energy pulse through each line. How are you able to convey such vitality on the page?

PHP: I identify first and foremost as a dancer. I’ve been a dancer much longer than I’ve been a storyteller or writer. I live inside my dancing body. I am my body, which may sound a little corny. I don’t mean the shell of my body, but my kinesthetic body. My moving body. And I write from who I am, as we all do. 

I cannot sit still for long. I think best when I’m moving—walking, swimming or working out in water, bicycling, skating, dancing. I record notes on my phone or on slips of paper (or if necessary, in my brain;-). Then I return to my computer for the writing. But the thinking happens when I’m on the move. Sometimes I enact my characters, moving as I see them moving on film, and try to discover who they are, physically. I feel that I can “become” them by moving as they do. Try it.

I recommend turning on music, inserting earbuds, going a little ways out into the country where there are fewer eyes upon you and dance. I do this while watching my dog run through fields tracking bunnies and jumping into ponds. So nature helps too. Thoughts rush in. 

Q: “What do you hope to accomplish?” is a refrain throughout the story. What do you as a writer for children hope to accomplish?

PHP: I always want children to love reading. I hope that they’ll be fascinated by my stories and want to read extensively. But nowadays, more than that, I want young readers to become inspired to be social activists. I want them to figure out what they care about, and work for that. There is SO much in our society that needs correction. 

Activism? Maybe you’re excited or concerned about Black Lives Matter, the vote, police reform, gun control, zoning laws, segregated education, the health of the Earth and our environment, sustainable living, renewable resources. The list goes on and on. 

Helping other people gives you a life purpose—especially in this challenging time. We need to remake our world. Everyone will win.

We all need to ask ourselves, What do I hope to accomplish?

Stepping Up to the Plate With Heather Lang's 'Anybody's Game'

In celebrating Women's History Month, we've heard about bold women who changed society through their ground-breaking actions, from astronaut Mae Jemison to marathoner Bobbi Gibb to "dangerous" activist Jane Addams. Through the #31Women31Books campaign, we have stacks and stacks of picture book biographies ready to introduce us to even more historical figures who upended traditional roles and set women on entirely new and exciting courses.

One of those figures is Kathryn Johnston, who broke barriers for young baseball fans in the 1950s. In Heather Lang's exciting Anybody's Game: The Story of the First Girl to Play Little League Baseball (Albert Whitman & Company, March 2018), illustrated by Cecilia Puglesi, we see how this dynamic girl changed Little League forever.

Heather is no stranger to topics like this, offering up an impressive list of titles spotlighting barrier-busting women: Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark, Fearless Flyer: Ruth Law and Her Flying Machine, The Original Cowgirl: The Wild Adventures of Lucille Mulhall, and Queen of the Track: Alice Coachman, Olympic High-Jump Champion. She took a few minutes to talk to us about her fascinating books.

Question: Who is Kathryn Johnston, and how did you learn about her?

Heather Lang: Kathryn Johnston was the first girl to play Little League Baseball. Back in 1950 girls weren’t welcome on Little League teams. Kathryn loved baseball more than anything and wanted desperately to play on a real team. So she cut off her braids and tried out as a boy!

As a child, I adored baseball. I didn’t go anywhere without my mitt and played catch constantly with my father and brother. I played on a travel softball team in fifth grade, and I continued to play throughout middle school and high school.

When my kids began playing Little League, those special memories came flooding back. I decided to see if there was a story there. When I read about Kathryn’s struggle to play, I tried to imagine what my childhood would have been like without baseball and softball, and that was the spark for Anybody's Game.

Q: What is your creative process like? How do you find ideas, and how do you take them from spark in your mind to bookshelf?

HL: Sometimes I go looking for ideas, and sometimes they find me. When I go looking for a person to write about, I usually start with a subject that interests me. One day I made a list of my top five fears, and two picture book biographies came from that exercise: Swimming With Sharks and Fearless Flyer. Exploring and researching personal fears (like sharks and flying) is challenging, but so rewarding!

I read widely to identify the right person to write about, but I always have a gut feeling when I’ve found them. Next the treasure hunt begins, and I dig into the research. No two research experiences are alike. One of the things that surprised me most is how generous experts are with their time and knowledge. And I try to do experiential research for every book, which can be a little scary sometimes. I have been paragliding, scuba diving, and horseback riding all in the name of research! My favorite research moments by far are meeting with the women I am writing about. I was so fortunate to spend time with Alice Coachman, Eugenie Clark, and Kathryn Johnston.

I don’t start writing a first draft until I have done a lot of research, thinking, and free writing about the book. What is the story going to be about? How am I going to enter this story? What’s my angle? Is it going to be focused on an event or cover a larger time period? What are the themes? What narrative style suits the story? Will I incorporate quotes? What’s the narrative arc? There are so many choices, false starts, twists, and turns. I am fortunate to be in an awesome critique group who supports me every step of the way.

Q: Your stories spotlight remarkable women from history who many people might never have heard of.  What are you trying to accomplish with your books?

HL: I always try to create a book that will teach and inspire kids. There are so many lesser-known women from history who have accomplished extraordinary things. I hope kids will see how these brave women from the past made things better for us today. Nothing makes me happier than when kids want to dig deeper into a topic or person. And I hope my books will inspire kids to follow their own dreams and persevere through challenges.

Q: Who has been the most fascinating woman you’ve written about?

HL: Yikes that’s a tough one. If I had to choose, I’d say Eugenie Clark, who was the first scientist to dive in and study sharks in their natural environment. I was amazed at her courage and the depth of her knowledge and passion. I got lost in the research. I read dozens of her scientific publications, even though I knew I didn’t need to for the book, and I have become a huge shark fan. I began the project with an intense fear of sharks and could never have anticipated that journey from fear to passion—all inspired by Eugenie Clark.

Q: Who’s next?

HL: My next picture book biography is about tree canopy biologist Margaret Lowman, and it is near and dear to my heart for so many reasons. Meg was one of the first scientists to really climb up into the canopy and explore its enormous biodiversity. She has done such important work to protect our trees, and she works tirelessly to mentor girls and women interested in the field. Last summer I spent an incredible week with Meg in the Amazon!

She is a phenomenal person and scientist.

Cynthia Grady on a Librarian for Japanese Internment Children

On this date in American history—on February 19, 1942—President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation and incarceration of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry into camps located in the the western interior of the United States. Specifically targeting Japanese residents living along the Pacific coast, an estimated 60 percent of those rounded up and imprisoned were American citizens. 

History is fascinating but also useful. Crucial. Essential. If we don't know it and learn from it, we truly are doomed to repeat it. 

That's why stories like Cynthia Grady's Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind (January 2018, Charlesbridge) is such an important book. Illustrated by Amiko Hirao, it tells the moving story of Clara Breed, a librarian in San Diego who corresponded with her young Japanese American library patrons during World War II when these children were locked up in internment camps. 
It's a a hard story for kids to understand, but it's useful, crucial, essential for them to know. And to realize that even in the United States, a shining beacon to the world of the principles of tolerance and freedom, that an entire population could be so cruelly treated and see their individual rights as American citizens so heartlessly and systematically trampled.

Author Grady (Like a Bird: The Art of the American Slave Song, I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery) pulled powerful direct quotes from the children's letters, which are archived at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. I reached out to her to find out more about her creative process in bringing Miss Breed's story and those of her young friends to a new generation of readers.

Question: How did you come across this story? 

Cynthia Grady: I first learned of Clara Breed's story in about 2002. I had read a review of a documentary that had been put together by the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. The film featured her work on behalf of Japanese Americans during World War II and long afterward, and the children she knew and corresponded with during the war.

I had been a librarian for about three years by then, and I was learning quickly how many librarians, past and present, have worked for social change. I wanted to be that kind of librarian. I wanted to know more about Clara Breed, but I couldn't find anything published—I did find articles written by her and a book she had written, and I learned more about her life by digging into some pretty old documents, but nothing that satisfied my curiosity about her. So, I decided to try to write a book about her myself.

Q: Everyone has a different way of going about gathering information. What was your creative process like?

CG: I began my research with secondary sources—reading all kinds of books about the war against Japan. Then I read published memoirs and poetry written by those Japanese Americans who lived in the prison camps. I visited museums and attended historical society lectures. I read government reports and I listened to congressional hearings that took place decades later.

Finally, I read the letters that the children wrote to Clara Breed. More than 250 letters are held at the Japanese American National Museum. While I knew I wanted Write to Me to be a picture book, I was mistaken, at first, to think I should only use the letters from the youngest children. The teens and young adults detailed the experience of their confinement in a way that the younger children weren't able to, and I'd wanted the letters the children wrote to tell their story as much as possible.

Q: This book is deeply researched, which takes so much time. Did you have some hiccups along the way?

CG: Unfortunately, at that time (about 2006 by now), the letters had not been digitized, so any further research would require me to return to LA. I was living and working in Washington, D.C., at the time, so that wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Like so many stories you hear, this book had a long road to publication. I began sending it out in 2006 and it was promptly returned with kind notes of "this is too slight" or "It feels more like a magazine article than a book." That sort of thing. One publisher asked me to expand it in very specific ways, which I appreciated. I worked on it for another year and resubmitted it. That editor kept it for a year and a half, but finally decided against it, another year later.

In the meantime, I re-worked it as a picture book biography in poems. I'm more comfortable with poetry than anything else, so I decided to play to my strengths. But I heard more of the same from still more publishing houses: "This should be a verse novel rather than a picture book of poems..." "The writing is lovely, but . . . ."

I'd all but given up on the Clara Breed manuscript, and I had expressed my exasperation about the whole thing at a writing retreat in 2014. An editor eating lunch at the same table overheard my conversation and asked me to send the manuscript to her. She had me cut, cut, cut the manuscript so it was back to nearly what I had written in the first place! Then over the following two years, we reworked it, especially the back matter.

Q: Writing teaches us many things as we see a project through. What did you learn along the way?

CG: I discovered through this whole process that I love doing back matter! Writing nonfiction still terrifies me, but I might try it again because I loved writing the end-notes so much.

Each project I've taken on comes together differently, so it's hard to comment on my creative process. I do have regular (almost daily) writing sessions that always begin with poetry, and then afterwards, I dig in to my current project. When the creative juices stop flowing, I usually need to stop, go for a long walk, and begin work on a new quilt, so my writing output is slow going, and my quilting progress even slower.