>> Stories Bring Us Together,
interviews with authors
and illustrators of great
reads selected by Connecticut,
Vermont, New Hampshire and
Maine Centers for the Book,
featuring the All-Together Quilt
from Connecticut, illustrated
and authored by Lizzy Rockwell.
The Most Costly Journey
from Vermont with co-editor
and cartoonist Marek
Bennett, Blue from Maine,
illustrated by Daniel Minter,
and The Civil War Diary
of Freeman Colby from
New Hampshire with author
and cartoonist Marek Bennett.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
I'm Lizz Sinclair
of the Maine Center
for the Book.
As a state center, we're
affiliated with the Library
of Congress's Center for
the Book in Washington DC.
The Initiative of The Center for
the Book is to promote books,
reading, libraries,
and literacy,
with a special emphasis
on promoting the unique
literary heritage and traditions
of each state and
each territory.
The authors and the illustrators
that are on this video are
from some of the eastern states.
Their books were selected by the
affiliate Centers for the Book
to represent their
state's literary heritage.
These great reads from great
places are chosen every year
by affiliate centers.
In fact, if you're
curious, you can see a list
of all the books selected for
this year and in previous years
at the website
www.read.gov/greatreads.
We're so grateful for the
authors and illustrators
who are joining us today.
They will be here to discuss
their work, and as they do that,
they'll also be addressing
the theme
of this year's National
Book Festival,
Books Bring Us Together.
I hope you'll enjoy
these conversations
and that it will spark an
interest in listening to all
of the conversations with
authors and illustrators
in the great reads videos.
Together, they are a
testament to the richness
and the diversity of this
nation's literary creativity.
We're going to start off with
the state of Connecticut.
The Connecticut Center for the
Book has selected the book The
All-Together Quilt
by Lizzy Rockwell
as their book for this year.
Lizzy, we are so delighted
to have you with us.
Thank you for joining us.
Why don't you get us started off
by telling us a little
bit about your book?
>> Lizzy Rockwell: Thank you
so much for having me, Lizz.
I'm delighted to be here, and
I am the author and illustrator
of The All-Together Quilt,
which I was very honored
that the Connecticut
Center for the Book selected
as its Best Picture
Book of 2021.
And this book is about a group
of adults and kids who meet
at the community
center on Fridays
and make a quilt together,
and they don't start
out with a concept of
the finished quilt.
They work towards a finished
product improvisationally
and collaboratively,
and this book is based
on a real experience
that I've been having
for the past 14 years with
the quilters of Peace by Piece
in Norwalk, Connecticut.
And the book is published
by Random House actually,
Alfred A. Knopf, a
imprint of Random House,
and my editor was Nancy Siscoe,
and my art director
was Sarah [inaudible].
>> Lizz Sinclair:
Fantastic, Lizzy.
I wonder if you could just
talk to us a little bit
about the National
Book Festival's theme,
Books Bring Us Together.
So we're really curious about
what that theme means to you
and what your hopes are for
how your book might bring
us together.
>> Lizzy Rockwell:
Well, it's really kind
of a perfect theme
for this book.
Not every book I've done has
the word together in the title,
but this book is about a very
diverse intergenerational group
of people who come together and
gather in a community center
and collaborate and
learn from each other
and tell one another
their stories
because that's the
nature of quilting.
A lot of it is slow, and
there's a option to converse
and so it literally
brings people together just
like the patchwork of
a quilt comes together,
and so the quilters
themselves are a metaphor
for that community, and
the quilt is a metaphor
for the community as well.
And we actually made
the quilt in real life.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Oh, wow.
>> Lizzy Rockwell: And
the quilters at Peace
by Piece gave their handprints
and they sat at the frame
and stitched it just
like they're doing
on the cover of the book.
And this is a calendar
that I make every year
for the quilters, and these are
just a few of the many dozens
of people I've worked
with over the years.
Some of the elders
have worked with me
for almost the entire 14
years we've been doing this.
So I just attended by
Zoom, a church service
at a Unitarian Church
in Athens, Georgia,
where they were using the
book as part of their sermon
about community, and about
an intergenerational quilting
project that they had done
with their youth group
to make the young people who
are graduating and leaving home,
a quilt to take with them.
So I've been getting
beautiful anecdotes from people
around the country, Brownie
troops and, and quilt guilds
and churches that are
inspired by the book,
and it literally is bringing
them together around quilting,
which is -- you only hope that
will happen with a book you put
out there in the
world, you know,
in your lonely little cubicle
here, and then you release it
to the world and you hear back
that it did make a difference,
and it did inspire people,
so it's a nice feeling.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Lizzy, thank
you so much for sharing that,
and it's great to
see the quilt, too.
It sounds like the whole process
of bringing people together,
or people coming together
to make the quilts,
you piecing together the
story, and then sending it
out into the world has
just been incredible.
Lizzy, why do you think
this is an important story
for you to tell?
>> Lizzy Rockwell: One of
the reasons I created Peace
by Piece, the Norwalk
community quilt project,
was because I've been teaching
at after school programs
for about 10 years, and I
knew there was a foundation
sponsoring projects to better
the lives of youth in the city,
and I knew that handcraft, from
my own experience as a child,
was a really slow meditative
way to center yourself,
and handcrafts that you do with
others not only center yourself,
but they connect
you to other people,
so it's just a really
holistic benefit.
And another thing I wanted
the project to accomplish was
to put a light on people
whose lives were too often not
highlighted, and so we
have made nine quilts
that have gone into
public places.
Like in the book, they make a
quilt that goes to the library,
and then there's
a big unveiling,
and people are taking
pictures and clapping,
and so this portion of the
Peace by Piece experience
where we unveil quilts in
public places like libraries
and the Children's Museum, etc.,
gives people so much pride.
And my friend, Viola
Sears is 93 years old,
and she will not miss
a public quilting bee
or an unveiling no matter
what's going on, and so I knew
that if I made a book that
was about these real people,
the actual names and
faces of my friends,
that they would feel very proud
to be highlighted and to be part
of a church service in a
Unitarian Church in Athens,
Georgia or, you know,
talked about in schools
and [inaudible].
So that was a really beautiful
motive for me to shine a light
on this community
that I love so much.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Well, Lizzy,
that is -- that's so powerful.
You know, it's wonderful that
you are uplifting the power
of being together in
person to create things
for a specific place,
but doing that together,
and as you're doing that,
sharing your stories and sharing
of yourselves and then, you
know, how this is uplifting that
and then inspiring
other communities
to do the same thing, or even
just uplifting the communities
that are doing that but
hadn't been heard about.
So it's just wonderful to see
how all of the different levels
of community that are being
brought together in this.
Lizzy, I have one more
question to ask you.
What is it about Connecticut
that is really special to you?
What do you find really
unique about Connecticut?
>> Lizzy Rockwell: I think
one of my favorite things
about the state is
its diversity.
I live in suburban areas of the
Tri-State area of New York City.
I'm a born Manhattanite, but
I've lived in Connecticut most
of my life, and we just
have people from all
over the world living
here, and my children went
to really diverse schools,
and it's just a very
normal environment for me.
Along with that, I do have to
say I love living near water
because I'm a swimmer and
a birdwatcher and a canoer
and so we have beautiful Long
Island Sound, and ponds and,
you know, beautiful trails,
very close to, you know,
the Metro North train that could
get me in the city for a show
at the MOMA in an
hour and a half,
so it's a great place to live.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Lizzy, thank
you so much for being here
and talking about your book.
It's been really exciting to
hear some of the ripple effects
that it's having,
and thank you so much
for putting that book out there.
We're now going to
turn to Vermont Center
for the Book's selection,
The Most Costly Journey.
It's a book that Marek
Bennett has been involved
in as an editor and as
one of the cartoonists.
I think this book is another
one that will have a bit
of a ripple effect as more
and more people read it.
Marek, thanks for being here.
Can you tell us a little
bit about the book?
>> Marek Bennett: Sure.
The Most Costly Journey
is a big collaboration
between about 16 artists
and over 20 storytellers,
and clinical workers
from a county free clinic
and ethnographers
and anthropologists
from Vermont Folklife Center at
UVM, and we all work together
to produce a book that
documents the narratives
of migrant farmworkers who
live here in New England
and participate in the
agricultural system
of New England, but in most
cases are undocumented,
and in many cases don't
even speak English,
so we're documenting
their stories,
pairing each storyteller
with a cartoonist
who helps them draw a
comic, a short comic book
that documents some aspect
of the migrant farm
worker experience.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
That's fascinating.
One thing that we asked
Lizzy and some other folks,
is we're talking about the
National Book Festival's theme,
Books Bring Us Together.
Now Marek, what does
the theme mean to you
and what are your hopes for
how this book could bring
us together?
>> Marek Bennett: Well,
this project has --
works on a lot of
levels with that theme.
From my own experience,
it brought me together
with storytellers that I
worked with to create comics,
that the result, of course,
is something that no one
of us could have produced alone,
so that collaboration is really
special to me as an artist,
and as a New Englander who grew
up in New Hampshire and Vermont
and spends all -- a
lot of my time here.
It brings me together with
other people in my community
that I don't otherwise
cross paths with.
And from the beginning,
the story --
the main goal of the whole
project at the outset,
was actually to help
people tell their stories.
It's a project -- it's a
work of graphic medicine,
so it's to help people
create a narrative of healing
and tell their stories for other
people in similar situations,
who maybe can learn from
those stories, and identify
with those stories and get
information and get help
with anything they
need help with.
So the clinic, the Open Door
Clinic in Middlebury, Vermont,
used the comics in the original
Spanish-language versions
to share with other
migrant farmworkers,
and that was the first
bringing together of the project
that the comics went
out in a readable form
around during farm visits and
were available at the clinic.
And then the later
phase of the project,
the English-language version,
which is what this book is,
is another kind of
bringing together
because now the stories are
going outside the migrant
community and they are helping
people, like I said, like me,
who I'm not a member of the
migrant farm worker community
and it helps me get a vision
into what that life is like,
and to see that as part of
the fabric of New England,
and part of the fabric
of our economy,
and to see that human
experience and that process
of graphic medicine and
healing and narrative is a part
of all our communities.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
That's fantastic,
and I love the dual communities
that were brought together,
people being able to tell
their stories and share them,
and then have them lift it up
and share it with other people
in their community, and with
maybe with similar experiences.
And then the English version
being able to get those stories
out to other folks to be able
to hear about the experience
of people's lives basically,
who they may not have a chance
to hear from normally.
That's really powerful.
What do you think that
comics or illustrations do
for bringing people
together like this?
>> Marek Bennett: Well, we're
all cartoonists, in one way
or another in this project,
and we all work in comics,
so we work with art
styles that reduce detail
down to basic ideas, and
some of the artists work
in a very detailed
style, and some of mine --
I did my sort of stick
figure cartooning style,
but the most important thing was
that the artistic style was the
storyteller had the final say.
So the artistic style had
to reflect their intentions,
how do you want to be
portrayed in your story?
And if they wanted
something a little different,
we had to change the
style, so that, you know,
that collaborative
process really --
yeah, that's the first act
of coming together, right?
-- and figuring out what we
all agree on, and what we want
to portray as part
of the narrative.
And I think as comics creators,
all we do to create narrative
is stitch together one image
after another.
You know, whether
it's page by page,
or whether it's many panels on
a page, we're really we're kind
of stitching that together, and
then and making sure it's done
in such a way that the reader
can move from one image
to another and get the story,
and the result is always more
than just the sum of the images
or the sum of the words, right?
So the fact that you're moving
across borders and going
from panel to panel is an
essential part of the art form.
In fact, that's where the
heart of the story is right?
-- that we're kind of
migrating from panel
to panel, page to page.
So I think that like,
just that act,
that we're constantly
crossing borders,
and we're constantly moving
into somebody else's part
of the narrative as part of
the art form, is very different
from a photograph or a
painting or a single image,
you know, to catch a moment.
There's kind of a recognition
that narrative and communities
and human experience
comes from reaching out
and going somewhere
else, and that --
I just became more and more
aware of that in the medium
as I worked with storytellers
and worked on these stories,
so I love that it casts
light on that just
in the art form itself.
>> Lizz Sinclair: I
never thought about that,
and the whole idea of when you
were saying crossing borders
as you're going through
the story, I mean,
it's amazing how that's exactly
what you're doing, again,
with this book and collection.
You're really -- your --
the metaphor of crossing
borders is just a really --
it's a powerful one.
>> Marek Bennett: I like how
we started off thinking, well,
if you recognize
yourself in the story,
you'll be compelled to read it.
That was kind of the fundamental
idea that kicked it off.
And Julia, my co-editor, Julia
Doucet, Julia Grand Doucet
of Open Door Clinic, and Teresa
Mares of UVM, and Andy Kolovos
of Vermont Folklife
Center are my co-editors,
and they all have -- they come
from different directions,
and they have different
perspectives
on the project, I know.
But one of the things that Julia
says is she started the project
because her idea was
that farmworkers could recognize
themselves in the stories
and would gravitate towards
seeing these stories,
but the fact that they were
visual means farmworkers,
many of whom, for a number
of them Spanish is not
their first language.
They may speak an
indigenous language
and Spanish is only learned from
school if they went to school,
and many others didn't
go to much school,
so they might not
have, you know,
a graduate level reading
degree reading level,
but the comics bring
the story to you,
regardless of your
reading level, and kids
and adults can read the same
comic and get lots out of it.
So that's one of the ideas.
Like the foundational idea
was you would see yourself
in the story and be drawn
to it, and I like how now
that the project has progressed
and we put it together
as a book, for me, one of
the most interesting ideas is
that you see somebody
else who's --
who looks different and
has a different experience,
but by moving across those
borders with them and moving
through the panels
and pages with them,
you travel along with them.
You're literally moving
through space to read a comic.
That's the only way to get it.
So yeah, so it's bringing you
together in the narrative,
in the trajectory of the story.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
It's fantastic,
and this was published
by the Vermont Folklife
Center, is that correct?
>> Marek Bennett: Yes,
and it's currently
out in the Vermont Reads edition
through Vermont Humanity,
so it's available to all
public libraries in Vermont
to do reading groups with, and
discussions, and they have a lot
of programs for it too.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Super.
For all of you in Vermont,
there are a lot of opportunities
to engage in this book.
Thank you so much Marek,
for being with us today.
We really appreciate the time,
and for both you and Lizzy,
really appreciate you taking the
-- just telling your stories,
not actually your stories, but
making room for these stories
to be told and shared
with everyone.
Thank you for all that
you're doing for your state,
and thank you for what the gift
that you're giving all of us.
Appreciate it.
From Vermont we'll
move to the next state
which is Maine, close
to my heart.
We at the Maine Center for the
Book have selected the book
Blue, A history of the
color as deep as the sea
and as wide as the sky.
Here it is.
It was written by Nana Ekua
Brew-Hammond it was illustrated
by Maine artist Daniel Minter.
Daniel is a recipient
of the Coretta Scott King
Illustration Honor as well
as the Caldecott Honor.
So first, Daniel, we are
so proud to have Blue
and to have you representing
Maine
at the National Book
Festival, and we're grateful
for the opportunity to talk
with you about the book.
So what's interesting, while the
other books that were selected
by centers tell the
story of individuals,
this book tells a
different kinds of story,
it's the story of a color.
Will you tell us a
little bit about the book?
>> Daniel Minter: Yes, and
thank you for having me,
and what you say that it
does not tell the story
about an individual is one of
the things that attracted me
to this book, you know?
It's not -- there's
no central character.
The central character is
really the color blue.
And it also has a has
a science aspect to it.
It has a historical
aspect to it.
So it was really,
really, interesting to me
to just really jump right into
this book, and then find a way
to make it, you know,
a consistent story
through pictures, you
know, to bring the --
to make each little vignette,
you know, sort of its own story,
and then connect them
all at the same time.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
Yeah, that's something
that I noticed, Daniel.
Like the written narrative,
and the illustrations together
tell the story of blue so well,
and they're so integral
to each other.
I'm wondering how much you
and the author worked
together on this.
>> Daniel Minter: You know, we
did not work together at all,
as far as, you know, exchanging
ideas about what we were doing,
I received the manuscript,
and went from the text,
and that's something that
I always prefer to do.
I would rather respond
to the text
than respond to verbal input.
So really, you know, Nana, you
know, finished the manuscript
and basically, you know, left,
you know, left the images to me,
and that way, I feel like it
was a complete collaboration,
you know, whereas we both were
able to concentrate on the areas
where we felt our strength lie.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
Oh, that's wonderful.
Daniel, how do you
decide what books you'd
like to take on as a project?
>> Daniel Minter:
That's interesting, too,
because I like books that have
aspects of multiple things
that are not -- that are
able to teach you something,
that are able to spur your
imagination, and that also able
to show you something
beautiful about the world.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Hm, you know,
Daniel, I'm familiar with a lot
of your artwork and other
illustrations you've done
for books, and one thing
that I've enjoyed immensely
and also noticed is that there
are so many patterns involved
in your work, that they appear
sometimes in white outlines,
sometimes the same patterns
repeat throughout a piece,
sometimes some different
patterns are entered in.
Can you talk to us
about why patterns are
so important for
you in your work?
>> Daniel Minter: Well,
this book Blue was perfect
for me to work in that way.
One of the ways that I've --
that I work in just about
all work is I work in layers
and levels, and so the
figurative narrative piece
that is dominant carries
the main narrative,
and then I use patterns and
textures to add another layer
of narrative within that.
So a lot of times you'll
see the lines, you'll see --
or different patterns
repeating throughout,
and those patterns are
relaying, you know,
a complementary narrative
to the story.
>> Lizz Sinclair: They're
beautiful and haunting
in some cases in this book.
They really -- they do draw
me in it so much deeper
into what the narrative is,
and into the visual
aspect of the books.
I love them.
>> Daniel Minter: Thank you.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
Hey, Daniel, so --
>> Daniel Minter: Yeah.
>> Lizz Sinclair: --
the National Book Festival's
theme this year is Books Bring
Us Together.
I'm wondering, you know, what
does that theme mean to you?
And what are your hopes for
how your book, this book
and other books that you work
on, could bring us together?
>> Daniel Minter: Well, like
I was saying, I like books
that teach us something, that
can show us something beautiful
about the world, and generally,
not -- generally young people,
but not just young
people are always looking
for those kinds of things.
They're looking to be inspired.
They're looking to
learn something
about the natural world around
them, and they're looking
to learn something
about what has happened
in the world before
they -- before.
So, you know, I'm, you know,
I'm just interested in books
that touch on those
types of things,
and those are also
the types of things
that I feel bring
people together.
Those are the kinds of things
that people enjoy
sharing about themselves.
People enjoy sharing, you
know, their histories,
their diverse backgrounds, their
-- they enjoy sharing, you know,
the similarities and
differences, you know,
within the way they grew up,
within the way their
families are structured.
Those things, when
they are in books,
we realize that we do not
live in a monolithic world.
We do not live in
a homogenous world.
We live in a world of many,
many different influences
and backgrounds and cultures,
and we also by having books
like that, we also learn that
the people next to us, you know,
the people next to us are, you
know, they are very similar
to us and yet they are very
different at the same time.
>> Lizz Sinclair: Hm, yes.
Was there a book that
meant a lot to you
when you were growing
up, Daniel?
And if you can think of
one to give us an example,
can you tell us why it
meant so much to you?
>> Daniel Minter: You mean a --
you mean just any
book in general
or just a children's book?
>> Lizz Sinclair: Any book you
want to pick from growing up.
>> Daniel Minter: Well,
you know, I would have
to say it would be,
you know, the writings
of Zora Neale Hurston.
I grew up in in South
Georgia, and we --
I mean the schools
were still segregated.
We did not have a lot of -- we
did not have access to books
with children in them
that looked like us.
It was not a common
thing, so when I was young,
my older sister discovered
the a book of short stories
by Zora Neale Hurston,
and that book,
the dialect in which Zora Neale
Hurston wrote, was so familiar
to me, it sounded
like people, I knew.
The tones and the rhythms
were very familiar to me.
I knew those.
I knew that they were slang.
I knew that -- so, but just
seeing them written made
such an impact on me.
You know, it gave me the sense
that, you know, that the events
that were happening
around my small community
and the interactions
of the people were just
as important as, you know, as
the events that are, you know,
recorded in any --
in books anywhere.
So I feel like that book --
well, the writings and stories
of Zora Neale Hurston and
the way she approached it,
and the way she told stories
about her people really
influenced me more
than I could -- more than
I can say right here.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
Daniel, thank you so much
for sharing your thoughts
and about how you're working
with the author, and how you're
thinking about your work,
and also just about the book
that was really important to you
when you were growing up.
>> Daniel Minter:
Well, thank you.
I really appreciate
this opportunity to talk
about my perspective
and the artwork,
but I really appreciate
the way that I'm able
to share my thoughts
and views on my artwork
through this, so thank you.
>> Lizz Sinclair: We're going
to end these sets of interviews
with New Hampshire Center
for the Book selection
for the Book Festival this year,
which is The Civil War
Diary of Freeman Colby.
It's a graphic novel
series by none other
than cartoonist Marek Bennett.
So Marek, it's good
to have you back here.
And, boy, have you been busy.
It's wonderful to see your work.
Now, this is the story of a
New Hampshire School teacher
who enlisted in the Union
Army during the Civil War.
Would you tell us
about the series?
>> Marek Bennett: Sure.
This is -- first of all,
thank you very much for asking
about it and featuring it.
This is a project that came
about partly by accident.
I, for years, have been
interested in the Civil War,
partly through New Hampshire
history and partly just
through personal
interest in history,
and I was at the local
historical society here
in Contoocook Valley,
New Hampshire,
Henniker Historical Society
one day, and I was just poking
around and out of a
box, I kind of stumbled
across a 40-page typed
transcript labeled Diary
of Freeman E. Colby,
and something
about it kind of caught my eye.
It seemed kind of mysterious,
and I started reading it,
and I realized that it was the
typed transcript of a diary,
or a memoir really, written by a
school teacher from my hometown
who had joined in the middle of
the Civil War, summer of 1862,
joined the Union Army, and
fought for about three years
in the Civil War, and I just got
really interested and curious
because I grew up here in
town, and I wondered how it was
that I'd never really
learned the story
and never heard about it.
It's been in the Historical
Society for maybe 100 years
up on a shelf somewhere.
I just felt like that story
needed to come off the shelf
and get seen somehow,
and so my first thought
as a cartoonist was to draw it,
but then I couldn't find any
photographs of Freeman Colby,
and working on this
about 10 years now,
I still have never come
across a photograph of him,
so the challenge became
how do you draw something
that you've never seen?
How do you draw something that
I can't really imagine actually,
like the experience of being
on a Civil War battlefield?
And partly that's because
of the sacrifices made
by the storyteller here
and their generation.
So it became a research project
and a project of cartooning.
How do I draw something I
don't even have a picture of
or I don't even have
a sense of and going
from the text itself
in the diary?
>> Lizz Sinclair: And unlike
the book that you were working
on with the Vermont
center's choice, in this one,
you're telling the story of
someone who's no longer living.
What was that like for you
and how closely did you
stick with what he wrote?
>> Marek Bennett: Right, yeah.
I should say, yeah, like the El
Viaje project, this is a project
with many, many collaborators.
It's just that I happen
to be the only living
collaborator with this project.
With Freeman Colby, he --
I immediately got the
sense that he had a sense
of purpose in telling his story.
He wanted to get his story
down, because he had seen things
that when he came
back to New Hampshire,
from being down in Virginia, and
Washington, DC, in the middle
of the Civil War, I had
the sense he came back
to New Hampshire, and nobody
understood what he had seen,
and he wanted to
communicate something of that.
He wanted to communicate
it with a sense of justice,
why he went to the war and why
he stayed through the whole war
and why he did the things he
did, a sense of witness of some
of the -- all the different
types of people he met
and all the different
voices that he encountered,
and I think a sense a
sense of humor, too.
He really tells a lot
of stories and kind
of gets you laughing
at the right places.
He was a good storyteller,
so I thought, boy,
this is a good collaborator
to work with, and what I --
my approach was just, since he's
not here to comment on my work,
I'm just going to
stick to his text.
In Volume One -- this was
in Volume One, I just stuck
to his text, and every panel
in the book has some --
has the text from his diary,
so you're basically reading
his diary, and I'm not --
I'm drawing comics around it
and doing the research to figure
out when he mentions places
and people, what did they look
like if I can track
down anything
that helps me draw
them, I draw them.
And I draw them in
a stick figure style
because thinking it -- I want to
be responsible to the history,
I don't want to draw
something that wasn't there,
or I don't want to leave
something out that's important,
so I want to get just the key
details that I think are --
that seem most important
to the story.
So that's Volume One, and then
I finished the first book,
and I had drawn the whole diary,
but it's only the
first nine months
of his three-year service.
I realized what happened
was he wrote --
he sort of wrote this diary
-- it's a memoir, really --
he wrote it down years after
the war from his letters,
and he died before
he could complete it,
but after I finished the book,
I got this big thick envelope
in the mail from his
great-great-grandchildren
and great-nephews and
nieces, and they said, "Hey,
here's some letters
the family has.
We thought you might
be interested in it."
And that's when I realized oh,
there's going to
be a Volume Two.
I can do the work of piecing
together the little scraps
of details in the letters,
and I don't have Freeman Colby
as an actual guide to his
story anymore, but that turned
out even better because,
you know, if you're --
I think of it, like if you're
taking a tour and you're
on a bus, and the tour guide
with the microphone
is pointing things
to look at, that's great, right?
You're going to get
to know the place.
But the moment they stopped
the bus and open the doors,
and just send you out into the
neighborhoods, you're going
to get to know it in a
totally different way.
Right? You're going to meet
people suddenly on the street,
and you can ask questions,
and you can poke around and go
through doors, the tour guide
might not have shown you,
so I'm just finishing up
Volume Three this summer,
and each time I -- each
new book, it kind of grows
in a different direction, and
I bring in other storytellers
to fill in all the gaps,
because all we have are just a
few letters.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
That's fascinating.
What a wonderful
process for you.
One last question, Marek,
what was the most surprising
thing you learned from working
on this series so far?
>> Marek Bennett: I think --
well, the first thing that comes
to mind, this came
out in Volume Three,
and it really became a theme
in Volume Three, is literacy,
and the thirst for literacy.
Volume Three takes place in
the first five months of 1864,
so the winter right up to the
first battles of the wilderness
and Spotsylvania Courthouse,
as just when you thought the
war couldn't get any worse,
you know, or any more
intense, it does.
And all through those months,
a common theme in the camps
and the hospitals and
the refugee communities
and the towns back in New
Hampshire, all the settings
of the letters and
diaries that I'm using,
they're all mentioning
learning to read in some way,
whether it's Freeman Colby's
younger sister is going
to a new school in New
Hampshire, and he's checking
in the letters, to the formerly
enslaved people and the families
in the refugee communities all
around Washington DC have
escaped from slavery,
and one of the first things they
want to do is start a school
so that the kids
can go to school.
And the nurses in the hospitals,
they want to keep their patients
with a positive mindset on the
healing process, and so they go
around and collect all the
teachers who are patients
in the hospital and get
them teaching classes,
so these Union soldiers from
all different backgrounds
who never learned to read
on the farm or in slavery,
they get to start
learning to read.
And Freeman Colby was
part of that process.
Being a school teacher who was
in the hospital as a patient,
he's involved in teaching
Union soldiers from the North.
He gets involved in teaching
to a group that wants
to do Bible study, a group
of formerly enslaved
hospital stewards
who want to do Bible study.
The men back in his army
camp are all at first forced
to take literacy classes
against their will,
because they don't value it
coming from their backgrounds
in the North, but they quickly
learn how powerful that is.
So I was impressed by that.
I kind of expected a lot more
running around and shooting
in the Civil War, and it turns
out, there's actually a lot
of classes and helping each
other read, and then writing
and using those literacy
skills to communicate
and share their story,
and that's why we have
these stories today,
is they were written down.
>> Lizz Sinclair:
That surprises me.
That is -- that's
really interesting,
and it's great to hear that.
So Marek, thank you for
talking with us about the book
and also the book selected
by the Vermont center.
It's really interesting
to get a glimpse
into what the process has been
like for you to give voice
to others' life experiences,
both in words
and also visually, so thank you.
Well, I am afraid that this is
the end of our time together.
Lizzy, Daniel and Marek, I
just want to thank you so much
for giving us your time,
sharing your books with us,
and for all you shared about
the process of working on them.
Thank you so much.
You know your books are
a gift to all of us.
They offer us ways into
seeing how we can build
and celebrate community
with your book, Lizzy,
how we can help people whose
stories are not often told
to be heard and told with
everybody's books here,
how we can dig deeper into
the links between something
that seems as simple
as a color into delving
into people's history, and
the history of our culture
and the deeper meanings
that a color can have aside
from just being a pigment, like
to be an emotion and to have
such a great influence
on culture.
There is so much more to
talk about with these books,
but that is where everyone who
is viewing this video comes in.
I really encourage
you to read the books,
share them with others,
and then take the next step
and talk about them together.
Books are wonderful
when read alone,
and they are also tremendous
and maybe even truly become
more alive when you beat them
and share them together.
That is a simple
and powerful way
that books can bring
us together.
So again from Vermont,
Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Maine, we are so happy to
have you join us and we hope
that you will view the videos
from the other Centers
for the Book.
Thank you so much to the
authors and illustrators,
and thank you to
you for watching.
Bye-bye.
>> Learn more about the books,
authors, and illustrators.
Find Connecticut author and
illustrator Lizzy Rockwell
at lizzyrockwell.com Find New
Hampshire and Vermont author,
editor, and cartoonist Marek
Bennett at marekbennett.com,
and find Maine illustrator
Daniel Minter
at danielmintor.net.
See all these states' Centers
for the Book have to offer.
Find Maine at
mainehumanities.org.
Find New Hampshire at
nh.gov/nhsl/bookcenter.
Find Vermont at
vermonthumanities.org,
and find Connecticut at
ctcenterforthebook.org