[Upbeat music]
>> Wow.
>> Michael Pearce:
Hello, I'm Michael Pearce,
director of the Alabama Center
for the Book. The Alabama
Center is an affiliate of the
Library of Congress Center for
the Book in Washington, D.C.
The mission of the state
affiliates is to promote books,
reading libraries and literacy
with a special emphasis on
promoting the unique literary
heritage of each state or
territory. The authors in this
video are from the Central II
Region, comprised of a group of
contiguous Midwestern and
Southern states of the United
States.
Their books were chosen by the
Affiliate Centers for the Book
to represent their state's
literary heritage.
These so called great reads
from great places are chosen
every year by the affiliate
centers.
You can see the entire list
from this year and preceding
years by visiting
www.loc.gov/programs
select the Center for the Book
and then the
Great Reads from
Great Places link.
The affiliates of the Central
II Region decided to ask their
authors two questions.
The first question is the theme
of this year's festival is
everyone has a story.
Tell us a little bit about your
story and
what inspired you to
start writing.
>> Katy Duffield: Hi everyone.
My name is Kay Duffield
and I'm the author of
the book "House Finds a Home"
illustrated by Jen Corace.
First, I'd just like to thank
you for having me, and I'd like
to say that I'm honored to have
my book included on the festival
list. So I was born and
raised in Arkansas, and with the
exception of about five years,
I've lived here all my life.
I love walking and hiking,
biking, camping, anything really
that takes me outside and
connects me with nature.
And the beauty of the state of
Arkansas
is just the perfect
setting for that.
Reading has always been a
really big part of my life.
So if I'm out camping or under
a tree somewhere with a good
book, all is right with my
world.
When I was in second grade,
our school library opened once a
week during the summer for book
checkouts, and that was just
like heaven for me.
And that same summer, I set a
goal and I decided I'm going to
read every single book in the
library.
And as you can guess, that did
not happen.
But I have to say, I put forth
a valiant effort,
I really tried.
And then maybe when I was
around 12 or 13, I discovered
another fabulous summer book
surprise and that was the
bookmobile.
I will never forget sweating my
way up this big hill from our
house where we lived up to a
parking lot at, I don't
know, maybe a mile away and
spotting the blue
and yellow
bookmobile sitting there.
I still remember the
feeling of climbing up those
steps and getting blasted with
freezing cold, air conditioned
air as I walked in.
And then seeing all those books
lining each side of the bus and
knowing that I'd get to take
some home.
And that was a true
delight for me.
So I wanted to say, for any
librarians who might be
listening, your efforts do make
a difference in children's
lives. All those books that
I read and those that I continue
to read bring so much
joy to my life.
And I began to wonder if I
could bring that happiness to
others with my words.
And even as an adult, I read
books written for adults, but
I've always had a special place
and have really loved children's
books, from picture books to
middle grade novels,
 even to YA.
So it made sense that what I
love to read
is also what I wanted to write.
But just to sort of ease
my way in,
I first started writing for
children's magazines, and then
later I began focusing on the
book market and within
children's books, picture books
were always that sweet spot for
me. They were what I most
wanted to write.
I think picture books are
such a wonderful collaboration
between the writer and the
illustrator, and in my eyes,
they're these perfect little
handheld works of art that
children and parents get to
share.
I've been consistently
blessed with amazingly talented
illustrators who've created the
art for the books that I've
written. The illustrations just
add another layer to the words,
and I think picture books would
only be a shell of a story
without them. So a big thank
you to all the hard working
illustrators out there. I write
both fiction and non-fiction.
I love stories, but I also
enjoy the research process
and learning new things.
And I love how writing lets me
explore new topics and ideas.
As a nature lover, my
non-fiction often deals with
animals and nature, but I've
also written several biographies
for young readers, and that's
something else that I enjoy too.
The children's trade book
market can be a tough market to
break into, but I kept learning
and kept working and kept
writing. And now, 20 something
years later, I'm the author of
more than 40 books for
children.
>> Kathleen Wilford:
Hi, my name is Kathleen Wilford
and my Great Book from Great
Places is called
"Cabby Potts Duchess of Dirt"
from the great state of Kansas.
And I'm really happy to be
interviewed today.
And my personal story begins
with my family moving around a
lot. So I put stars here in all
the different places that I've
lived, Panama, Costa Rica,
Colombia, New Orleans,
Upstate New York and New Jersey.
And I've lived a lot of
different places,
but never actually in Kansas.
So where I live now in New
Jersey, it's pretty hilly and
lots of trees. So not a whole
 lot like Kansas. Growing up,
you can see that
I've always loved to read.
It might be partly because we
moved so much and partly because
my parents encouraged it and
partly because we didn't have a
TV until I was ten years old.
So I had nothing else to do.
But I grew up with a passion
for reading.
And, you know, that was what I
spent a lot of time doing.
You hear of a lot
of authors who... oh let me show
you next also that I loved
books about the Prairie when I
was growing up. I had no idea
at the time that that was going
to lead to writing a book set
in Kansas.
But these are some of the books
that I loved as a child
and also as an adult.
I loved all kinds of
books actually, and I would
pretty much clear out the
shelves of the children's
library wherever we lived,
going shelf by shelf.
And so I'm very grateful to
librarians.
So thank you, Nicole and other
librarians for, you know,
encouraging kids like me.
All right. So you hear
about a lot of writers who come
to writing by indirect means,
like they're chemists, you know,
or astrophysicists or whatever.
But in my case, it's kind of
more of a straight line in the
sense that I was an English
major in college and studied
literature in grad school, and
then I taught English and
language arts in middle school
and high school.
And right now I teach here.
This is Rutgers University, the
State University of New Jersey,
and I teach there now.
I teach writing.
So in spite of this, what would
be considered great preparation.
To be a writer, and I always
wanted to be a writer,
I kind of never pursued it.
And I had an awe for writers
and also a strong case of
self-doubt. So I never really
thought I could do it.
But a friend of mine invited me
to join a critique group as part
of SCBWI, the Society of
Children's Book Writers and
Illustrators. And on a whim I
just joined, even though I
didn't have anything actually
to critique at that time.
And by the way, I would advise
any, you know, aspiring writers
to join a community like that,
you know, for the encouragement
and the accountability and the
shoulder to cry on
sometimes, it was great for me.
The line between joining
that group and getting this book
published was kind of a long
one, but it's been
super fun along the way.
>> Frank X Walker:
My name is Frank X Walker, and
I'm here today because of my
first children's book, "A is for
Affrilachia."
And my story in a nutshell is
that I'm a writer, I'm a artist,
I'm a poet and this is my first
children's book, which I'm very
excited about. And I'm
hoping that people will come to
it and appreciate of how useful
it is for people
who don't consider
themselves children.
>> Sarah Guillory:
My name is Sarah Guillory, and
I'm the author of "Nowhere
Better Than Here,"
which is a middle grade novel.
And I figure that my story of
how I got into writing is, like
most authors' stories of how
they get into writing is that I
was a reader first.
I fell in love with reading
before I even started school.
I come from a family of
teachers and my grandmother
taught me to read before I
started kindergarten.
So first green eggs and ham.
I was a green
eggs and ham fan from the get
go. So I was a pretty
obedient, well behaved, one of
those first born daughters kind
of children.
But the one thing I used to get
in trouble at school, elementary
school for was rushing through
my work so that I could read.
So, yeah, I became a reader
first.
And I think anybody who loves
reading wants to know, hey, I
wonder if I could do that.
Maybe I would like to try that.
So I wrote a book when I was
about nine for a gifted and
talented program where they
would it was some kind of
contest and we had to write and
illustrate our own book.
And it was about some country
cats who got lost in the city.
So it was sort of like an
aristocrat spin off thing and I
can't draw and the
illustrations were bad and the
story was bad and I did not
win.
And so I thought I could never
be a writer.
I thought that great writers
were all prodigies.
I thought that Shakespeare was
doing his iambic pentameter in
elementary school and that if I
wasn't, I could never be a
writer. So it really wasn't
until my 20s that I gave myself
permission to pursue writing
and publishing, because I was
sort of embarrassed to tell
people that I wanted to be a
writer because I knew I wasn't
good yet.
So in my 20s, I kind of
grew up enough to realize, like,
"Hey, you can do this even if
you're not very good at it."
And lo and behold, the more I
did it, the better I got.
So, yeah, I think I really
started writing seriously in my
20s when I was teaching school
during the day
and then writing
in the evenings.
>> Michael W. Waters:
My name is Michael W. Waters,
and I'm the author of "Liberty's
Civil Rights Road Trip."
About 20 years ago, I had the
privilege of starting a civil
rights pilgrimage to take
persons through the Deep South
to cities and sites significant
to the civil rights movement.
I have loved history since I
was a young boy.
I come from a family of
storytellers who wove in our
family's story into the
nation's story.
And so anyone who knows me
knows my passion not only of
history, but of understanding
the impacts that history
continues to play on present
day, and also to share that
history with young people.
And so that's what inspires me,
the opportunity not only to
learn more about our history,
but also to uncover, to
investigate the ways in which
history is still very present
with us and frankly, to discern
what we must do in present day
in order to make for a better
future.
>> Colter Jackson:
So my name is Colter Jackson and
my book is "The Rhino Suit."
And I guess my story
when I was five years old, I
had the good fortune of living
behind the Sedalia Public
Library, and there were no
books in our home.
But my brother and I were
these scrappy kids, and we were
playing in the yard of the
library, and the librarian came
outside and she brought me
inside and she showed me the
children's library and she gave
me a library card, even though I
was only five years old.
And I feel like that very
specific moment is the thing
that changed and altered the
course of my entire life.
Because I quickly understood
that that library card gave me
access to all these worlds of
books.
And every time you opened one,
it was like a new world.
So it opened the world to me
and I feel like I shaped my
whole life around books
and getting around book people.
Like I studied journalism at
the University of Missouri, and
then I left for New York
because every time you open a
book, the first thing it says
inside is New York.
So I thought that's where the
book people were.
So I went to New York, I worked
in advertising.
I worked as a speechwriter.
I did a lot of different things
until I figured out that people
actually make books and write
books.
And so then I tried my hand at
that and it took me a couple of
years. But that
started to work out for me.
So that was my love...
That's where my love of books
started and that's where it
led me so far.
>> Tammi Sauer: Well, hi.
I am Tammi Sauer.
I am the author of "Mary
Had a Little Plan"
and I'm from Oklahoma.
Well, I grew up
on a farm in Kansas, and I've
always been a big reader, but I
never knew that I
could or would become an author.
I never really thought of
authors as real people.
My plan was to be a third grade
teacher.
So I went to Kansas State
University.
I got my degree in elementary
education because I was going to
be a third grade teacher.
But my senior year of college,
something happened to me.
I had the best teacher of my
life.
Her name is Dr. Marjorie
Hancock, and in her class she
had us do lots of reading and
writing.
Well, one day after class, Dr.
Marjorie Hancock pulled me
aside and she said,
"Tammi, you have a
gift with words.
You should pursue publication."
And knowing that my favorite
teacher believed in me, that
really helped me to believe in
myself.
But I didn't get serious about
writing right away.
I would write for a few days,
then I would stop for a week and
then I would write for a month
and then I would stop for a
year.
It just wasn't a priority in my
life.
Plus, I became a teacher,
I was a library media
specialist, I became a mom.
So I was really busy.
Well, when my daughter was in
preschool, there was an
illustrator who visited her
class.
And when I saw someone who was
in the business that really made
my heart pound and it made me
feel like I really need
to be in this business, too.
So after her, after I dropped
her off that day, I went
straight to Barnes & Noble.
I bought a book called "The
Children's Writers and
Illustrators Market Guide," and
I decided that day that I was
going to finally pursue
publication.
So I decided during my kid's nap
time, I have two children.
They're now 25 and 23, but when
they were little, I got them to
simultaneously nap, which is
probably my best accomplishment
as a human being.
And for those two hours every
day, I decided I wasn't going to
talk on the phone, I wasn't
going to clean the house, I
wasn't going to read a magazine
during those two hours every
single day, I was going to try
to figure out how
to write books for kids.
And so I proceeded to write
some really, really bad stories.
But I started to get a little
bit better.
And a year after I began all of
this, we got a knock on our door
one evening. While the kids
were very small at this time,
and my husband and I, we
had already tucked our baby
Mason into bed and we had
tucked our
three-year-old
daughter into bed.
And then we heard this knock and
neither one of us was expecting
anybody and we went to the
door.
We opened it up and there was a
kid standing there.
He looked like he was probably
a fifth grader.
And he said, "Hi, I'm selling
newspaper subscriptions.
I'm trying to raise some money.
I want to go to Cowboy Camp."
Well, this kid, he didn't look
like a cowboy.
He didn't act like a cowboy.
He didn't walk like a cowboy or
talk like a cowboy.
And at first I thought, "Oh, I
hope he'll be okay when
he goes to cowboy camp."
And then I thought, "Oh, that's
a great idea for a book."
So I wrote a book about a kid
named Avery.
He goes to Cowboy Camp.
He doesn't fit in, he doesn't
do anything right, but he ends
up being the hero at Cowboy
Camp anyway.
So "Cowboy Camp" was my very
first book. Since then, I've
written a lot more.
Right now I have 36 published
books and I have
more books on the way.
>> Ruta Sepetys:
Hi, I'm Ruta Sepetys, the
author of
"I Must Betray You," and
I am Lithuanian American.
And what inspired me
to begin writing was to share
the history and story of the
country that my father was from
and fled from and that led to my
book "Between Shades of Gray,"
my debut novel.
And when that was released,
suddenly the world was less
lonely. I met so many other
Lithuanians and so many other
people that had fled from
countries during World War II,
and I realized the power of
sharing our stories.
>> Michael Pearce:
The second question that the
Central II affiliates had for
their authors was, what is your
Great Reads from Great Places
book about and how do you and
or your work connect to the
state that selected it?
>> Katy Duffield:
My picture book, as I mentioned,
is "House Finds a Home,"
and it's
actually told from the point of
view of a house.
A house is the main character
and it's about a house who has a
problem. His long time
inhabitants move out and leave
him lonely. Over the years,
new owners move in and they
make house their home
in their own individual ways.
But those owners too eventually
move on.
But as generations pass and as
life changes around him, house
experiences, new traditions and
new people, and he learns that
love can come in many forms.
And one of my favorite parts is
at the end.
If you look closely at the art,
as I mentioned, created by the
fabulous Jen Corace, you'll see
a familiar, although much older
face in the pictures.
The little girl who originally
lived in the house is now a
grandmother who's moving back
into house with her daughter,
her granddaughter and the rest
of her family.
So it's kind of a nice
full circle ending from the
beginning. She starts out as
the young girl in the
original child at the house,
and then she moves back in as
the grandmother with her
family.
So that's kind of a
fun thing to look for.
And the little tagline I use
for the book is
"Home is Where the Love Is,"
because it doesn't
matter who or where you are, as
long as the love is their, home
is there.
So the idea for the book
stemmed from
my childhood home
here in Arkansas.
The house was my mom's pride
and joy.
She lived there for like 50
years and was forever working on
it. She was always doing
projects, fixing something,
painting something, planting
something, and even climbing on
the roof when she was in her
70s and maybe even her 80s.
But that's just who she
was.
So I lost my mom in 2015, and a
while after that I decided to
drive by her house.
The house had another owner at
that point, but in my mind it
will always be mom's house.
And I'll admit I cried sitting
in the parking lot across the
street looking at the houses,
peeling paint, the unclipped
shrubs and a screen hanging
partway off one window.
The house looked really sad to
me and I thought
the house is sad without my mom.
I'm sure the new owner was
doing his or her best.
But it just wasn't the
same as how mom would have done
it. And right at that
moment, the first line of the
book and I mean, at this point,
it was a book that I didn't even
know I was going to write. This
first line just popped into my
head. And that line was, you
may think houses don't have
hearts, but house had one and
it was broken.
And that's a pretty sad
beginning, but that's what I was
feeling at the moment.
And picture books often start
with the problem.
So I thought it would work.
I just had to figure out a way
to make house's story hopeful
and hopefully that's what I
did.
I will say that first lines
don't always come that easily
for me. And because of that,
part of me feels like that was a
special gift from my mom on
that day.
I dedicated the book to my
mom, my dad, my brother and my
sister, and also to 1519, which
is the house number
of my childhood home.
And I hope that the book is a
good way to honor my mom and to
give a nod to the house who
helped make me the person that I
am today and the writer that I
am today.
>> Kathleen Wilford:
Well, pretty directly, because
my story is set in Kansas in
1875, which is the year after a
particularly terrible
grasshopper infestation that
basically decimated the whole
state and all of the crops.
And my protagonist, Cabby
Potts, is a 12-year-old girl who
lives in a sod house.
When I show pictures like this
to people in New Jersey, they
don't even know what this is.
Because New Jersey has plenty of
trees to build houses out of.
So they're like totally
unfamiliar with the concept.
But I guess people in Kansas
are pretty familiar.
So I love these pictures.
This is one I think is great.
These people up on their roof
having like orchestra practice
or something. But cabby is a 12
year old homesteader.
As I say, she lives in a sod
house.
Her family's pretty hard up
after the grasshoppers and she's
an outdoor kind of girl.
You know, she would rather
be hoeing the cornfield or
milking the cow than doing
stuff indoors.
And she has, which is going to
get her into trouble, what her
mom calls an intemperate
tongue, which you could also
call a big mouth.
But to establish her voice,
what I did here was this is the
first couple sentences of the
book. So let me just read
these.
So "Skunk fat. Says right here,
it's just the thing for greasing
your boots or rubbing on sores.
I held up the newest edition of
'Prairie Farmer' for my sister
Emmeline to see in case she
didn't believe it."
So this scene is set in the post
office of the town where
Emmeline is the postmistress,
and Cabby is helping her on this
particular day. And they are
interrupted by a knock on the
door. And it turns out that
Cabby's parents are looking for
her because they want her to go
work as a housemaid in a grand
English manor about 15 miles
down the
railroad line from their house.
So you can see on the front
cover of the book a picture of
how the artist envisioned the
house.
This is a picture of what I
actually modeled the house on.
There actually was a settlement
of British aristocrats on the
plains of Kansas in the town of
Victoria, Kansas.
And George Grant, the guy who
built this house, founded this
settlement, and he envisioned
it as a community of culture and
refinement for the younger sons
of the British nobility.
And they came over with all of
their fine furniture and their
fine clothes and their fancy
ways.
And in fact, when Cabby arrives
at the house, you can see the
house in the background.
She thinks that is the
house and doesn't realize that a
fancy building like that could
be a stable for horses.
But anyway, she is horrified at
the thought of moving
away from home, which she's
never done,
working in a place like this.
And indeed, it is very stifling
for her.
The mistress of the house, Lady
Ashford, treats her as a servant
and Cabby's always getting in
trouble
with the housekeeper, Mrs. Shaw.
And she's always getting in
fights with the other only other
kid on this place who's a boy
who's half Kiowa.
His name is Eli.
And at first they just don't
get along.
So Cabby is miserable.
She wants to get out of this
job, but she can't leave because
her family needs the $2 a week
that she makes here.
So Cabby comes up with a
so-called brilliant inspiration,
right? She's going to play
matchmaker between her older
sister, Emmeline and the young
Lord of this house,
Nigel Ashford. As you
can imagine,
things go wrong with such a
harebrained scheme as this.
And I won't tell you all of
what happens in this story, but
at the end, Cabby has to learn
to use her intemperate tongue or
her big mouth to stand up for
her community against a couple
of scoundrel land grabbers,
maybe including this Nigel
Ashford. And she actually
learns to stand up against her
community in a way for her
friend Eli, this Kiowa boy.
So overall, I guess you could
say it's a fun read, a tale of
the Prairie with lots of humor
and
lots of heart and just a little
bit of romance.
And so I hope if you read it,
you enjoy it and thank you.
>> Frank X Walker: "A is for
Affrilachia" is an abecedarian.
And I think that people
recognize that it's an alphabet
book from A to Z.
And what the book is and what
it tries to do is sum up the
significant African-American
history that is part of the
history and culture of
Appalachia.
And it pushes really strongly
against all the stereotypes
and negative caricatures of the
region and helps celebrate it in
a way that surprises many
people because a lot of people
don't know the amazing
luminaries and significant
individuals in history that are
connected to the region,
including Chadwick Boseman,
T.D. Jakes, Jesse Owens,
all kinds
of music superstars, starting
with Nina Simone of the
surprising George Clinton of
Bill Withers, who was well
known from the region.
Roberta Flack, the list just
goes on and on and on.
And and what I hope people will
find is a new way to think about
the region in a way that really
challenges the preconceived
notions most people have about
Appalachia, because most
definitions kind of force us
away from a really broad
definition that celebrates
diversity particularly
historically and culturally.
And that just isn't true in
this book.
In a very beautiful,
simplistic, artistic way
illustrates that thanks to the
amazing artists up from some
dirt who made these words come
to life.
>> Sarah Guillory: Well, my book
"Nowhere Better Than Here,"
I say always is a
love letter to Louisiana.
It is set in South Louisiana,
coastal Louisiana.
And it is about coastal erosion
and stories and communities,
small towns in Louisiana.
And it was... well, I always
wanted to write a coastal
erosion book because so many
people don't know about what's
going on in Louisiana.
And I have two critique
partners and one of them who
lives in Atlanta read an early
draft, and she said that she
kept Googling everything in my
book because she could not
believe she had never heard of
any of this that I was talking
about. And she wanted to see if
it was true or if I was making
it up. So I always wanted to
write the story.
But it's very difficult to
enter a story where your
character and my character is
13 years old is learning about
coastal erosion because it's a
slow process.
So why all of a sudden is it
making this difference in her
life? Why this impetus?
And so it wasn't until the 2016
flood that I sort of had an
entry for this book.
So this book is also based on
the 2016 flood that we had here
in the Baton Rouge area where
places flooded that were never
going to flood. As a teacher, I
also taught displaced students
and my main character, Jillian,
is a displaced student.
So all of those things came
into play when I was
teaching. And during this
flood, a lot of our sports teams
and just students came together
to help
people got their homes to get
them supplies.
I have just witnessed and
experienced the communities of
Louisiana coming together to
help each other time and time
again. And I think Louisiana
often makes the news for things
that we wish we wouldn't make
the news for, but we don't often
make the news for the things
that we get right.
And I think that community
coming together and helping each
other is one of those things
that we really get right.
So this story is about Jillian,
who's a 13-year-old girl who
loves her small town of Bhutan
more than anything, and she
lives with her mom and her
grandmother, and they flood.
And it's not a storm just like
our 2016 flood.
It's not a hurricane, it's just
a lot of rain and her school
floods and she is displaced.
And so she begins to fight to
reopen her school.
And as she does, she learns
more about coastal erosion and
that her town is going
underwater and that the state is
not going to fund any more road
or bridge projects because it's
sort of a lost cause.
And so she begins to fight that
and she records a lot of oral
histories because she knows
that those are going to be lost
as the community scatters.
And so I felt really excited
that I got to show the beautiful
landscape. I'm a big setting
person.
I love writing and reading
setting, so I got to show the
beautiful landscape and the
beautiful community and then
just the wealth of stories
that we have
here in Louisiana as well.
>> Michael W. Waters:
I've come to Mississippi for
years and have many friends in
Mississippi who were part of
the American civil rights
movement. In 2018, as part of
the 50th year commemoration of
the assassination of Dr. King,
I had the honor of taking
a multi-faith group of
individuals from Dallas through
the Deep South.
But for the first time of these
many pilgrimages that I've led,
there were several young people
who are part of this pilgrimage,
including our then three
children.
And Liberty at the time was
about five years old.
And so I was a little concerned
about how she might take in some
of the more graphic aspects of
that history and still allowed
her to come along with a dear
young man, the son of one of my
dear friends and brothers, Imam
Omar Suleiman, his youngest son,
Abdullah. And amazingly, as we
traveled to Memphis and to
Jackson and to Glendora and to
Birmingham and Selma and so many
other places, I found myself
empowered and inspired by the
observations of these young
people.
Matter of fact, they captured
the heart of our entire group.
It was their innocence and
their willingness to press in
and ask deep yet innocent
questions
that impacted me in a way that
I don't know I've ever been
impacted before on the many
trips that I've led.
And so ultimately, it gave
inspiration to writing this book
and to share this story of
civil rights and the civil
rights movement through the
lens of young children.
>> Colter Jackson:
So my book is "The Rhino Suit."
And "The Rhino Suit" is about a
little girl who's so sensitive
in the world that she is often
overwhelmed.
She's overwhelmed when somebody
is crying.
She's overwhelmed when she sees
bad news.
She's overwhelmed when she sees
litter on the street.
And so she builds a rhino suit
for herself to keep herself safe
from all these feelings.
And she quickly learns that it
also blocks out, you know, the
wind and the smell of the
flowers
and she can't feel it when her
mom hugs her.
So she learns to take the rhino
suit off.
And this book is inspired
because I was a very sensitive
little girl and I feel like I
was told a lot to toughen up and
get a thicker skin.
So the metaphor of like a
thicker skin was like it came to
me pretty easily with like, the
imagination of a little girl
thinking like, if I could only
have a thicker skin because how
often have I thought that of,
you know, if I would never...
I would choose that
if I could, that would be
easier. But like, this is how
I'm made and it's taken me a
long time to see that
it's a gift to be that way, to
be really sensitive.
It's also to be really open
hearted.
So that's like, that's my
little character.
And she's based on me as
a little girl.
And the way I think that this
connects to Missouri is
visually. I think you can see
in the book the wide open plains
spotted wildflowers throughout.
Like I think visually
there's like mountain grass.
Like I think that visually it's
very much Missouri.
It's always like a rural area
for me, but also sort of the I
like the open hearted heartland
mentality.
And I think that that's like
the little girl's
spirit is maybe very Missouri,
you know, wide open skies, wide
open heart. Like I just think
that there's like something in
Missouri that will always be,
you know, part of me.
And so it's part of the
little girl's world too.
Well, Mary and Mary had a
little plan is a little kid who
does big things and Mary had a
little plan.
It starts out with Mary going
on a walk with her dad.
Well, on this walk, they
discover
that there's this abandoned lot.
Well, Mary gets inspired by
that lot, and she wants to turn
it around into being something
wonderful for her community.
So she creates a plan.
She enlists the help of her
community.
She enlists the help of lots of
her friends.
And by doing that, Mary manages
to do just that and create this
lot that is quite the spot
that the whole community can
enjoy. And I think that Mary
serves as a reminder for young
readers that they can make a
difference in the world too.
Now, I have lived in Oklahoma
for more than 20 years.
My husband and I have raised
our children here, and over the
years I've visited countless
libraries and schools and it is
such a joy to go into these
places and get kids excited
about reading and writing.
Many of my books have been
inspired by my time here in
Oklahoma. Two in particular
actually got their start
at a library in Oklahoma.
One of those books was called
"Mostly Monsterly."
I had an editor from Simon &
Schuster who had called me up
one day, and she said she was
looking for a cute, young, funny
Valentine's Day story about
friendship.
And she said, "Do you think you
could write one?"
And I was thinking, "No," but I
said "Yes."
And I didn't know what to do
about writing this special book
for her. And when I'm in this
kind of moment where I don't
know what to do, oftentimes I
will go to one of my favorite
places, and that place is the
library.
So I went to the library and I
read every Valentine's Day
picture book I could find
and I noticed something.
They were mostly about cutesy
things like puppies and kittens
and mice. And I knew that if I
was going to write a Valentine's
Day picture book, I knew mine
had to be as cutesy as possible.
So when I was trying to think
on cutesy, the first thing that
came to mind was monsters.
So I got my idea for this book
at the ALAO Public Library.
And the same is true for this
book.
This is my book called "Princess
in Training."
One time when my kids were very
young, we were at the library
and I had already found the
books for me.
My son Mason had already found
the books for him, but my
daughter Julia was taking
forever to find her books.
While Mason and I sat down on
this bench in the children's
area and next to me was a
giant book,
a big, heavy book
about etiquette.
It was a book about manners.
While I was waiting
for Julia, I was
flipping through that book and
I noticed the phrase princess in
training. And I was like,
"Oh, that would make
a great title for a book."
And so that's how I
got my second book
at an Oklahoma library.
So libraries are great places
for good inspiration.
>> Ruta Sepetys: And I'm
so excited that my
book, "I Must Betray
You," is the
Great Read from Great Places
for Tennessee.
And the reason it is, is
because I am from Tennessee.
I live in Nashville and "I Must
Betray You"
follows the story of a 17 year
old high school boy,
Christian Florescu, who
is blackmailed by
the Romanian secret police to
become an informer for the
regime.
And Christian is expected to
inform on his family, on his
friends, on his neighbors, on
his girlfriend.
And he decides to turn the
tables
and inform on the
Romanian regime.
The revolution arrives in
Bucharest and it begs the
question what is the cost of
freedom?
So I hope you enjoy the book
and I'm really
looking forward to the festival.
[Upbeat music]