-Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the webinar.
My name is Shelby Johnson.
I'm the Distance Learning Specialist here
at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans,
and before we get started,
I want to go over a few housekeeping things today,
so first things first.
We're going to take a review of the technology.
So, everyone should see something like this
on their screen right now.
If you look on the right side of your window,
you'll see a question mark.
That is how you're going to ask a question.
So if you have any questions
about the technology not working,
or if you have a question for myself
or our author, Kirby Larson,
you can type that in there
and we'll answer those questions
at the end of this presentation.
In addition, if you look just below the questions icon,
there's a handouts icon,
and that includes the teacher guide
that was e-mailed to you earlier.
You should now be seeing a page showing the cover of the book,
and if you pre-order the book in the museum store
using the link below
which was also included in the teacher guide,
you will get a 20% discount
if you use the code "WEBINAR."
So if you haven't already purchased the books,
you haven't already read them,
that's a great place to get started.
Now, today we are presenting Liberty: The Home Front
Through Historical Fiction with Kirby Larson,
and Kirby is going to start us off
by talking to us about her research
and why she choice to write this book.
Then she's going to hand it over to me.
I'll review some of the themes, the World War II themes
that she covers in the book,
and then at the very end we're going to do our Q&A session.
So, without further ado, I would like to introduce
to everyone Kirby Larson.
She is a Newbery Honor award winner
and we're so glad to have to you here with us today, Kirby.
Thank you for joining us.
-Thanks, Shelby.
There is nothing I love more
than talking about historical fiction,
so I'm really excited to share
the behind-the-scenes story of "Liberty"
with the students participating in the webinar.
So, should we get started with the slide show here?
-Yes, and I'm going to go ahead
and I'm going to mute myself and turn my camera off,
but I'll still be available if you need me,
and like I said to our watchers, if you have any questions,
you can type them in
and we'll get to them at the end of this presentation.
So, Kirby, I'm going to switch this over to you.
-All right.
Oh, where'd it go?
All right.
I'm hoping everybody sees that.
So you saw me greeting you.
I was not always an adult.
I was a kid once, just like you,
asking many of the same questions
you probably ask, like, "What will I be when I grow up?"
And I had lots of different ideas for myself.
I thought I might be a circus performer,
but then I realized I am terrified of heights
and could not swing on the trapeze
like I had dreamed about,
so that wasn't going to work for me.
I loved the "Encyclopedia Brown" books,
so I thought about being a detective,
but my mom said that would be too dangerous,
and lots of girls my age ended up being nurses,
but I faint at the sight of blood,
so I was not a good candidate for a nurse.
But ever since I learned to read, I loved reading,
and I loved books,
and so I decided that maybe being a writer
was the path for me.
So I wrote a bunch of stories and I mailed them out,
and I was so excited because I would be sitting at home,
and this was in the old days when you actually got letters,
and I was just waiting for the letter from the publisher,
those are the people who make your stories into books,
telling me that they were going to turn my story into a book,
and I was so excited until I got these letters,
which are called rejection letters.
And I actually stopped counting after about 250.
These letters said basically, "We do not like your stories,
and we don't want to make them into books."
Now, of course, I was very depressed about that
because I was so excited about being a writer,
but I didn't realize I was making a really huge mistake,
and in my excitement,
and finally figuring out what I wanted to do with my life,
I was making the big mistake of sending out my first drafts.
And as you're probably way smarter than me,
you know that first drafts are never our best effort,
but it took me a long time to figure that out.
And what I have learned in my experience as a writer
is that writers and dogs have a lot in common,
and I happen to know that firsthand
because about 9 years ago this little dog
named Winston B. Larson --
he likes to dress up for Halloween -- came into our home.
Now, I had written two books with my good friend
Mary Nethery about dogs,
and though I'd never had a dog in my whole life,
I decided I wanted to be owned by one.
And so we got Winston, and he was so adorable,
and then I realized I didn't know anything about dogs,
and so the first thing
I did was to sign up for an obedience class with Winston.
And when we were in that class, the very first command
that we were taught for the dog was sit,
and then the second command we learned was stay,
and it was then that I realized how much writers
and dogs are alike.
Because if a writer doesn't sit and stay in her office chair
working on her stories until they just sparkle,
she is never going to get a book published.
And so when I finally figured that out,
that first drafts weren't going to cut it
and that I had to do my very best work,
I began to get books published, and these are some of my books.
I actually think my 29th book got published recently.
So now I know that writing is like a job,
and I am in my office every day.
There's Winston helping me.
It's, you know, I show up every day.
It's a job like your teachers
or your parents go to work every day.
Most of the time, I am working in my home office with Winston,
but sometimes my books
require me to do some research,
and that research takes me
to wonderful places like New Orleans.
And sometimes I have to even make a huge sacrifice
and eat the local food there, and you can bet
that I enjoyed every single one of those beignets.
What I love most about research trips aside from the food
is that I get to go to really fascinating places
like the National World War II Museum,
and it was there, just on a chance
visit actually the first time
I went, that I learned about this man
named Andrew Jackson Higgins.
He owned a local company that built boats,
and Mr. Higgins was very confident.
He did not lack in self-confidence.
And when the United States got into World War II,
he called up the Navy, and he said,
"I can build every boat you need to transport men and troops
to land them on the beaches," and the Navy was like,
"Oh, you're just small potatoes, little boatyard.
There's no way you could do all that."
And, well, I'll tell you in a minute how that all turned out.
So, while I was at the museum, because I'm a researcher
and a writer,
the wonderful people there let me come in
and dig around in their archives,
and archives are collections of photos
and documents that aren't on display.
And though they were very generous to let me
look through those,
I did need to make an appointment ahead of time.
I only had one day in the archives,
and I could have spent a lot longer,
but it was while I was digging around in the archives
that I learned that Mr. Higgins did indeed
nearly every boat
that the Navy used during the war,
and, in fact, General Eisenhower said that we won the war
thanks to Mr. Higgins and his boats.
And not only did he build all those boats
no matter what the Navy said,
he threw a big party when he built his 10,000th boat.
All of New Orleans turned out in July of 1944,
and I love that detail so much
that it actually ended up in my book.
Now, I do a ton of research before I start any book.
I don't want to go into a book with a preconceived notion
of where it's going to go or what it's going to look like.
So I was reading around, and imagine my surprise
when I learned that many captured German soldiers
were brought to the United States
because there wasn't enough room to house them
in prisoner of war camps in Europe,
and I don't know where you're all watching from,
but you can see that nearly every state in the Union
housed a German prisoner of war camp,
and imagine my greater surprise
when I learned that some of those camps
were in the city of New Orleans.
This article talks about that there were hundreds
of German prisoners in New Orleans.
One place the prisoners of war were sent was a camp
called Camp Plauche, and Camp Plauche
was located directly across the canal
from Higgins' boat yard.
Can you imagine that?
Enemy prisoners were a mere short swim away
from a valuable wartime industry.
It just boggled my mind.
Now, precautions were taken.
When the Germans and some Italians
were brought to the camps,
they were given clothes painted with letters
that I think you can see in the picture there.
It says "PW" for prisoner of war.
That was so they would be easy to identify,
and the reason that was important was
because so many men had gone off to the war
that the country was in huge need of labor in the farms
and in fields and doing road repairs and other assorted jobs.
So the prisoners of war had to wear those identifying clothes
so that when they were out working it would be known
that they were prisoners of war,
and I gleaned this information from reading old newspapers
and looking at old photographs,
but I have a favorite writer's tool,
and it is the question, "What if?"
So I asked myself, "What if you were a prisoner of war,
and you didn't want to be a prisoner of war anymore,
and you wanted to try to escape?
What might you do to accomplish that?"
So, first thing you'd have to do
is get rid of the clothes, right?
So I thought that maybe a prisoner of war
might look to the farmer's old overalls
to see if he might be able to snatch those up and put them on,
and I bet you guys have great imaginations
and you could think of other ways
that a prisoner of war
might try to disguise himself to blend in
and maybe sort of disappear when he was working in a field.
Some of the prisoners of war were very young.
Maybe not as young as this kid,
but they were 17 and 18 years old,
and I learned that information by reading dozens
of autobiographies by men
who actually had been prisoners of war here in the States.
Now, I could not imagine being a teenager captured by the enemy
and sent far away from home,
so I put that thought into the soup pot of my imagination
and I let it simmer.
Writing a book is a bit like assembling a puzzle.
So now I had some basic puzzle pieces.
I had Mr. Higgins and his boat yard.
I had young German prisoners of war.
Because of the series that I had been writing
that started with "Duke"
and then "Dash," "Liberty" is the third book in this series,
I knew that my main character would be an 11-year-old,
and in this case I was pretty sure my 11-year-old
would be a boy
because I thought he would be more likely
to actually meet up and interact with a German POW.
I knew that he might meet that POW while the POW
was away from the camp doing some kind of job,
and I knew another puzzle piece
was how I was going to get my main character,
my 11-year-old main character, to meet Mr. Higgins,
who was the inspiration for this entire book.
And so I decided one way to do that would be to make
my main character an inventor,
and that is how he and Mr. Higgins would meet up.
But then there was one more thing that I was thinking about,
and that was something that kids born in the 1920s
and 1930s really had to worry about,
and it's something you don't have to worry about
because a vaccine was discovered.
But for kids born in the '20s and '30s,
polio was a huge worry.
Thousands and thousands of children were afflicted with it
and suffered with it for the rest of their lives.
Even our wartime president, Franklin Roosevelt,
suffered from polio,
and so did my very first writing teacher,
a wonderful woman named Peg Kehret,
and maybe you've read some of her books.
So, inspired by Peg and the fact that so many children
would have been impacted by polio,
I decided that my main character in "Liberty,"
a character I named Michael -- Fish is his nickname -- Elliot,
I decided Fish would be a polio survivor.
And because of that, because Fish has a bad leg,
he doesn't have very good self-esteem,
doesn't think very much of himself,
and he is convinced that his father doesn't love him anymore
because of his bad leg.
But it turns out that there is something really special
and unique about Fish,
and that special quality enables him to save the dog
you see in the picture,
a stray named Liberty.
He's the only one who could do that.
Now, a lot of writers like to know
what their human characters look like
when they're writing about them.
I don't have that feeling so much,
but I love to know what my dog characters look like,
and so I usually go on petfinder.com
to look for a model
for the dog that I'm writing about in the book,
and so this dog was named Tess,
and she was the model for "Liberty"
when I was writing that book, so her photograph
was next to my computer
the entire time I was writing.
Now, Fish is from Washington state, where I live,
but he moves to New Orleans with his big sister, Mo,
when she gets a job working for Mr. Higgins,
and one reason I did that
is because I wasn't raised in New Orleans.
I didn't feel comfortable writing about it
from the point of view of a native,
and so I thought I could have Fish be where I'm from,
and I could plunk him down in New Orleans.
And so everything would be new to him,
the sights and the smells,
and he loves the different places like Pontchartrain Beach
which is where this couple is enjoying a lovely day.
He enjoys snow balls and the Roman Candy man,
and I read so much about the Roman Candy man.
I found out that they still make Roman Candy,
and I ordered a bunch of it to taste test at home,
and I must say it is delicious.
There are so many bits of history.
Some lovely fun bits of history I enjoyed
sharing about New Orleans,
but it was also important to share some other things
that aren't so positive,
like the cruel effects of segregation
and the Jim Crow laws.
And when you read "Liberty," you'll read about Olympia,
Fish's friend,
having to sit at the back of the streetcars,
or having to use a certain restroom
because she isn't white like Fish.
My research revealed that sometimes whites and blacks
even lived in the same neighborhood,
but the kids would have to go to different schools,
so I put Fish and his sister
in one of those integrated neighborhoods,
and I gave Fish that pesky younger neighbor named Olympia.
Now, not that Fish had never seen people
being discriminated against before,
but he hadn't really experienced a friend
of his experiencing discrimination.
And there is a scene in the book that's based on something
I actually read about
where Olympia is pushed off the sidewalk by an older white man,
and Fish observes this,
and he has to carry that around in his heart
and really puzzles about
how people can treat one another like that.
So in a way, "Liberty" the book is like a big pot of gumbo,
but my ingredients are Mr. Andrew Jackson Higgins,
a boy named Fish suffering from polio,
World War II, a stray dog,
an African-American girl named Olympia,
Jim Crow laws, and the wonderful city of New Orleans.
So I hope when you read this book that you'll say
I mixed up all these ingredients
with some very tasty results.
So, Shelby, that is what I have to share on my PowerPoint,
and I'm eager to answer questions
for the students in a few moments.
-Okay. Thank you so much, Kirby.
Now that Kirby has talked to us about her inspiration
for writing the book and all about her research,
I'm going to go ahead and discuss some of the World War II
themes that are included in the book,
and some that she's already touched on.
And I just want to remind everyone
that if you do have any questions for our author,
make sure you're typing them into that question window
so that we can get to those at the end of this presentation.
So, I'm going to go ahead and share something with you all.
All right.
So you should all be seeing in a few moments --
Here it is now.
So, I'm going to go over these themes by reading a passage
to you from the book that includes the theme,
and then I'll give you a little more information on it.
So if you have the book on you, you can turn to page 112
and we'll get started reading this passage.
"'Grandmamma and the preacher
say we have to turn the other cheek.'
'Mo says you got to stand up for yourself sometimes, too.'
Olympia's voice got low.
'It's different for us, Fish.' He stretched out his good leg.
It was getting pins and needles in it from sitting so long.
'You mean for kids?' 'I mean for us.'
Fish thought about that man on the sidewalk,
and the side-by-side water fountains
labeled white and colored,
and about the invisible line in the streetcar
that someone like him sat in front of
and someone like Olympia sat in back of.
'Mo says maybe the war will change that.'
'Maybe.' But she didn't sound near as convinced as Mo."
This passage here covers the segregation
that Kirby just talked to us about.
So segregation was the law of the land here
in the Southern United States,
and we started seeing this become the official law
in the late 1800s with the Supreme Court case
Plessy vs. Ferguson.
Now, in that case, the Supreme Court justices,
they said it was legal to separate the races
as long as there were equal facilities for both races,
but history showed us that sometimes these facilities,
often times, really, they weren't equal,
and sometimes they were even completely nonexistent.
You saw a lot of racial violence,
and Kirby touched on that with Olympia
getting pushed off of the sidewalk by a white man.
You also saw that it was hard for African-Americans
to find jobs,
and often times when they did find jobs,
they didn't receive equal pay to their white counterparts.
There was also segregation in all aspects of life,
and Kirby just touched on that for us,
but some examples -- public transportation,
just like in this passage.
Fish got to sit in the front of the streetcar
but Olympia had to sit in the back of the streetcar.
There were also segregated schools.
Fish and Olympia didn't go to the same school.
And we also saw segregation in the military,
and a lot of times when I talk to students,
they aren't aware that we had segregation
even in the military.
In the military, when African-Americans
were drafted or enlisted,
they were put into separate units,
and often times these units were non-combatant.
That meant that these guys were doing service-based jobs,
and even in the Army Air Forces and the Marines,
those branches of the military,
they actually didn't start allowing African-Americans
to enlist until after the war started.
Now, one soldier I want to highlight is Richard English.
Now, Richard English, he was actually one
of the few African-Americans
who did serve in a combat unit.
He served in the 761st Tank Battalion.
Now, I did tell y'all that at first the military
was organizing segregated units and making them non-combatant,
but, of course, as the war progresses we discover
that we need more men on the front lines.
So the 761st Tank Battalion,
they are one of the most famous all African-American tank units,
and there's two reasons why they're so famous.
One is because of a man named Ruben Rivers
who was actually --
He received the Medal of Honor posthumously in 1997.
He was a member of this tank battalion.
You also may have heard of a man named Jackie Robinson
who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
He was also a member of this tank battalion.
But Richard English, the reason why I wanted to point him out
is because we actually have him included in an exhibit
we have on display here at the Museum --
Pelican State Goes to War: Louisiana in World War II.
So he was a local to New Orleans and he was in
the 761st Tank Battalion.
Now, I'm going to show y'all a video clip of
the 761st Tank Battalion actually in action.
-On 16 March, 1945,
the 409th infantry cracked the famous Siegfried Line.
Running interference for them was the 761st Tank Battalion.
This veteran tank outfit fought with the Third,
Seventh, and Ninth Armies.
Landing in Normandy, they fought their way across France,
Luxembourg, Belgium, and into Germany.
In an official citation, Major General M.S. Eddy,
Army Core Commander, said,
"I consider the 761st Tank Battalion to have entered combat
with such conspicuous courage and success
as to warrant special commendation."
To this, Major General W.S. Paul, Division Commander
of the 26th infantry added,
"Your battalion has supported
this division with great bravery."
These men had to have a belief in each other
and in their country that was stronger
than anything the enemy
could hurl at them.
[ Explosions, gunfire ]
♪♪
-So in this video clip,
we saw these guys in the 761st Tank Battalion
fighting very bravely and courageously,
but this unit wasn't actually recognized
for their bravery and their service until 1978,
and keep in mind the war ended in 1945,
and this was most likely due to racism and the segregation.
So we see racism and segregation playing a part
in all aspects of life
while World War II is taking place,
but also after World War II ended.
Now, our next theme we're going to cover --
I'm going to pull up another passage,
and you can go ahead and turn to page 112,
and here, our theme obviously is going to be prisoners of war.
"The first days at Camp Plauche stretched out like years.
Oskar was content to read books from the camp library
and the professor took university classes.
Philosophy! Geology! Modern literature!
Erich signed up for the English classes.
Those, he could see a purpose in.
There were soccer games, to be sure, but he didn't play.
He kept to himself.
Not even the professor, with his kindly ways
could draw him out in conversation."
So here, we see that Erich is describing his experience
in prisoner of war camp here in Louisiana,
and I picked this passage out because it shows kind of an idea
that living in a prisoner of war camp,
even though you are a prisoner,
you still have quite a few privileges.
You could play games.
You could take classes, get a better education.
But we have to keep in mind that this was still an actual prison.
Now, like Kirby said, prisoner of war camps,
they existed in all theaters of the war,
and there were prisoner of war camps
that were operated by the Axis powers,
they were our enemies, and the Allied powers,
that's the side we were on.
And here in the United States,
the Allied powers actually sent more than 400,000 Axis POWs
to camps here in the United States.
That was between the years of 1942 and 1945,
and those over 400,000 prisoners,
they were actually put into camps
that were approximately about 500 camps nationwide.
Now, here in Louisiana,
we actually had about 52 camps all together,
but the camp that's discussed in the book like Kirby
told us is Camp Plauche here,
and I'm just going to let everybody know that here
in Louisiana, we have a tendency to mispronounce words,
so I may be mispronouncing this word.
But growing up around here,
we've always pronounced it this way,
but I apologize to all my English teachers out there.
So if you look on the left, I have a map of Louisiana
just to give you an idea of the size and scale of our state,
and on the right I've shown you where Camp Plauche
is in relation to our capital city,
Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, which is where we are now.
So if I were to get in my car right now and drive to Harahan,
which is where Camp Plauche was located,
it would probably take me about 15 minutes
if there were no traffic.
Now, most of the prisoners that were in the camps
here in the United States
and here in Louisiana were of German descent,
but you did also see Italian prisoners
because the Italians and the Germans, they were allies,
and you also saw prisoners from countries
that Germany had taken over,
because when Germany would take a country over,
it wasn't uncommon for them
to force the citizens there to fight in their military.
Now in the passage, and I'll go back to this,
in the passage, you know,
this shows you that life
wasn't extremely hard
for these prisoners,
and this is due to the Geneva Convention in 1929.
Now, the Geneva Convention,
these were all the protocols for times of war,
so they did have rules and protocols for prisoners of war.
So first things first, prisoners of war,
they could be forced to work,
but if they were forced to work they had to be paid,
and in the book, Kirby mentions something called scrip.
That is how the prisoners of war were paid.
Scrip wasn't real American currency,
it was currency that could only be used at the prison camp.
This was to try to prevent prisoners from trying to escape.
Prisoners of war also could not work in dangerous conditions
and they were not allowed to work any jobs
that were directly related to the war effort,
so it would have been an issue and illegal
if you had a prisoner of war
doing something like building a bomber plane.
In addition, prisoners of war,
they were only allowed to work 10 hours a day,
and anyone who was contracting these prisoners out,
they had to pay the American government,
so they paid $0.45 per laborer per hour every day.
And just one interesting thing that I found in my research,
a lot of people think
that all German soldiers
were Nazi extremists.
This was not the case, and in prison camps,
you did see instances of Nazi supporters
and anti-Nazis getting into scuffles,
so in some areas, they would actually
make separate prisoner-of-war camps
for those Nazi supporters.
And I want to show y'all,
before we move onto the next theme, this is --
Kirby showed us a really great picture of some prisoners
where you could see their uniforms.
This is one of prisoners in action
working here in Louisiana in Alexandria.
What they're doing is they're trying to reinforce
a levy to prevent the Red River from overflowing
and flooding the city of Alexandria,
so you can see down on the bottom they have some sandbags.
They're going to sandbag that levy,
and if you look closely at the prisoners,
you can see that they have the painted
P.W. that Erich in the book
says he had to paint on his uniform
once it was received.
Now, moving on to our third and final theme,
if everyone will turn to page 120 in their book.
"A huge banner was draped across the far wall:
'The man who relaxes is helping the Axis.'
Fish wondered if Mr. Higgins should update that sign.
Most of the workers in the room below
were not men but women in coveralls,
their heads covered with kerchiefs.
'That's a lot of ships,'
Fish leaned over the rail to count.
There must have been 25 LCVPs,
each in a different stage of completion.
He'd heard Mo talk about Mr. Higgins' assembly lines,
but seeing them was another thing altogether.
As each row of boats finished one step,
it rolled forward to the next crew, the next part.
The whole place looked like the ant farm
he got for his birthday one year.
No one and nothing was standing still."
Now, this passage here covers what we call
the arsenal of democracy.
The arsenal of democracy was all Americans
coming together to produce all of the goods
that we needed for the war effort,
and many companies during the 1940s,
they started producing goods specifically for the war,
and that's exactly what Mr. Higgins did
with Higgins Industries.
Higgins Industries actually produced more than 20,000 boats
by the war's end,
and they also made the LCVPs,
just like Fish is looking at here,
and LCVP stands for Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel.
This means that the boat was used to land on the beaches,
and it could hold soldiers, but it could also hold a Jeep.
Now, Higgins Industries had more than 25,000 workers,
and their workers included people of all races
and also women,
and in the first part of this passage,
Fish actually identifies that he sees mostly women
working in this factory.
Now, this is interesting because before the war started,
women didn't typically work outside of the home,
unless they came from a lower socioeconomic background
or they were from a minority race.
This wasn't a big thing,
for women to be working outside of the home,
but if they were working outside of the home,
they were typically working
in what we would call a stereotypical feminine job.
Think teacher, secretary, or a housekeeper, but we can see
that Higgins Industries wouldn't fit that description
of being a traditionally feminine job.
Now, after the war started, obviously we have all of the men
who would have done these jobs.
They were going off to war,
so women replaced them in the factories,
and women were actually encouraged
and praised to work outside of the home,
and many of you may have seen this image here.
This is Rosie the Riveter,
and she was a part of a propaganda campaign
to encourage women to work in these factories,
and she actually helped out a lot
because between 1940 and 1945 the percentage of women
in the United States workforce
went from 27% to 37%.
But even though more women were working in factories,
they were still getting paid less than men, unfortunately.
Now, I'm going to show y'all an oral history
that we have here at the museum,
and it's actually highlighting a woman named Rosemary Elfer,
and she worked for Higgins Industries.
♪♪
-I love that oral history,
and one of my favorite things about it
is how she talks about how proud she was to be doing this job,
and all of the women who were working in these factories,
they were very proud to have these jobs,
and after the war ended,
many of them did want to remain employed,
but that wasn't the case.
Now, of course, we're no longer in war,
so we don't need as many things produced,
so the jobs are not going to be as abundant as they once were,
so you see many women getting laid off
because men are coming back from the war,
and they need those jobs,
and there just aren't as many to be had,
and also women --
The social norms went back to what they were.
Women were expected to work in more feminine careers,
so they're going back to being teachers and nurses
and secretaries and housekeepers,
and some women,
they just didn't go back to work at all.
They went back home, and they started raising families,
so we did see a big increase in the number of children
that were being raised,
so now that we've gone over those themes,
I'm going to ask Kirby to come back in,
and we're going to go over some questions.
We have some really good questions from our students
who have been watching.
So, Kirby, our first question is coming to us from Kelsey,
and she wants to know,
"Which book was your favorite to write?"
-Oh, Kelsey, that is a really hard question to answer
because each of my books is like a child to me,
and so that'd be like asking your parents
who their favorite kid in the family is.
If you're an only child,
it should be easy for them to answer,
but the thing is, I spend one to two to five years
on every single book I write,
and so I really have to love something about it
to spend that kind of time,
so I guess if I was really honest,
my favorite book is the book that's just an idea up here
that I haven't even started yet
because when it's an idea, it is perfect.
It doesn't need any revision.
I know it's going to be the best thing I've ever written,
so as long as it's just in my head, it's my favorite book.
How about that for an answer?
-Very nice.
Our next question is coming from Juliet,
and Juliet wants to know if you got the urge
to adopt the dog who inspired "Liberty."
-I did, but I already had Winston,
and Winston would not be welcoming.
He would not welcome a brother or sister.
He is just a little bit needy,
and so I don't think it would go very well,
but actually I followed Tess,
and I did find out she did get adopted,
so I was really glad about that.
-Well, good. -Yeah.
-All right. Our next question
is from Claire,
and she would like to know,
"How did you come up with the name Liberty for the dog?"
-I am really glad you asked that question
because I meant to tell you in my little slide show.
So, I had already named a dog Dash and a dog Duke,
and so I did not want another D name
because it was going to sound too cute-sy,
but I really didn't know what to name the dog.
So, I have a teacher friend in a little town
in Iowa called Traer, Iowa,
and I asked him if he would poll his fifth grade class,
and they took a vote,
and the top vote-getter was Liberty,
and then the second one was Hope,
and the third one was Delta,
so if you read the book, you will see
I was able to use all three of those names in the book,
so that was really fun to have kids help me come up with names
for the dog characters in the book.
-Our next question is from Zoe, and Zoe would like to know,
"What's your favorite part of the 'Liberty' story?"
-Well, I want to be careful
because some of you might not have read it,
but I think my favorite part --
I'll try to say this sort of in a way you --
It won't give anything away, but I think my favorite part
is when Fish finally realizes that he is a very capable person
and, in fact, has some skills that others don't have,
and it's because of those skills
that he can actually save Liberty.
That part, when you get to it, if you haven't read it yet,
always gives me a little chill.
-All right.
Our next question, let's see, from Bruce.
Bruce would like to know,
"What's the most challenging part of being a writer?"
-Well, one challenging part is waiting nervously
after you finished a book to see what readers think of it.
That's a very challenging part.
I think, for me, because my passion is historical fiction,
it's to get all the information I feel I need
in order to recreate another place in time accurately.
Not that I don't ever make mistakes,
but I try very hard not to make mistakes
because I feel a big sense of responsibility to you guys.
I don't want to put something in the story that's incorrect,
and so I think that's a big challenge for me,
is just making sure I have everything right,
which brings me --
Shelby, do not apologize for the pronunciation
because I'm from the northwest, and you are absolutely right.
Camp Plauche has to be pronounced
that way because it's French, so what a goofball I am,
but I've only ever, you know, said it to myself, so...
-We are definitely known for pronouncing words
completely wrong here,
so I was not sure if I was right or wrong.
-I'm sure you were right
because I never heard anyone say it to me.
I only saw it -- You know, I only read it,
but I think that illustrates something else
that I love about writing.
I learn something new every single day.
You know?
So that's the great part about it.
-Okay.
Ava and Colin would like to know
how long it took to write the book
and who your favorite character is.
-Two really good questions.
You know, I should remember how long it took me.
I think "Liberty" ended up taking me a little over a year.
I think it was about a year and a half to write,
and I mentioned that I was only able to spend a few days --
It was one day at the World War II Museum in the archives there,
and then I had two other days that I spent in other archives
in historical museums and societies,
so I really only had three days to research personally.
So, "Liberty" is the first book I've ever done this with.
I hired someone who lives in New Orleans.
She has a Ph.D., and she helped me do research,
and that's the first time I've ever done that,
but I just couldn't get all my questions answered
in three days,
so that book took me a little bit longer
just because there was some back and forth getting information.
And then a favorite character -- Okay.
Well, I think Mr. LaVache is a really good mean character.
I really -- I kind of --
I mean, it sounds funny to say you like a mean character,
but I thought he was a good bad guy, and --
But I think, of course, my favorite,
well, two characters, right, are Fish and Olympia
because I love stories that show kids
that they can be empowered to do things and to make a difference,
and I think both of those kids show us that through the story.
-All right.
The students at Pleasant Valley School in Ohio
would like to know, "Do all of your books feature dogs?"
-They do not. A lot of them do.
I should have had this book out here.
Let me see if I can grab it.
So I have a new series out about a character
named Audacity Jones, and Audacity's best friend --
This is the second one.
Audacity's best friend and helper is a cat named Miniver,
so I really am a pet lover,
so probably there ends up being an animal
in almost every one of my books.
In fact, in this book, there's an elephant,
so I just love animals.
-Christian would like to know, "How do you make
or choose your book covers?"
-Oh, great question, Christian.
Actually, I don't get to choose them.
That is a -- There's a person who works
for the publisher called an art director,
and the art director decides what kind of look
would be right for the book,
and so in the case of the World War II
"Liberty" book and "Dash"
and "Duke," they do a photo shoot,
so they hire kid actors to dress up in clothes
from the World War II time period,
and they also hire a dog actor,
and they take photos of them together
and then Photoshop it with, like,
whatever they decide the color background
will be and the title cover.
They show it to me, and I can say,
like, if I really hate something, they might tweak it,
but honestly, they don't want my opinion about it
because they're really good at what they do.
I feel like I'm good at writing,
but I don't think I would be so good at designing a cover.
That's a real skill, so lucky for you, someone else does that.
Otherwise, you might not want to pull my books off the shelf.
-Okay.
Our next question is from Sarah, and Sarah would like to know,
"What are some of your favorite books
for kids and young adults?"
-Sarah, there's a really long list.
Maybe would be easier if I told you some of my favorite authors.
So, there's an author named Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
who has "The War That Saved My Life" was the first book,
and now she has a second title out,
and I'm blanking on the title.
"War" is also in the title.
It was a really different look at World War II,
and I love those books.
A contemporary writer who writes contemporary stories
that I love is Barbara O'Connor,
and her latest book is called "Wish,"
which is just a fabulous book.
I have a writer friend named Dave Patenaude
who writes really exciting suspense
and adventures stories that I love to read.
I don't know if you've read Gennifer Choldenko's books
about Al Capone on Alcatraz.
Those are fabulous books.
So, that'll give you an idea,
but here is the great thing about my job,
is that part of my job is reading,
so every day I am reading someone else's book,
so I learn more about writing that way,
and so I get to read a lot of wonderful books,
so that'll just give you a few ideas of people
I admire and read.
-Our next question is from Zach who is curious,
"What was the most interesting thing
you found in the museum's archives?"
-Oh, okay, so Shelby sort of talked about this
a tiny little bit, but I --
They kept all the newsletters that Higgins Industries put out,
so they would do, like, a -- Now I can't quite remember
if it was a weekly or a monthly newsletter,
but a letter they would give out.
Do you remember, Shelby, if it's a weekly or a monthly?
-Wednesday. -I just --
-Worker Wednesday. -Worker Wednesday,
so it was weekly, so they --
and those newsletters would be about things
happening at the boatyard and later
when they started building airplanes,
or might feature, like, an employee of the month.
So what I learned from there is even though that there were --
because I thought Mr. Higgins was so forward-thinking,
that he had African-American employees,
which was very,
you know, that was sort of unusual for the time period,
but he still was a man of the time
because I read
where if you wanted to apply for a job at Higgins
and you were African-American,
you had to go through a different door.
You had to go, like, through a basement door
to go apply for a job.
And there --
I could not find any evidence of integrated work crews.
It seemed like they were almost all segregated,
so the African-Americans would be working on one line,
and the white or other folks
would be working on another line.
So, that I got to see firsthand
by digging around in the archives,
and that was really interesting to me
because I had sort of assumed
since he was that forward thinking in some regards,
he wouldn't go to that extreme, but he was a man of New Orleans,
and that's just, sadly, how people were in that time period.
-Yes.
Our next question comes from Jayla
who wants to know why you include history in your books.
-Why not?
You know, it's funny, Jayla, I actually --
When I was younger, I did not like history very much,
but it seemed like when I had history,
no one made it interesting like Shelby did.
I would have to, like, memorize dates and battles and generals,
and I just couldn't relate to it,
so the honest truth is
it wasn't until about the year 2000
that I fell in love with history,
and that's because my grandma told me a story about her mom
homesteading as a young girl in eastern Montana
during World War I.
And that story just captivated my heart,
and it ended up being the inspiration
for the first historical novel I wrote called "Hattie Big Sky,"
and what I learned from writing that book
is that history is not about dates and wars and generals.
It is about people like you and me,
and especially what people will do in tough times,
and to me, that is fascinating.
I've always been so --
Well, I guess I've been nosy about people,
and so including history is a great way to be nosy,
but I also think there's a lot we can learn about choices
we might want to make now
based on things we read about the past,
so I feel like history just has good lessons for us,
even now, today.
Great question, Jayla.
-That was a good question.
Let's see.
Bella, Brandon, and Christian, they want a sneak peek.
They want to know what your next book is going to be about.
-Okay, so I do have --
The fourth and final book in the World War II
dog series is coming out.
I don't have the cover, but maybe you're -- Let's see.
I can't -- I don't know how I might do that.
Maybe in some extra materials we could post it,
or I could post something on my blog for the kids to see.
It's a fabulous cover, and this book,
they're doing it a little different,
so it doesn't have a one name.
The dog's name is not the title of the book, so --
It was up until about a month ago.
So, this book is going to be called "Code Word Courage,"
and it is inspired by the over 400 men,
Navajo men, who chose to help the United States
even though our government treated them
and treats them so terribly.
They chose to help the United States in World War II,
and the language that they had been forbidden
to speak as children
ended up being one of the key factors
in our winning the wars in the Pacific,
and so I was just so inspired by --
And, Shelby, you probably know what I'm talking about.
The Navajo, they didn't call themselves the code talkers.
They just called themselves radiomen or radio operators,
but they were given the name code talkers later on,
and those are the men
that inspired this book called "Code Word Courage,"
and I'm really excited about it, so...
-I'm very excited to read that,
and we may be doing this again in the future.
-I would love to.
Yeah, and I have to say I got some help from two men,
one who was a code talker.
He's in his 90s now, and then one, the son of a code talker
who read the whole manuscript for me to make sure
I was being culturally accurate,
and so yeah,
I feel really excited for kids to read this book.
-Well, I am looking forward to that,
and we have time for one more question,
and this one is from Hillary,
and I think this is a good final question.
Hillary wants to know,
"Do you like teaching kids the importance of writing,
and if you do, why?"
-Well, Hillary, I actually think writing is essential
to anything you're going to do in your life.
My dad was a plumber, and he used to tell me
how irritated he would get
when people would write up work orders,
and you couldn't understand what they wanted,
so even for someone who's a plumber,
you might not think that writing is an important skill.
In every, every career you take on,
writing is going to be critical
because you need to communicate your ideas
about something to another person, so --
And I like to teach kids about writing,
but mostly how I teach kids about writing
is by encouraging them to read.
I think that is the best way to learn to be a good writer.
So the more you read, the better you get at it.
-Yes. So, thank you so much, Kirby.
This was such a great time with you.
I was so happy to hear about your research
and just sharing that information with us
because I did enjoy reading the book,
and those of you that are watching with us
at your schools or your homes,
if you have not yet read the book, you can actually --
remember, you can pre-order it off of the museum's web store
for a 20% discount.
You're just going to use the link here on the slide
that I'm showing you,
and that's also included in the teacher guide
that you were e-mailed,
and that teacher guide is also
in the handouts portion of the window.
If you type in WEBINAR when you're ready to check out,
you will receive a 20% discount.
Thank you again, Kirby, for joining us today.
Thank you to our audience for joining us today,
and we hope to see everyone soon for our next student webinar.
Bye.
-Thanks, Shelby. Bye.